Ask Slashdot: Re-Entering the Job Market As a Software Engineer? 435
First time accepted submitter martypantsROK writes "It's been over 15 years since my main job was a software engineer. Since then I have held positions as a Sales Engineer, then spent a few years actually doing sales as a sales rep (and found I hated it) and then got into teaching. I am still a teacher but I want to really get back into writing code for a living. In the past couple of years I've done a great deal of Javascript, PHP, Ajax, and Java, including some Android apps. So here's the question: How likely would I be to actually get a job writing code? Is continual experience in the field a must, or can a job candidate demonstrate enough current relevance and experience (minus an actual job) with a multi-year hiatus from software development jobs? I'll add, if you haven't already done the math, that I'm over 50 years old."
Old Timers (Score:4, Insightful)
Find a small company (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Forget it. (Score:4, Insightful)
I could not disagree with you more.
Been there (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty much an uphill slog. What's totally frustrating is then reading about those same companies complaining in the press they can't find qualified applicants and need more H-1B visas.
When I was CIO I never had trouble finding qualified people. I did have trouble finding qualified people willing to work 70 hours a week for $35,000 a year, which is what I think most companies really mean when they say they can't find qualified applicants.
Re:Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget it. The idiots in H.R. won't even consider you.
Stick with what you have and retire, then start your own business.
Re:Forget it. (Score:5, Insightful)
What? Being a good programmer means finding ways to be lazy. You're doing it wrong.
Re:Awesome watered down title there (Score:4, Insightful)
the sales engineers I know actually do engineering while the sales rep just sells clients on an idea. For example, i worked at a place that sold custom power switchgear, the sales engineers were EE who designed solutions.
The sales engineers I know spend most of their time trying to figure out how they are actually going to do what the sales rep just sold to the client.
Get a PMP, earn 2x the money (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, get your certification as a Project Management Professional from pmi.org and start pimping yourself out at $150/hr+ doing contract work. Much easier than writing code, and your age/experience will actually be viewed as an asset.
You will do great (Score:5, Insightful)
Buy a whiteboard and google for interview questions and write code in dry-erase every day. Once you get in the interview chair you will be ready.
And best of luck to you.
Re:Good Luck (Score:4, Insightful)
HR will never pass your résumé up to the person who can actually appreciate your experience and knowledge.
Any shop that has let HR insert themselves into the hiring process like that is pretty much doomed. Avoid at all costs.
Re:Ah ! The old US of A (Score:5, Insightful)
Just dont espect to get an honest answer.
Re:Good Luck (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd also imagine that the poster has at least a few connections that he can exploit to get back into the game. A lot of people also value university skills and experience very highly (unfortunately not in the php world for the most part). With so many advantages and the job market as strong as it is for programmers right now, I'd think he could get a job quite easily.
However, as I said, I'm under 30, so there's every possibility that I'm underestimating the bias.
easy peasy (Score:4, Insightful)
In the NY area, provided you'd settle for a job in the 90-120k band, there's shortage of capable developers -especially with good communications skills. Don't mention your age on your resume and play up your ability to work as a team player. Seriously.
Re:Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
As bad as HR is at eliminating bad applicants they are even worse at keeping good ones. Simply throwing out 90% of your responses would do a better job.
So now gaming HR is a necessary skill to get a resume looked at. Which might not be the result you are looking for.
the great recession (Score:4, Insightful)
you realize a lot of those people working in apple stores, radio shack, and target are also experienced software and electronics engineers? some with decades of experience?
im not saying its impossible, im just saying, good luck to you.
Re:Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
The trick is to avoid the idiots in HR... and it's a trick best learned, even with recent direct experience. It's always much easier to get in via networking and referrals than it is to get hired by just shipping out resumes.
Re:Good Luck (Score:4, Insightful)
The original poster might as well slit their wrists now if they really believe that they can go back to coding after so many years out of it. The first tthree questions would be
Q1 "Why did you get out of it in the first place?
Q2 "So why do you want to get back in now?"
Q3: "Why should we even look at you when you've got no recent experience?"
BTW - the job market is NOT "strong for programmers" unless your definition of "strong" == "willing to work even longer hours for a lot less than the person we used to have before we burned them out." Especially programmers > 50.
Re:Ah ! The old US of A (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why, when they don't hire you based on age, they will NEVER say so, they always come up with some excuse. You didn't get passed over because you're 50, you got passed over because we liked that $OTHER_APPLICANT has $UNRELATED_USELESS_SKILL, and we chose for that reason. You were quite evenly matched otherwise.
