[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Starting a Career in Programming at 61?
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Ask HN: Starting a Career in Programming at 61?
Yesterday I had a conversation with my dad (61), in which he asked
me whether it made sense to start programming professionally at his
age. It is kind of a crazy idea, but I promised him I would ask my
"hacker friends" about it, so here I am ;) A bit more context, in
case you are interested: he has worked as an executive at multiple
companies in the past decades (CEO, CCO, CFO). As he grows older,
he has noticed it becomes increasingly difficult to find work, even
though he would love to continue working for the years to come. I
think he feels inspired by seeing me thrive as a contractor, with
access to a global marketplace and seemingly endless working
opportunities. He learned to program when he was a student,
probably Pascal or Basic, but as far as I know he has never needed
to use that skill in his professional life (though I assume his
excel-fu is excellent, because that is the preferred "programming
language" in a business environment). I have no idea what to
advise him, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Maybe I will even
send him the link to this page so he can read along!
Author : wofo
Score : 143 points
Date : 2022-03-25 14:42 UTC (8 hours ago)
| awb wrote:
| 2 things: age & language
|
| 1 - age
|
| > As he grows older, he has noticed it becomes increasingly
| difficult to find work, even though he would love to continue
| working for the years to come.
|
| There's a significant age bias in the tech community that might
| be hard to overcome.
|
| He is in a protected age class though: https://www.eeoc.gov/age-
| discrimination
|
| Just make sure he knows his rights during the hiring process that
| it's not acceptable for a company to not hire him based on age.
|
| 2 - language
|
| Learning a new modern language like Node/JS will be a brutal race
| to the bottom in a highly competitive marketplace.
|
| However there are some jobs that pay great money to folks who
| know older languages like COBOL, Perl, etc., maintaining old
| systems. And I'm guessing he'll find the work and coworkers more
| relatable. These jobs are just much more scarce.
|
| A question he might get from having an impressive C-suite resume
| and applying for programming jobs is: why? So just be prepared to
| answer that.
|
| And probably have him build one or two personal projects so he
| can make sure he likes the process and has something to showcase.
|
| Good luck!
| mooreds wrote:
| I would suggest he consult and program to meet client needs. That
| way the focus is on solving problems, which is easier to sell,
| rather than slinging code.
|
| For example he could do audits of financial departments using his
| CFO background, and write some programs to help him do that.
| Femtio wrote:
| I would say no
|
| To be good in it takes years. Playing around with it in the past
| doesn't mean you can develop software.
|
| And with his age I have the feeling that the time and effort is
| wasted when he retires.
|
| I'm even a open person and wouldn't care but a old manager of
| mine wouldn't even hire a 50 year old software engineer because
| he was worried if he fits in with us.
|
| The age bias is real and I think it would frustrae your dad.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| If it is more about wanting to work than wanting to get paid a
| competitive industry salary to work, looking for a nonprofit
| whose cause he is interested that needs talents he has
| (programming or otherwise, but if he has executive experience
| that may be in more demand) may be a good option.
| a_developer314 wrote:
| Don't listen to anybody! Yes he can!
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFYJ2DE9wlM (After Learning to
| Code at 81, She Made a Game for Fellow Seniors)
| wodenokoto wrote:
| With such a c-level background it seems weird to me that he wants
| to contract as a programmer, for which he has hardly any
| experience at all and not a business consultant.
| typhonic wrote:
| I am now 66 and continuing to work as an engineer in a field not
| too far removed from a programming career. I have had the same
| inclination as your father and I hope he is successful. Pre-
| pandemic I would attend meetups in town, specifically Python
| related. We often had in attendance recruiters from companies
| with open positions. I talked to them and often they openly
| invited me join, even though I would have been entry level. It
| appears to me that there are more programming jobs than there are
| programmers and that some companies will take the chance on my
| age group. There are also companies where programmers are valued
| not just for their programming experience, but also for other
| skills they bring to the table. So, even though I have not made
| the transition, I think it can be done.
| jpindar wrote:
| I am almost his age and despite decades of professional
| experience I am unable to get a job.
|
| Of course, its likely that I'm doing something else wrong as
| well.
| mhitza wrote:
| I vouch what another comment said, take the consulting route.
| I've said this before, but in 2019 I've switched to consulting
| because I've wasted close to 6 months of that year applying to
| jobs. The hiring processes were that bad for me at the time.
| And I'm only in my 30s and didn't even have to consider any age
| bias.
|
| Another practice is applying en masse, if you're not already
| doing that. I used to apply sequentially to jobs, picking only
| the best fit and going through the interview process one by
| one. A waste of time, bulk apply to dozen of job listing (and
| directly to companies) and pick the first company that throws
| in an offer (and which also seems decent during the interview).
| tharne wrote:
| Where are you looking? I ask because ageism is definitely real
| in the industry, but it's not nearly as bad once you get away
| from SV and the the startup world. You may have better luck
| looking at traditional industries like banking/finance,
| manufacturing, and healthcare. These fields employ a surprising
| number of programmers.
| mikro2nd wrote:
| I'm pretty close to that age, too, and getting work _as a
| developer_ is certainly far from easy at our age... companies
| want young blood that 's willing to work stupid
| hours.Fortunately for us, they write shit code, so...
|
| The thing to sell is your experience. i.e. "consulting". The
| market is smaller, but the rates are higher, and the value you
| can deliver is orders of magnitude greater. That's a good thing
| (and a good feeling!) Nice to say, "I cost my client x, but I
| delivered 10x to them in cost-savings/profit."
| markoman wrote:
| I'm in my mid-50s and while I'm definitely not a high-flyer,
| I've found work for the last 15 years as an FTE of state gov't
| in the U.S. I've had friends who've been let go in the private
| sector as they passed 50, but government employers don't
| typically do such purges. It may not be easy to get into gov't
| service at your age, but it's worth a shot.
|
| Also, I wonder you should create your own 'Ask HN' to uncover
| whether your approach to job finding may have flaws, since
| there are many older IT workers out there who are finding work.
| dijonman2 wrote:
| Do Gov firms hire people without degrees?
| markoman wrote:
| As long as the experience of the candidate lines up with
| the position, I don't think not having a degree will be a
| deal-breaker.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I have a friend in his late 20s and he had trouble getting a
| job - took him about a year. He also has lots of experience at
| "good" companies such as Google.
|
| Of course it could be your age/something you're doing - I don't
| want to deny your experience with the situation - but also
| sometimes things just don't work out.
| watmough wrote:
| I wasn't planning on posting, lots of great answers already in
| the thread, but has he considered learning Oracle DB
| administration, the various admin tools, and PL/SQL programming.
|
| There is a _lot_ of work out there managing Oracle installs,
| populating databases, and all the other duties associated with
| running Oracle instances.
|
| There's plenty of scope for programming, and the work should be
| more regular hours and less stressful on the whole than an entry-
| level programming job.
|
| Additionally, it should be reasonably easy to break into the
| field via the various certifications, and the tools and DB itself
| are accessible for self-directed learning.
| brudgers wrote:
| If he wants to work as programmer, he should talk to the people
| in his network who hire programmers.
|
| If he can't get a programmer job through his network, then it is
| unlikely he will be considered hireable by random companies.
|
| Whether or not he should learn programming is mostly orthogonal.
