Is Computer Programming a Good Job for Retirees? 147
braindrainbahrain asks: "Ask Slashdot has been rife with career advice lately, so maybe I can get some too. I hit a milestone recently, the big five oh, and the realization of retirement is starting to settle in. The trouble is, I don't want to sit around, play golf, or even travel that much. I work in a technical field, but I have always enjoyed programming. Indeed, I do it as a hobby. I wonder what you readers would think about programming as a post retirement job. It seems well suited for a retiree, one could do contract work for a few months of the year, in some cases work from home even. By way of background, I have worked in hardware engineering for a very long time, and have pursued graduate study almost regularly (two Masters degrees so far). Should I begin preparing for a post-retirement career in computer science?"
Good idea, but will others think so? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm guessing this will change as the profession matures. However, today is not a good day for older workers in the tech field. Too many people don't realize the value of life experience. Also, employers don't want to hire older workers because they're afraid they won't be able to keep up with younger peers. Older workers also demand higher salaries, which IT is not willing to pay in most companies.
I agree that retirement is going to be a lot different for our generation. I really can't see myself on a golf course every day or working as a greeter at Wal-Mart. Hopefully the tide will shift a little. I already see businesses less willing to put up with IT failures caused by "new, cool" systems. Maybe a little standardization and movement towards a "information systems engineering" profession will help.
Re:I wouldn't do it. (Score:3, Informative)
Many people are confused about how to start a business around Free software. The very best resource I've found is this short chapter written by Michael Tiemann:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/t
This is from the guy (along with 2 buddies) that turned a $6,000 investment into $600 million of Redhat Stock. Not only that, but he somehow managed to get an executive position there as well. Along the way, they made their fair share of money (by the end of their first year they had sold $725,000 in contracts). IIRC, Cygnus was pulling in about $32 million a quarter when Redhat bought them.
My favorite quote: He's discussing using the GNU manifesto as a business plan. "if everybody thinks it's a great idea, it probably is, and if nobody thinks it will work, I'll have no competition!". As it turns out, I think he was right on both accounts. In fact, I'm still hard pressed to name more than a handful of companies who operate in the way that Cygnus did. So much opportunity wasted...
Go for it.... (Score:3, Informative)
If you don't need the extra income, then there are no shortage of outlets where you can "scratch" your programming "itch". Contribute to an open-source project (or start your own), write some useful piece of shareware, write some business applications for your local non-profit organization, teach programming at a community school, etc. None of these avenues will provide much income (if any), but it does allow you to take your hobby to the next level.
If you are looking to actually make money out of your hobby in retirement, my advice would be to leverage your pre-retirement vocation. There is a branch of software development known as "embedded programming", which is writing software for special-purpose hardware devices. As a hardware engineer, you probably have a lot of knowledge that would be very attractive to a potential employer. Also, you probably have contacts from your hardware days who might be able to help you land a job in this area.