EEO laws did NOTHING to make hiring equal. They only made employers less honest about why they chose who they chose. It's still entirely WHO you know, and not WHAT you know.
Gaming HR (Score:3, Insightful)
or figuring out a way to work with them is also necessary for a hiring manager to find the best candidates.
I had an arrangement with HR where I'd do their work for them if they would just give me access to the raw resumes because I knew what might be unconventional but promising and they didn't. They got "credit" for the hires and we both were happy. Probably the top 6 hires I made in 30 years on the job were people who would never have been pulled by some key word screening. And the worst were perfect matches.
In the case of the OP, I'd be looking that he learned a new skill recently and did some programming recently. Beyond that I'd care he really wanted to do what I needed done after I explained what that was in a general sense and asked him/her how that matched up with what they were looking for.
Re:Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not hard to bypass the idiots in HR. Recruiters often deal directly with the hiring manager because that manager is sick of dealing with the idiots in HR. But then you have to deal with idiot recruiters. (And no, not all recruiters are idiots but it's the 95% of them that ruin it for the rest). To connect with recruiters you need to get your resume on job websites. They'll contact you, mostly for jobs you don't have any interest in or capability to do. But you may get a lead there.
A better tactic to get back in is networking. Old contacts may know of places that are hiring. Former students may be able to help as well. Even friends that aren't in the industry may know someone who is.
But the biggest hurdle will be lack of experience. Doing some relatively recent things like Java and Android development will certainly help but don't expect a senior position or higher right out of the gate. There's a lot of young and hungry engineers out there competing for jobs and they probably have more recent/relevant experience over someone who's been out of the game for a while and they'll take a junior position for less pay. Competition may require starting over at nearly the beginning.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
At 34 I've re-entered the job market myself after giving my own business a shot and I landed a job as CTO of a start-up game company. We're developing a couple of games now (one while will be in beta tomorrow) and when I look for programmers, I could care less about a space in employment as long as they can demonstrate the skills needed for the job.
Maybe you could give the original poster an interview?
Re:Old Timers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good Luck (Score:2, Insightful)
My experience with recruiters contacting you through job web sites is that they are only phishing for information about the companies you've listed in your work history. They have no job for you. They are just looking for ways to get their foot in the door of more companies.
To deal with this, ask them which company he has a job lead he is considering you for. He will tell you he can't do that because he doesn't trust you not to go around him and try to get in there directly. Counter by saying, "I have a lot of resumes and recruiters out there and I don't want to duplicate effort. So tell me the first letter of the company you are considering me for." If he won't do that, he has no job for you, he is just phishing. Hang up on him. ...and to martypantsROK, don't bother. Age discrimination is rampant in software engineering, you don't stand a chance. Better to start your own business.
Re:Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's just say that dishonesty does not wear the social stigma here as it does in the west.
What stigma is that? Our politicians, lawyers, corporate executives, and corporate marketing people are all professional liars, yet they're all highly esteemed and generously rewarded by our society.
Re:Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget it. The idiots in H.R. won't even consider you.
Stick with what you have and retire, then start your own business.
Bad advice. A better advice would have gone as follows:
Be mindful of the H.R. idiots that might not even consider you. Look for small-scale operations in which you get a better chance to be filtered by the software team directly as opposed to being passed by the H.R. filter. Look for moonlight work, part-time coding opportunities done via telecommuting, LAMP development and the like.
Yes, it is though, but not impossible. In particular, if this is what the OP really wants, he should go for it and assess how hard it will be vs how badly he wants it. As Michael Jordan once said : "I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying."
no words (Score:4, Insightful)
The original poster might as well slit their wrists now if they really believe that they can go back to coding after so many years out of it. The first tthree questions would be
Q1 "Why did you get out of it in the first place? Q2 "So why do you want to get back in now?" Q3: "Why should we even look at you when you've got no recent experience?"
BTW - the job market is NOT "strong for programmers" unless your definition of "strong" == "willing to work even longer hours for a lot less than the person we used to have before we burned them out." Especially programmers > 50.
I really don't get this posts. I work with lots of software engineers in their 50's who are, quite literally, the hot shit pulling 6-figures (in particular in the enterprise web services area.) And I've known people from other fields (electrical and physics for instance) who decided to jump into software and got hired w/o problems (all over 50.). Yes, it is the internet when people can make shit up. I can only say that I'm not, and that what I'm saying is both real, and common (even as incidents of ageism have increased in the last decade or so).