| Delphiza wrote:
| Does it make sense for him to try and become a professional
| programmer. No. Not at all.
|
| However, using programming tools and concepts to provide more
| value than his younger Excel-munging peers. Definitely, and will
| help him figure out what he is good at.
|
| Subscribe to Datacamp and start learning python. Get some of
| those Excel spreadsheets that executives like to drown each other
| with and start doing some _business_ analysis on them in jupyter
| notebooks. He can definitely find an edge doing financial
| analytics, financial forensics, that sort of thing.
|
| We (programmers) would be shocked at how bad those business
| spreadsheets are. He can use his experience, and desire to learn,
| to find plenty of work munging executive financial and other data
| using programmers tools.
| Cymen wrote:
| If my 61 year old dad asked me how to get into programming, I'd
| recommend they go to a company that was involved in the Software
| Craftsmanship model that had a long apprenticeship period. I'd
| recommend this because I've had prior experience working in such
| a company (8th Light -- Chicago office) and I think that such an
| environment would set them up for success because while the
| learning is very self-directed, there is a lot of oversight and
| involvement in a constructive way by other developers who want to
| see the apprentice succeed. That isn't to say you couldn't find
| the same thing at another company but the Software Craftsmanship
| approach, if done well, would not be as random as the ad hoc
| experience you might get on the job at another company. A further
| benefit of working at a consulting company like 8th Light as, if
| you progress past the apprenticeship, you would be working on a
| variety of projects in an environment that is focused on doing
| the job well so the exposure would be a to a wider breadth of the
| industry (more languages/stacks/team dynamics/etc).
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| With that kind of experience why doesn't he do high level
| Corporate Consulting instead? I'm sure he could start his own
| shop or get with Mckinsey/Accenture/etc.
| AlphaGeekZulu wrote:
| I definitely believe it is possible to learn programming at the
| age of 61. Certainly not for everyone - some people are not the
| programmer-type at any age. But if the curiousity and the will
| are there and the brain is still working fine - yes, definitely!
|
| I learned Rust at age 55.
|
| But! Programming is not only about learning a language. There is
| this huge background of methods, practices, technologies
| (network/ip/socket, data formats, databases, unicode, regular
| expressions, xml/xsl, markup languuages), Operating Systems,
| procedures (CI, VC...) and so forth. This vast amount of
| knowledge is gained by experience over decades. The young
| programmer does not have the experience either, but has enough
| time ahead to become a senior eventually. It will be very
| difficult to reach a senior level when starting at 50 or 60 -
| there is simply not enough time to catch up. I started
| programming at age 16, btw.
|
| So I would definitely let him dive into programming just to see
| how it goes and support him on this challenge. It will also serve
| mental fitness in high ages. Getting into programming at that
| age, with the need to make a living from it and no plan B - I
| consider this too risky!!
| cgfloat wrote:
| If you started programming at age 16, I'm not sure the fact
| that you learned Rust at age 55 is relevant here -- as you say
| "Programming is not only about learning a language". With your
| 39+ (=55-16) years of experience, I'm sure you have learned the
| background that made it quite easy to learn Rust at age 55.
| AlphaGeekZulu wrote:
| Yes, absolutely!!
| hackflip wrote:
| Anecdotally I don't think my parents could learn to program at a
| hireable level in their 60s.
| sirjaz wrote:
| If he wants the enjoyment of programming and being in tech, but
| not have the agisum have him go in to devops. He would thrive
| there with his management skill set and his found ability to
| program. Plus an SRE or Devops engineer gets paid as much as
| their developer counterpart
| JakeAl wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. Really hard to find work despite 25 years
| of experience in software design and production for some of the
| worlds biggest companies. Everyone just wants labor, programmers,
| project managers or producers it seems. Can't find anything at my
| actual experience level. Lots of IT and programming jobs (all
| requiring X certification and X number of years experience in X
| industry with X language blah blah cloud this Salesforce that.
| It's all just software development in my experience and just more
| and more platforms. The same skills apply and picking up new
| software and platforms is trivial compared to say, learning and
| mastering a language as a programmer. I'm about ready to buy a
| van to live in by the river until I die. I just want to apply my
| experience as a leader of people who aren't really preparing the
| company or the employees for the future, but everything seems to
| be gig or contract work.
| TSiege wrote:
| This is just a random thought, but if he has challenges facing
| ageism (which I think will be the case unfortunately)he could try
| two modes of approach. 1) He leverages his C suite experience to
| start ups and help them w/ product fit. 2) he uses his age, and
| perhaps relearns some older legacy languages and can work as a
| contractor helping maintain/migrate away from older systems.
|
| My thinking with these is he needs to use his age/experience as a
| bonus not as something to ignore. For option 2, he'd fit the
| target demo that people are looking for, he'd just need to work
| on relearning those languages to do it which might be tricky
| w10-1 wrote:
| I would recommend he take operations roles at a tech startup.
|
| Growing companies really need people who can keep things running
| as they grow. Experienced people want more senior and sexy roles,
| and inexperienced people can make fatal mistakes.
|
| It's a nice combination of getting the logistics and
| relationships right, and the latter can be very rewarding.
|
| He should shop himself to VC's as team filler. They'll relate to
| him, and can plug him in to gaps as needed.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's definitely possible to do, but being a junior dev in his
| early 60s after being a C-level executive for years is likely to
| be a tough transition mentally.
|
| If he hasn't wanted to program before now, and is primarily doing
| it because he's seeing ageism in executive roles, I would
| recommend against this path (pretty strongly).
|
| If he's always been interested in it, dabbled in and enjoyed
| perfecting Excel workbooks and now wants to make the jump, that's
| a different story.
|
| In the former case, keep being an executive, especially if he's
| got a track record of leading companies that are generally well-
| regarded. Even with ageism, I think he'll find that easier and
| likely more rewarding.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| I think the only way in that he's got a shot at is if he can
| leverage some piece of huge domain knowledge that he can bring to
| the table. At 61, i'm sure he can, but it's selling that that'll
| be the challenge.
|
| Elevator pitch: "i've spent X years doing <highly specific
| business thing Y that everyone does in excel>, but i have a
| better way because it <1, 2,3>"
| daebersold wrote:
| CEO/CCO/CFF, why not CTO? Go for it! Life is short. Program one
| project, develop with one team, lead a team, manage a tech
| department; scales up to CTO pretty quickly. Enjoy the ride!
| topkai22 wrote:
| With that sort of executive experience becoming a "straight"
| programmer seems like a bit of a waste. Much better to pick up
| skills that augment his experience than to make a full pivot.
| Some form of consulting makes more sense in my head. There remain
| many problems for many businesses that can be solved by fairly
| simple automation or low end data science/analytics, but the hard
| part is identifying the problem and mapping to a solution.
|
| Others have suggested various data science programs. To that I'd
| add picking up basic app design/prototyping skills and a low
| code/no code framework like PowerApps or going deep on an
| extensible platform he's familiar with like SalesForce or SAP.
|
| Platforms like that can enable him solve the business problems
| he's uniquely suited to identify and understand, rather than
| competing with a 38 year old with 20 years of experience trying
| to solve obtuse technical issues.
| NortySpock wrote:
| There are flavors of consulting that are not programming.
