Ask Slashdot: Programming / IT Jobs For Older, Retrained Workers? 215
12_West writes "I seek opinions from the Slashdot community about entry level job opportunities as programmers (or other I.T. Staff) for seniors who want to switch careers and continue to work full time. I do not want to retire, nor go part time, as long as I can get up and drive myself in to work. I'm currently 58 years old, working as an industrial electrician in a maintenance department setting for a building products manufacturer. I like the work, but it is becoming hard on my aging body, so, I would like to begin gradually retraining and hope to switch careers in about four years. A lower paying, less physical job would be just fine as there will be pension money coming in. I'm not currently a programmer, but have done some hobbyist level coding in Qbasic and MS-DOS batch files 'back in the days.' I also have some exposure to the Rockwell Automation RSLogix programming tools that are now going obsolete. So, I will be retraining whether I switch careers or not."
Go up not over (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I would recommend leveraging your experience and finding a role where you can be a project manager or domain expert instead of trying to retrain for a whole new field. You would be in competition with the hoard of young people getting degrees with experience in modern tech who are also struggling to find jobs now if you switch. Whereas there is always a demand for someone who has been intimately involved in a highly technical field for as long as you have.
Let your management know you are interested in a supervisory role and if they value you as an employee they may well pay for the training to put you where you can remain useful to them.
Become a teacher (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds cliche, but how about sharing that hard-earned knowledge with the next generation? Understanding industrial control systems and how to debug them (safely) is not something that is easily learned - if you are good at what you do, consider teaching at a local college or trade school. It will probably be less hours, definitely less stress on the body, and you get the satisfaction of knowing that in the future someone will be carrying on the trade, the right way.
Re:Hello grandpa! (Score:5, Interesting)
I think part of the secret would be a good niche or target audience. Because I'm a Perl person I do a certain amount of back-end, some glue code, some data cleaning/ETL etc. But I do also have a fair sized personal network, built over the years.
But, one of the great 'virtues' of open source is that pretty heavyweight and marketable skills can be approached by downloading something and building something with it. I didn't really know that much about jquery last year, now, I'm not an expert but I'm 'medium' and lots of people use it for commercial stuff.
May the older folks force be with you! [sort of like the Force but a bit grumpy, especially in the mornings].
Re:Why would someone not want to retire? (Score:5, Interesting)
Some people like to work. My step-grandpa is over 90 years old and he till does yard work in yard with covered in trees, takes care of chickens, and plants a garden. Up until a few years ago, he had a lot that he farmed corn on with his tractor. He doesn't do it because he has to. He does it because he likes to.
If I was him, I would take all that saved money and spend it traveling the world.
I guess he's doing what makes him happy and feel productive.
One of my mother's Aunts in the UK is 92 and still working half days as an accountant for a local, family owned, small business. She started working for the current owner's grandfather over 50 years ago and since they actually have a delivery service she gets chauffeured to work after lunch and back home in time for Tea. I bet she wouldn't know what to do with herself without the daily routine.
Amusingly her employer never computerized so she keeps the books the old fashioned way and they were recently audited, the "kids" from inland revenue had actually never seen manually kept books.
Re:Go up not over (Score:5, Interesting)
As an industrial electrician it seems to me that you could get into IT by following the wires. The cloud is going to require a lot of power; If you know how to provide that power there should be plenty of opportunties to get into server rooms. You could be doing the specs for server installations and be spreading your tentacles ever inward..
Where do you live? Can you relocate? (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, if you want a helpdesk job at a place that trains people and promotes from within to administer Linux servers and you live in or want to live in Houston or Austin PM me. Also, if you know enough to be an entry-level Linux application troubleshooter or mail/web/DNS admin definitely let me know. Relocation assistance is possible for some positions. I could definitely use another referral bonus, and we're always hiring (just some times more than others).