Also, the willingness to work long hours has always been a given for anyone doing any type of engineering. It's not a recent phenomenon and young and old people before and now have been doing it always. It is funny and ridiculous when people say this to 50-year old professionals trying to get back into coding. What the hell do you people think these folks did in their coding years? 9-5'ers?
Re:You had your turn, buddy (Score:5, Insightful)
The agism is reverse from what I've seen.
Most job requirements look like this:
Need 3 years experience in something basic and simple like C++ or Java (preferred)
Need 2 years experience in obscure item 1
Need 1 year experience in obscure item 2
Need 5 years experience in industry A
Need 10 years experience
So what 20 something year old is going to have 10 years experience?
What person with 10 years experience is perhaps not going to have 3 years experience with C++ or Java? How do you manage to miss the two of the most predominate programming languages out there?
Seriously, most job requirements look like someone quit, and they just asked him to list out everything he knew rather than figuring out what was truly necessary for the job.
As a 26 year old, I exceed the requirements of most Level 3 job positions except for the obscure items that probably take a week to learn and a month to master. But I'll never get those magical years of industry experience without growing old and wasting my time in a beginner position. I mean, shit, I've been programming since I was 12 for christ sake. I write code as well I as write english sentences.
And yes, I know that most of these items are obscure. I've worked with a machine instruction language that was particular to only one manufacture of one particular machine used in probably only my industry, and yet I've seen my company put out job requirements that somehow expect someone with 2 or less years of programming experience to somehow have experience with it. I had to be trained in it and I didn't understand it until I was properly taught in a class since none of the managers had time to train me properly. I don't see why they can't reciprocate that same expectation on new hires. Essentially they're trying to hire people who they already fired or quit. And the job itself was easy once you get past that learning barrier.
And with a kid, i barely have time to clean my house, let alone try to learn something I see in a job application. My wife gets mad if my free time isn't spent with her...
Re:You had your turn, buddy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You had your turn, buddy (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:You had your turn, buddy (Score:3, Insightful)
Software engineers must be able to keep up.
Re:You had your turn, buddy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm intrigued to know what you think specifically it is about software development that makes it a career dead end over any other job role where you choose to not go into management?
Do you think there is some mystical job out there where you can keep growing your career without ever becoming a manager? Well, I suppose you may be right if you're going to become a sports superstar or something, but in general things like finance, HR, engineering, teaching, nursing, law enforcement, and so forth all tell the same story.
Really, if you've written off mangement as a career advancement opportunity then you've put a cap on your career anyway.
Software development at least has the benefit of the fact that it's been recession proof (unlike jobs such as engineering which are hit hard), and that at sub-management levels there is still a lot of scope for growth (junior developer through to lead developer, and all the way up to head software architect if that sort of thing floats your boat). The field also pays well above national average wages relative to level of experience too. Another fundamental point is the size of IT companies, they're some of the biggest in the world, and when that's the case for your industry it means there are employers with the funds to pay high salaries for the best candidates for roles that otherwise couldn't command them.
When I see posts like yours I can't help but imagine seeing some burnt out old geezer who was hostile to the idea of management and so never took that route, and sits bitter that as a result his career has reached his peak, and has hence decided it must be this way for everyone and that the whole industry must hence be fucked.
No really, it's not like that, your career would be just as stunted if you'd gone into HR, teaching, finance, whatever. There is no mystical industry for the person that wants an office job where you can sit doing what you want to do and only what you want to do until retirement whilst seeing no cap on your career as a result. Unfortunately if you want progression, you have to provide what industry needs, not vice versa. The positive side to all this though is for those who realised that management isn't actually all that bad, particularly if you're happy to push your way upto CTO, or even CEO of a software firm then software development is at least as lucrative a career as any other, and far more so than most. Kids, ignore the parent, and the GP, ignore the "Never going to be happy" brigade, they're just bitter, burnt out, failures, who wrote off their own career through sheer stubborness and/or laziness and now think everyone else should be persuaded away from succeding where they failed.
Disclaimer: Yes, yes, I'm aware finance includes the bankers, but they're really a minority in the industry, they're the Zuckerbergs of the industry. They're few in number compared to the millions of bean counters spread across every company in the world that has it's own finance department (i.e., most of them).