|
| Business consulting, mentorship, project analysis - basically
| providing an outside perspective - are all valuable skills that
| businesses or people will pay for.
|
| Others have offered good advice in the form of becoming a PM.
|
| An alternative pitch: Your Dad starts HisLastName Consulting LLC,
| goes around to local businesses, and asks if they would like a
| strategic analysis or expert financial analysis done for $$$. A
| few take him up on the offer, he does a deep dive on their
| business and financials for a month or two, and delivers a
| presentation with recommendations. Done, onto the next client or
| a vacation.
| fjfaase wrote:
| I am almost the age of your dad and I have been a professional
| software engineer since 1986. In the first years I worked with
| Pascal (VAX-Pascal and Turbo-Pascal.) From 1990, I mostly used C
| and C++. The last two years I have been working with C#. Now that
| I am getting a bit older, I noticed that it takes me more time to
| get know a developing environment and all the libraries/packages
| that go with it. It is a big leap from knowing how to develop an
| excel sheet to, for example, develop a website with a database
| backend. I am always happy to have younger colleagues who are
| good at setting-up a development environment. Also being an
| efficient software developer is much more than knowing how to
| program.
| iguanayou wrote:
| Taking longer to get up to speed and setting up a development
| environment: I'm not sure that's a function of age. It's more
| likely because development environments truly have gotten
| larger and more complicated over time.
|
| I've been programming for 20 years - the amount of environment
| / config / tooling stuff to deal with just keeps getting bigger
| and bigger.
| lelele wrote:
| My experience is the same.
| tyronehed wrote:
| It's a question of how he can handle complexity. Is he organized.
| Is he able to focus on one thing at a time. Is he willing to read
| books, and do coding alongside the reading. If you can answer
| yesterday, age does not matter.
| paxys wrote:
| Putting aside age discrimination for now (which is very real), a
| good thing to figure out is how good he is at programming. Can he
| get to the point where he can solve easy problems on sites like
| leetcode or hackerrank in a mainstream programming language (
| _not_ basic or pascal)?
| swah wrote:
| Also, with the right format, this would make great Youtube
| material.
| JSONderulo wrote:
| Just wanted to chime in and say I think that awesome of your dad.
| And if he goes forward with it, perhaps document (twitter or a
| blog) the journey - the ups and the downs and everything in
| between. It could be cool to see him share some wisdom with the
| younger generations along the way. I think he'd find that
| community would rally around him too. All the best!
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| My advice is to find someone that's done this before and have a
| good long chat with them. The advice from random hackers in their
| thirties isn't going to be all that useful.
|
| That said, here is my take:
|
| I know that if I were hiring him it would be easiest if it was
| for a role that had programming plus something that involved his
| past. That way I may have a junior software developer, but since
| he's writing code for our financial models in Excel his history
| as an CFO really comes in handy. You get the idea. I wouldn't
| throw this guy knee deep into Node / Python / React / CSS / HTML
| / Shell / Docker / AWS and expect him to thrive. Pick something
| focussed and relevant and he can slowly shift towards where he
| would be happiest.
| FWKevents wrote:
| Hi! So I'm almost your dad's age, and I totally get his desire
| not to become irrelevant to the world of work, especially after
| such an impressive career. I satisfied that desire by diving deep
| into Web3, and mounting a project to sell NFTs of Nirvana from
| images I had shot in 1991. (Yes, the band members + Frances Bean
| Cobain were on board, as long as I donated half the proceeds to
| charity, but their lawyers didn't want me to involve them
| publicly.) I joined some DAOs and am having fun hanging out in
| Web3 communities. This is a way that you can have a hobby that
| feels as satisfying as an impressive career, since the Web3 space
| is so wide open, and there's so many ways to make a meaningful
| contribution. Another thing your dad can do (without making a
| years-long commitment to learn programming) is to get a
| certificate in cybersecurity. My husband is in cybersecurity, and
| though some of it is technical, most of the work is really about
| governance, something your Dad is obviously good at. Typically
| when there's a lapse in cybersecurity, it's due to a failure of
| good governance at the company. There is a huge need right now
| for those who understand traditional industry AND cybersecurity,
| and your dad might be able to get involved in the fight to shore
| up our nation's infrastructure against the (probably) coming
| Russian incursions. Good luck to him. I get his feeling of
| casting about and being lost because younger people are getting
| all the interesting jobs.
| Havoc wrote:
| >As he grows older, he has noticed it becomes increasingly
| difficult to find work
|
| Are you sure that is the right causal relationship here? My gut
| feeling would be that it has at least in part to do with the C*
| level roles. McD cashier jobs are a dime a dozen and rapidly hire
| and fire. C* level tends to be slower and more scarce just by
| nature.
|
| > I think he feels inspired by seeing me thrive as a contractor,
|
| If he is somewhat stable financially he might do better as a
| finance/PM/operational consultant. That lets him leverage years
| of experience as credibility. That will play much better than a
| 61 y/o with a coding bootcamp or similar.
|
| >He learned to program when he was a student,
|
| My dad was in a similar position - except he was a professional
| programmer for years. After a long stint in management layer he
| found he couldn't get back into the tech market. Instead project
| management type roles went better
| gcheong wrote:
| "I think he feels inspired by seeing me thrive as a contractor,
| with access to a global marketplace and seemingly endless working
| opportunities."
|
| Well there you go, teach him to code and then get some contracts
| that you can give him some work from so he can get his feet wet
| and some experience under his belt to increase his chances if he
| decides to look for a job or go out on his own.
| dsirola wrote:
| It's not impossible, but I wouldn't say it's worth it. From my
| experience, there is more ageism in programming than there is in
| management so it would be even more difficult to find work,
| especially without prior experience.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Just a question of eating a couple gallons of fish oil, fifteen
| softgels a day. It makes people feel five years old all over
| again.
|
| You wanted my advice, I once received that same advice, I have
| the liberty of repeating it to you. I am under no obligation to
| lie to you.
| monkeycantype wrote:
| My dad just took a new .net dev contract, he's 75 , he'd retired
| then decided to take another short term contract, he's been
| taking six month contracts then a few months off for a few years
| now. He's been a long term dev but much of the tech he uses now
| he's learned since the age of 61. We're in Australia for context
| martin_a wrote:
| I'm 35 and I would not start again with programming.
|
| Maybe it's some kind of chicken-egg problem, but I find it harder
| and harder to stay "on top" of the situation, the ever-changing
| web ecosystems and whatnot, because I have so little time to
| learn everything new and understand it and use it.
|
| Maybe it's less of a struggle with other languages, and if you do
| it fulltime, but I find it stressful and it gets worse.
|
| I don't know how you can handle this situation and feelings when
| you are older and just starting out.
|
| Anyway: I find it great that he wants to learn something new.
| jddil wrote:
| If he's serious about starting a new career he needs to be
| willing to swallow a bit of his pride, but starting as a test
| engineer is a great way to get a foot in the industry from what
| I've seen and from who I've mentored.
|
| Show him Cypress or your preferred choice for integration testing
| and see if writing simple integration tests piques his interest.
| It's close enough to engineering that he should get a feel for
| what the job is like while being "relatively" easy to learn in a
| few weeks.
| lbriner wrote:
| It's great that he is still up for working!
|
| At risk of getting flamed...
|
| It's tricky I think because even if he can learn to program to a
| suitable standard, I think the reality will be that people will
| see him as a "junior" but you will have a different working
| dynamic since it is easier for an e.g. 30 year old to coach
| someone who is younger if they are doing it wrong but could be
| tricky trying to coach an older person unless they have genuine
| humility, otherwise your dad might feel patronised or be offended
| by some youngster without the experience to coach well.
|
| Another avenue, if it is just the industry he likes rather than
| programming specifically, he could probably get more distance by
| utilising his exec skills to do a technical management role like
| Product Manager, Product Owner or Project Manager. He could then
| get as much exposure to the programming as he wants without
| needing to produce as much of it as would be expected of a dev.
|
| Don't know, just thinking out loud.
| rookie_knight wrote:
| The flip side of this is true as well. Ageism is a real problem
| in our industry. People are just more patient with young
| college grads and more willing to help them out. As somebody
| who transitioned to SWE in a big company(FAANG) after a decade
| of wireless communications research, I found out despite all
| the processes and supposed practices a big company has in place
| to onboard people from different backgrounds, you need to rely
| a lot on your teammates for the tribal knowledge to get
| anything significant done. And people are far less helpful than
| they think they are. Often they assume things because in their
| minds X years of experience means you should already know this
| stuff. Almost all of it is non technical and specific to the
| company so you won't have a way of knowing it beforehand but
| that consideration is readily given to a fresh grad than an
| experienced person. Also a lot of the times tenured people will
| feel insecure/threatened about/by someone else joining at the
| same level and would constantly point out their shortcomings in
| order to maintain their place in the hierarchy. Was oblivious
| to this until I was managing people and saw newer experienced
| people joining the team face this. Had to coach people to stop
| them doing this unconsciously.
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| Anecdotally, ageism seems to mostly exist in FAANG-type
| companies, web dev, and startups. If you look around at other
| industries like logistics, transportation, etc. there's less
| ageism.
| FWKevents wrote:
| Well said. Thanks for the honest contribution.
| malloryerik wrote:
| How does working remotely seem to affect ageism in software
| development?
| rookie_knight wrote:
| Honestly, have been long tenured (comfortable) at my
| current job for the whole of pandemic so only have second
| hand experiences through my direct reports. But on the
| whole I think remote work has made this problem kind of
| worse. When I was new I could walk over to someone, gauge
| their mood or how busy they are and have a direct
| conversation. Even if I lacked the ability to communicate
| my problem clearly it was definitely easier to get help.
| They could just see where i was stuck and get full context.
| Here for every simple thing people have to ping one on one
| on DMs or in group channels. There are few problems with
| this. One in large channels a person who asks a lot of
| questions is looked down upon. (Shouldn't be in an ideal
| world and we keep emphasizing this with processes and what
| not but it's human nature). Plus unlike an in person
| conversation every question you ask becomes a part of
| permanent/semi permanent record which discourages people
| from asking questions. Also you don't know when you are
| interrupting people. Even if you dont expect an answer
| right away when the person doesn't respond for a long time
| you naturally feel resentful. And repeating my earlier
| point it's much easier to provide full context when
| somebody has your undivided attention by showing them
| instead of typing out what you think the problem is.
| ProZsolt wrote:
| If you're not working fully async, you can always ask the
| person to schedule a call where you can discuss X if you
| can't come up with one simple question.
| MentallyRetired wrote:
| Was going to recommend a technical management role. This is a
| good call, imo. You only need to know how website/apps work,
| not the code itself.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Also thinking out loud...
|
| I started teaching my self to code w/ the intent of getting a
| coding job at age 38, and I got my first coding job at 40.
| Breaking into coding was brutal for me. I couldn't get taken
| seriously as a junior. I just had to keep grinding until I was
| good enough that someone would take me seriously as a mid-
| level.
|
| The way I did that was go super deep on learning Ruby super
| well. Then I found a company that needed someone who was really
| good w/ Ruby. They were willing to overlook my lack of depth in
| other areas because I had a skill that was critical to them.
| After starting the job, I had to work super hard to brush up on
| junior & mid level skills just to do my job at a good enough or
| better level.
|
| After less than two years, people started thinking I was
| actually better & more experienced than I was. I could talk a
| really good game because I had spent so much time learning
| while I was getting experience, and then I started getting
| taken seriously for senior level roles. People saw my physical
| age & just assumed I was more senior & experienced than I was,
| so being older was actually an advantage to being taken
| seriously.
|
| After about 5 years of coding, I finally felt like my work life
| balance was somewhat normal. I could start having a life again,
| stop learning quite so hard, etc. Now I'm just a normal, boring
| senior software engineer making a median-ish USA salary.
|
| So I guess I'd say if OP's dad's path would be similar to mine,
| I'd ask him if he really likes software enough to spend a
| couple years learning to code & finding a job, then grinding
| for a few years to get to normal, and then enjoy 5 years of
| being a competent team member. It's certainly doable, but I
| think it's worth how bad one really wants this path. I think
| getting into software just for the money is not how I'd want to
| spend my 60s, but I'd absolutely do it if I found the coding
| enjoyable enough to self-teach & grind on learning for as long
| as it took.
|
| It's also possible that other opportunities would open up just
| because of dad's knowledge of software. Just saying he likes to
| program, even if that's not his profession, could open up
| opportunities at a tech company doing other things, such as QA,
| support, scrum master, etc.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| I about to turn 37 and just got my first full-time job as a
| junior. I actually think my age has given me an edge, but one
| thing I do have going for me is that I look much younger than
| I am.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I also forgot to mention that I largely needed a mid level
| salary, too. Had a lot of debt to pay off.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I'm curious at which point you were considered valuable ?
| what did you have to show ? some theoretical knowledge ?
| actually used products ?
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I can say w/ certainty the second half of my coding career
| has been more productive than the first half :)
| mhewett wrote:
| It would take him 5-10 years to become a competent
| programmer. Does he want to finally achieve stability in his
| career at age 70?
|
| I would suggest that he become a business advisor to small
| companies. His expertise is invaluable and he could be useful
| immediately.
| Tozen wrote:
| I disagree that it would necessarily take that long. Per
| the OP, his father is not starting from scratch, and has
| some programming in his background. Being a CEO, CCO,
| etc... We can assume his father is an intelligent and
| successful person.
|
| Possibly, if his father applied himself, he could find
| himself a niche in which he would be adequately competent
| within 2 years. To include being a freelancer or
| independent developer.
|
| As you alluded to, because of his father's business
| background, he might do really well in sales for a software
| related company or starting his own business.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I know the OP said it was "maybe Pascal or Basic", but
| having done this ~40 years ago, I'd argue that it is
| basically starting from scratch, unless he was actually
| writing Javascript the whole time for google sheets
| integrations
|
| > Being a CEO, CCO, etc... We can assume his father is an
| intelligent and successful person.
|
| Being unable to continue working as a CEO/CCO suggests
| he's not currently very successful, and to put it
| lightly, CEO "intelligence" (whatever that means) doesn't
| necessarily translate to the kind of intelligence
| necessary for software engineering
| mythrwy wrote:
| Ya for sure, that's what people don't understand. It takes
| years to really be up to speed and really useful (maybe you
| can shortcut it with bootcamps, idk, I suspect not though
| but maybe you would know enough to be good for some tasks).
|
| I had a friend ask me same thing as OP. He was 50, out of
| work at the time (had been in a trade before) and wondered
| if he could get into programming. I don't want to
| discourage anyone from learning to program because you can
| do a lot of cool stuff, but to be seriously industry useful
| isn't a matter of months and a few online classes but
| rather some dedicated years.
|
| And (this might be an unpopular opinion) it's much harder
| if you don't natively think a certain way. Some otherwise
| smart people find programming pure torture and the chance
| of them going through the years needed is pretty low.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > could be tricky trying to coach an older person unless they
| have genuine humility
|
| Bingo. This goes for young people too, but is more important as
| we age or rise through the ranks. Accepting advice from an
| "inferior" with grace, humility, and thankfulness is key to
| gaining respect and learning at the rate necessary to stay on
| top of a field.
|
| I've taught things to people who were a million times more
| intelligent than I and 20 years my senior. I gained so respect
| for them after seeing how quickly they learned, and how
| appreciative they were of having my time.
|
| One thing I gleaned from the experience of working with these
| guys was how letting someone teach you something is a great way
| to impress them.
| jacobyoder wrote:
| Accepting some advice or input on an individual item vs
| having someone 'manage' you are different beasts. As I come
| up to 50, and work with a group of folks ranging from
| 28-32... the age and experience gaps are highlighted often.
| I'm happy to contribute, and I do occasionally learn
| something from someone (often some specific tool I'd not seen
| before). But there's a resistance to 'learn' from me. We're
| 'equalized' on a 'team', and "we should all learn from each
| other!" is a common mantra.
|
| I've done many of these projects before, and will raise
| issues. "Let's just see how it goes!" and "well... we might
| make some mistakes, but that's how we learn!" And I'll say
| "but I thought we were supposed to be learning from each
| other?" "yes!". "Why does no one ever want to learn from me?"
| I've done XYZ longer than these colleagues have been adults,
| but I'm never asked for stuff, people avoid my input, etc.
|
| What's more interesting is that a couple of folks on the
| client side of the equation (contracting house) have been
| added who are older, and ... they're quite open to picking my
| brain. We mesh quite well, and have pairing sessions and
| learn from each other (but I'm giving more than taking in
| those cases). With the younger crew... there's just a real
| standoffishness, and focus on 'team' and 'learning from each
| other and our mistakes' but... they're willing to make
| mistakes (repeatedly) vs taking my input to avoid those
| mistakes in the first place. The client's new person seems to
| have picked up on this and is raising some issues.
|
| For a while, I really thought it was something wrong with
| _me_ , but as I jump around between clients/contracts/etc, it
| seems to be more age related. The larger the age gap, the
| less impetus there is to work 'together'. And... I'm trying
| to think back to when I was 25... how open would I have been
| to 50 year old colleague's input? If they were 'management',
| I'd have to. Otherwise... possibly not? Hard to remember that
| far back, other than that I thought I was invincible :)
| FWKevents wrote:
| Hi! Thanks for the honest response. I'm your age, and find
| the same reluctance from young people to listen to me when
| I've been down that road before. They really do have to
| learn from making mistakes, as they keep telling you, and
| can't learn from your experience. I'm not defending them
| for not taking advantage of the diamonds right in front of
| them, but I also understand their need to experience things
| for themselves. After all, how did you learn?
| jacobyoder wrote:
| Partially through trial and error, partially from other
| people, partially from books, etc.
|
| It's not so much that "these young kids won't listen"
| that's annoying, but this mantra of "we're all here to
| learn from each other - that's how we grow!". Except...
| if it's me. Then you choose not to learn from me. Or
| older people in general. Just drop the "feel good we're
| all a team" facade, because it doesn't represent what
| you're actually _doing_. The disconnect is the problem,
| not the actual behaviour.
| bsder wrote:
| Youth is dumb.
|
| When I was in my 20's, my mentors were all 50+. And,
| quite often, I would have to hit the wall before the good
| advice they gave me made sense. I realized later that I
| was _really_ irritating to them at many points. It took
| me, like, 4 times hearing "You might want to think about
| that" from my main mentor before I started mentally
| translating that to "Dumbass. You're about to hit the
| wall. Again."
|
| I am not a smart man.
|
| They stuck with me because the magnitude of my vector was
| large (ah, the province of youth--boundless energy), so,
| even if I had a significant amount in a useless
| direction, I also had a significant chunk in a useful
| direction. And I would learn--I rarely made the _same_
| mistake (but I was quite good at making new mistakes ...)
|
| However, if the people around (not just the kids) really
| don't understand that you're an expert at what you do,
| you really should think about getting a different job. If
| the consultants are willing to pick information from your
| brain, that's a good sign that you really do know what's
| going on. In return, you should make use of their people
| network--poke at the consultants you think are good. And
| _right now_ is a good time to be making such a job
| change.
|
| Ageism is a thing. On the flip side, the number of
| greybeards in this field continues to increase year on
| year--the people who learned computers as kids in the
| 1980s are now hitting their 50s.
|
| Good luck and hang in there. You're not alone.
| wrs wrote:
| Rather than "that won't work because of X", I may say
| "here are some potential problems to watch out for", or
| just ask a question like "OK, and how will you handle
| X?". That message seems to get through better, and at
| least helps people recognize the mistake _earlier_.
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| > Bingo. This goes for young people too, but is more
| important as we age or rise through the ranks.
|
| This is more personality in general than age. There's just as
| many cocksure youngers as there are grumpy olders and neither
| want to learn from you.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Yeah this is gonna be a human "problem", an emotional level
| requirement, if both are chill sharing their viewpoints,
| being positive then things are possible.
| crdrost wrote:
| Yeah, it's really difficult because a lot of the drive
| expressed in OP is for a new source of opportunity... The
| problem is that ageisms and such definitely take root in our
| industry, trying to work healthy hours at a startuppy place
| when you are older seems very precarious. I think you are on
| point that technical management has more availability, if
| that's the constraint.
|
| If the constraint is instead that programming looks fun but you
| want to get exposed to as much of it as possible, I mean, I
| would suggest that OP's Dad start building an indie game or so?
| Doesn't have to be a bestseller to sharpen thinking about
| design and aesthetic and underlying mechanics and state and
| data structures... I work in web but the amount of framework
| churn and such is kind of something I wouldn't force others
| through.
|
| If you did want something more webby, you would want to
| practice with something you find interesting... If you wanted,
| maybe something that touches a lot of other technologies. If
| you think about writing your own GitHub, you start with git
| repositories and cloud hosting and deployment, you can move
| into CI/CD type workflows pretty easily, maybe that is a better
| way to start off web programming?
|
| The other thing I will say is, Big Tech companies are often
| places where you can get one role and then ask for their
| developer education tracks where they teach their accountants
| etc how to become developers if they want to pivot. Say for
| example, being a manager at Google but having some 20% project
| that lets you contribute code and get feedback. Bigger more
| established companies have fewer problems with ageism, because
| they are much more sensitive as lawsuit targets for those sorts
| of things, so they have to get their s** together.
|
| Also worth saying, the prior job history is an asset. A lot of
| developers do not speak business-ese. If you are a solid
| programmer who can talk to C-levels, you are a potential CTO at
| the right sort of place. Because you can translate, and because
| you feel comfortable walking into a contract negotiation with
| some client as "okay, how can I not say 'no' to everything but
| push back on the really hard problems while 'yes, and'-ing all
| of the tractable stuff to get them on board." Consultancy is
| one of the ways to do that, but not the only one. But worth
| calling out that as an asset if it helps focus the journey
| more.
| b20000 wrote:
| i think it makes more sense to become a management consultant and
| in his spare time contribute to open source or work on software
| for fun for himself.
| TheRealDevonMcC wrote:
| As a 61-year-old with almost 50 years of programming experience
| who recently got a new job, I can testify how almost no one wants
| to hear from an old person. I program for fun, too, and could be
| doing that full-time if I weren't working.
|
| I'm only employed now because I'm proficient in an older language
| (APL). Never mind my decades of experience in many other
| languages and extensive domain knowledge in finance, not that I'm
| bitter or anything.
| anyfactor wrote:
| > I can testify how almost no one wants to hear from an old
| person
|
| I love working with people who are more than 40 or 50 years
| old. My experience is pretty limited in this matter but I have
| found older people too be more forgiving when I make mistakes.
|
| Also, older people has that art of speaking thing figured out.
| In my experience, older professional people don't just say
| "thank you", they tend to say things that are positively
| meaningful. Even when they reject my proposal, they will make
| the effort to actually let me down easy and slowly.
|
| Writing this I just realized the counterpoint of this post.
| With age people are naturally more suited for managerial roles
| rather then full time technical roles. Understanding
| programming may give someone an edge, but with age people have
| more to offer beyond programming, which is management and
| communication.
| blackmoon12 wrote:
| IME it's not pure 'ageism', but salary and workplace dynamics.
| Having had the privilege of working with many older devs, who
| played a big role in shaping my career...
|
| After the first 2 decades your worth as an individual
| contributor (or at most, team lead) stagnates. You're probably
| at the top of the pay grade already, and the older you get the
| more you'll have to work with more junior people, as 'equals'
| despite having substantially more experience. It's very hard to
| give you any sort of career progression. You may be a lot more
| productive, but your 'multiplier effect' is small compared to a
| manager, or someone who deals with a lot more stakeholder
| complexity.
|
| It's even more pronounced in current times where a 25 year old
| makes 100K (a lot in the UK). They're very unlikely to double
| their salary over the next 10 years in similar positions.
| Whereas most people start at 25K.. work their way up to 100K...
| exec level etc is 200K.
|
| Successful 'pure' programmers who get jobs usually have an
| infra flavour of the month skillset, or make it clear that
| they're happy to get paid the same as someone with say 10 years
| of experience.
|
| Most of them though go into strategy or become contractors.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I'm in the middle and I wonder how I would react if working
| with a 60yo buddy. I'm not biased much (I'm cool with people of
| all background and age when I service computers around my area)
| and I like esoteric/vintage. Which is funny because I'd
| probably run to spend time near your desk doing some APL pair
| programming than hearing the 25yo boast about the latest python
| release at the coffee machine :)
| [deleted]
| fdschoeneman wrote:
| Encourage him to take some classes online. If he has fun and then
| says he wants to be a professional programmer, your role is to
| honor and support that choice. Help him figure out which tools
| can be learned quickly and he can get paid for. Let him know it's
| okay to be slow. Help him when he's frustrated. Consider the
| possibility he may be using this as a way to know more about you.
|
| Good luck to him and to you. He seems like a cool dude.
| caprock wrote:
| Really good points, thank you
| topherPedersen wrote:
| I don't think that would make a lot of sense financially or
| professionally, but if he wanted to do this for fun (and money)
| then I think he probably could.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Can he pull some strings to make it work? I'm sure he has some
| high up connections in other companies that may offer him a
| position out of respect or else?
| peter303 wrote:
| As most professional developers know, coding is only a fraction
| of the total software process. There is team planning, debugging,
| sales, support, teaching, management, etc. A startup might spend
| half its hours on coding. At a mature software conglomerate this
| may fall to one-fifth of the hours. Learning all this can take a
| year of more.
|
| Its not what you see in most schools where it mostly coding.
| However thats improving as students put stuff on github in a
| turnkey state.
| dorgon wrote:
| Perhaps there is a way for him to use his professional background
| to his advantage.
|
| Programming jobs in niche industries often require a fair amount
| of domain expertise (e.g., an accounting system). If he possesses
| such domain expertise somewhere, it might be worth starting his
| programming career there.
| dvydra2 wrote:
| I would explore a career as a Technical Quality Engineer. Feel
| free to reach out directly to david@vydra.net if interested.
| pkrotich wrote:
| It's definitely possible. Even if coding is out of reach for
| him... I think being tech adjacent is good enough. It would be
| cool if you hired him as an intern in your business... his
| business experience alone will be an asset for you. He can handle
| the human side of things and still be in tech and give him
| opportunity to explore while also feeling helpful.
| a_techwriter_00 wrote:
| For a moment, take away the fact that this is your dad. Imagine a
| friend of yours with a background of "well, I took CS101 as a
| freshman" wanted to go into business with you. The pitch is that
| you use your experience and business contacts from being a
| thriving contactor in order to find and make deals and then you
| give the work to your friend to program the implementation. What
| sort of knowledge gap would exist between "learned the basics n
| years ago" and "someone you'd feel comfortable outsourcing work
| to in your real, actual professional life"?
|
| Spell out everything that your hypothetical friend would have to
| go and learn for you to feel comfortable giving him even the most
| junior-level coding responsibilities or vouching for him as a
| "yeah, this guy can do the job" to a professional contact of
| yours. Write it all down, show it to your dad, and spell out the
| effort involved. That's what he's looking at learning in order to
| be taken seriously in the marketplace.
|
| (I'd venture that some kind of consulting/contracting is what
| he'd wind up doing, both because I don't think many companies
| would take a resume like his seriously for a junior developer
| position and also because I don't think someone who's been at the
| top of the org chart would tolerate going to the bottom of the
| org chart for very long.)
| arethuza wrote:
| I had a colleague in a previous job who was actually employed as
| a trainer but picked up a lot of Excel VBA stuff that was
| "beneath" the actual development team and got so good at it he
| landed a pretty decent role at another company just working in
| Excel.
|
| He was late 60s.
| tored wrote:
| Hard part will be to secure that first job with almost no prior
| experience in programming and no recent formal education.
|
| One option could be vocational education (depending on what the
| education system is in your country), they tend to be more
| practical rather than theoretical and can offer an internship at
| a company. An internship can be a good way to get that first job.
| jacquesm wrote:
| First off, has your dad considered hiring himself out as a coach
| to younger CEO's, CCO's and CFO's? That would be fairly easy
| money and it is a market where gray hair is an asset, and not a
| detractor.
|
| That said: being a bit older probably gives him a fairly unique
| perspective on many of the things younger devs might not even
| realize can be an issue, and if he were to aim for something that
| allows his age to work for him by strong association with the
| demographic that that particular software targets then it could
| work out well, assuming he has an aptitude for programming.
|
| Excel-fu may well be a stronger card than any of the regular
| application programming languages if he wants results, it may
| well be that something like 'R' would be well within his comfort
| zone.
|
| Best of luck, and props to your dad for even considering this!
| PaulHoule wrote:
| There is being a "professional programmer" who mostly builds
| large systems that put other people's expertise to work.
|
| Even before the microcomputer revolution, back in the dawn of
| timesharing, there have also been "non-professional programmers"
| who write software to put wheels on their scientific,
| engineering, business, literary, accounting, medical,
| mathematical, artistic or whatever skills they have.
|
| To be a professional programmer you're really going to have to
| learn how to whip other people's bad conceptual models into
| shape, track down difficult bugs, not use an O(N^2) algorithm
| when an O(N) algorithm is available and N is large, understand
| the difference between C++ compilers and whatever details turn up
| to be relevant in a particular case. (e.g. You're never going to
| know all of these things but you have to find out the ones that
| are relevant to your project!)
|
| The non-professional programmer is going to be more focused on
| the problem domain even though they still sometimes might need to
| figure out something technically hard to make their system work.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I'm all for starting pretty much anything at any age.
|
| Now that I have that out of the way, the larger issue is if he
| will find anyone to employ him at that age. Ageism is a real
| thing! I spent the last 5 years working at an outfit that the
| recruiter described as "they seem to prefer seasoned
| employees..." take that however you will, but half of my co-
| workers were over 50 and I had at two people reporting to me that
| were older than I am. BUT, they were all experienced engineers.
|
| I think it will be hard for him to find a job as an entry-level
| programmer at his age. But if he's been an executive, he probably
| has enough of a network so he can find freelance clients. The
| reality of software development is that there is a huge body of
| work that can be done by someone who's new to the field. This is
| probably the most worthwhile path for him.
| time_to_smile wrote:
| The probability of succeeding as an atypical programmer is
| directly proportional to your general enthusiasm for programming.
|
| Someone who has been constantly hacking and building programs for
| fun on the side while working a different career, and finally
| thinks it might be fun to do programming for a living at 61:
| absolutely.
|
| However it sounds like he doesn't have a prior interest in
| programming. Even for someone in their early 20s I don't
| recommend getting into to programming for the job (in your 20s
| this means being a software engineer for the money, for your dad
| it would be they like they type of schedule/work you have).
|
| This isn't because of some ideal that "real programmers should be
| passionate", but because there is a reason that despite a massive
| rise in bootcamps it's still hard to hire devs: most people don't
| enjoy programming enough to do it for a living.
|
| I love programming, love computer science and ultimately prefer
| data science work because I don't love _software engineering_
| work for 8 hours a day. So even someone who really enjoys
| programming might not necessarily love software engineering. If
| your dad was exposed to programming in college and then spent 40
| years without ever picking it up again, it 's likely he doesn't
| really enjoy programming and even more likely that he really
| won't enjoy learning all the tooling and frameworks required to
| work as a software engineer today.
|
| tl;dr if your dad is the kind of person building a k8s cluster
| for fun on the weekend, or likes to hack together toy react apps
| in the evening: the he absolutely could transition. However it's
| fair more likely that he currently likes the _idea_ of being a
| programmer much more than he would the actual work.
| achenet wrote:
| the OP's father could always try programming as a hobby, see if
| it suits him, and if so try to find opportunities to do work
| for others.
| bregma wrote:
| Ageism is more rampant in software development than in most other
| fields outside of professional athletics. Full disclosure: I am
| in this age range but I have more than 40 years professional
| experience.
| inglor wrote:
| Some anecdotes:
|
| - One time I posted on HN that I am willing to tutor people from
| Gaza for free (am Israeli). Got contacted by a Nigerian man (over
| 50+ years) instead. He successfully did FCC and a few other
| courses and got a job (with minimal mentoring) in the field.
|
| - One time I had a student at a program I volunteer in for a
| minority group who was almost 70, they successfully completed the
| program and got a job.
|
| - I've met plenty of 50 year olds transitioning to coding from
| other engineering gigs (like rail engineering) when they
| immigrated - my wife's family for example has several examples of
| people doing that.
|
| Agism is real, there is discrimination but sharp minds who work
| hard and are willing to start at a junior's salary and at the
| same conditions as 20 year olds (long'ish hours) find jobs -
| though that's anecdotal and based on my experienced.
|
| I say: if your father is passionate go for it. Don't forget
| you're on HN and you should consider entrepreneurial routes like:
|
| - Do any of his old employers need a website or app?
|
| - What about local businesses or programs?
|
| I got most of my early experience building and selling indie
| (flash) games and working on projects (flash game sites and
| socket servers mostly) until I was "hireable". The other gigs I
| got were all websites and apps for family friends and neighbors
| to get experience (I got paid for whole websites less than I
| charge for a single hour of consulting today lol - it was totally
| worth it).
| cl42 wrote:
| Your dad will be a unicorn -- someone who knows how to code, but
| also has the business/social aptitude to manage relationships
| with executives. This is very rare and impressive.
|
| I'd encourage him to give this a shot.
|
| A lot of technical people don't appreciate how difficult the
| relationship aspect is, and often struggle with it. Your has this
| in spades!
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Sounds like he could afford to pay for a boot camp for some
| immersion and doesn't need to stress as hard about landing a job
| after.
| ccuqui wrote:
| IMHO, with that background (C-level positions), forget about
| "normal" languages.
|
| A better (useful in the context) strategy would be focus on Data
| Analytics/Big Data tools:
|
| A Good book to start (considering the background with Microsoft
| toolset):
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Data-Lake-Analytics-Microsoft-Azure/d... 1
|
| This knowledge is extremely valuable today for any C-level these
| days and will be a huge differential in an eventual relocation
| process......
|
| Regards and good luck to your father :)
| mirceal wrote:
| ask your dad: would you be willing to ride a bicycle if you
| didn't know how? what about learning how to cook?
|
| it's not only doable, but exciting if he is able to get into in.
|
| also, i would in the first stage drop the professional from
| professional programming. He needs to grok what programming is at
| a newbie/hobby level first and needs to enjoy it before even
| thinking about anything professional.
|
| he also needs to understand that this is a long journey (ie it
| will take years to be any good and/or have someone pay him to
| write code). If he has the patience and determination to do it he
| will be successful.
| sjs382 wrote:
| He probably has a wealth of experience in other areas. I think he
| SHOULD learn to code if he finds it interesting, but then bring
| that new skill into an area where he already has expertise.
| eweise wrote:
| I would target a constrained area like android development, which
| has a limited set of technologies you need to master. Also, the
| feedback cycle is rewarding since you actually see your changes,
| and its good contractor work.
| jamil7 wrote:
| IME the expectation is you have pretty deep expertise of the
| platform, especially as a contractor and this takes a
| surprisingly long time to build on either of the mobile
| platforms.
| eweise wrote:
| Not as long as it takes to understand microservices,
| distributed computing, AWS cloud, Kubernetes, Docker, sql,
| no-sql, etc, etc.
| alberth wrote:
| Personal anecdote...
|
| My father worked into his 80s and I saw firsthand how once he hit
| 60 years old how much harder it was for him to land a new job. As
| such, I've always gone out of my way to ensure such folks get a
| fair shot in my ~25 years of being a people manager.
|
| And every time I've hired someone 60+, even if they are
| new/junior for the role - it's worked out in spades.
|
| The unique perspective, what's seems like a "new" problem is
| often an already solved problem from decades ago, just the wealth
| of knowledge ... and again, this surprising still applies even if
| the individual is junior in their experience.
|
| What's best is the work ethic & respect. It's sad but true, that
| individual knows you could have easily hired a 20 year old kid
| but didn't. And the thanks, trust and respect you immediately
| gain with them often translates into them becoming a dedicate
| individual who goes above and beyond in their job.
|
| So just saying, please actively give these folks their fair shot
| and not just hire the new kid straight out of college.
|
| And that 61 year old might be you some day.
| sleepdreamy wrote:
| Well said and I appreciate you being a good person. Have a nice
| evening
| Clubber wrote:
| I would suggest starting in something fairly simple like SQL /
| Report developer, or perhaps specialize in a particular
| application like something built for integration. The logic being
| is you don't have to learn so much to get working. With regular
| development, you need to know database, back end, front end,
| networking and all that. With SQL/Report dev, it's really just
| SQL and whatever report tool is popular.
|
| With a specialized application, it's the same. You just learn the
| application and don't have to keep up with all the changing fads
| of regular development.
|
| Once he gets a foot in, he can expand to other things as well.
|
| Best of luck.
| GoldenMonkey wrote:
| Programming is hard. It is competitive. The programming languages
| change every 2 yrs.
|
| 61 yr old programmers who have programmed much of their careers.
| Find ageism and irrelevancy if they have not kept up with the
| changing technologies.
|
| Your father is choosing a harder path. That may not be worth the
| time, effort and energy. And starting with no relevant skills to
| programming.
|
| Some better options with competitive pay:
|
| documentation, report writing, database management, QA.
| unmole wrote:
| > The programming languages change every 2 yrs.
|
| And here I am getting paid to write C. It's been around since
| *checks notes* 1972.
| breckenedge wrote:
| > The programming languages change every 2 yrs.
|
| Is this your experience or are you quoting something? I've been
| programming professionally in the same language for a decade.
| Certainly I've worked off and on with others, but if you're
| changing that rapidly, how deep of an expertise can you
| achieve?
| eddof13 wrote:
| I would suggest technical recruiting, you can do that until an
| advanced age, and it can even be a benefit to attracting senior
| level people as a recruiter.
|
| My dad did similar, after going back to school in his mid 50s and
| getting a CS/cybersecurity degree, he tried the engineering side
| for a bit but ultimately went into technical recruiting for a big
| enterprise, which is a six figure position.
| wofo wrote:
| Just wanted to say thanks to you all! My dad was incredibly happy
| with your feedback and ideas. I don't think he is going to make
| the jump after all, and it I trust things are going to end up
| well one way or another.
|
| As a nice side note, my family followed this thread with great
| enthusiasm and I am proud that they get to see the best of HN!
| iRomain wrote:
| With all his expertise, he can definitely bring a lot to the
| table being a consultant or mentor to all kinds of businesses.
|
| Regarding programming, it depends if he just wants to work or
| work to earn money.
|
| If the former, he could look at OSS projects that interest him,
| there are so many! He could make meaningful contributions (for
| the project and for him)!
|
| If the latter, he can definitely give it a go but maybe not get
| his hopes up too much. He could start his own
| startup/blog/company though which might not be a bad alternative
| to paid work.
|
| Also he could look at the no-code tools which would allow him to
| build stuff quicker than learning to program. It would probably
| be a step up from Excel already and he could see if he likes it
| and wants to dive deeper (some contractors are specialized in
| building stuff on top of no-code tools)
|
| Anyhow, good on him to want a career change at 60+, I wish him
| all the best!
| travisathougies wrote:
| There's probably a huge demand for people with his business
| skillset honestly. If he finds the right niche (building tooling
| for COOS/CFOS), they'd probably prefer talking to someone who
| understands their domain and can translate it into code rather
| than talking to some 'geek' who knows mainly computers.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Honestly? No. I doubt it. He won't be able to get in via the
| front door, at least.
|
| I'm planning to retire before I reach that age as I'm not sure
| I'll still be able to keep up. Maybe I will, but I'm not counting
| on it. There's just far too much. Already it can be overwhelming.
| That's why people naturally move from less technical positions
| into managerial positions.
|
| Getting in via the front door on the job market means he will be
| competing with youngsters who are simply better. I don't see it
| happening and not because of ageism either. It takes years and
| years to learn this stuff.
|
| The best chance would be if he personally knows someone who needs
| some specific tasks doing and he is up to it. Then it could be
| possible, I guess.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I suggest working as a consultant/contractor, where age is not a
| barrier.
|
| P.S. I'm older than your dad! And I program every day. I figure I
| have a good 20 years left as a programmer. The only thing that
| can stop your dad is if he quits.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Contributing to Open Source has no barriers to entry, and is a
| great way to learn, build a resume, and have professionals
| review your contributions.
|
| For example, I have _no idea_ who half of the contributors to
| the D programming language are. I don 't know their real names,
| age, sex, country, religion, politics, nothing. I don't know if
| they live in a mansion or in their mom's basement. I only know
| them by their contributions. It's as close as one can get to a
| pure meritocracy.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I can't image doing this professionally at his age. Just so much
| frustration, change, and BS.
|
| Perhaps he could move into something related but low pressure.
| Maybe tutoring or teaching (likely not public schools). If he has
| to enough to retire, then maybe something as a volunteer, like
| web dev for a local non-profit.
| wellpast wrote:
| As a thriving contractor, you should hire him, coach him, and
| make some money off of him.
| blackmoon12 wrote:
| It's not his age that's an issue, but his inability to find work
| although he has a varied skillset. There's a vast chasm between
| a) professional programming b) just enough knowledge for an
| auxiliary role c) zero programming
|
| There's a huge media frenzy around a) when in fact we don't need
| as many software developers, as we need people in b) and c).
| Product managers, project managers, service managers, IT risk and
| governance ... there's a whole world of opportunity. Best part?
| Doesn't take hours of work, experience/people skills is an
| advantage and you won't be up against coding geniuses.
|
| It makes sense for him to go into 'tech'. It makes no sense for
| him to try and be a professional programmer competing with people
| a quarter of his age. Of course if that's his _passion_ , fair
| enough. But if it's just a question of time ROI, nope. There are
| better ways.
|
| Also check out supply chain and logistic experts
| blairanderson wrote:
| I would say yes absolutely. He doesn't have anything to lose.
| jstx1 wrote:
| > he has worked as an executive at multiple companies in the past
| decades (CEO, CCO, CFO). As he grows older, he has noticed it
| becomes increasingly difficult to find work, even though he would
| love to continue working for the years to come.
|
| Finding a business position that's a good fit for him would be a
| much easier way to stay employed until retirement than switching
| to programming.
| [deleted]
| bjornlouser wrote:
| Given his background I think he should become a recruiter that
| peddles the over 40 tech crowd. That way he can dabble with
| programming on the side, leverage his business acumen, and see
| first hand whether there is a market for old folks in tech.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I know a guy with a similar background who wanted become a coder.
|
| He got a temp job coding. Not too good at it.
|
| Eventually wound up doing sales for a FAANG, selling SaaS to
| C-suite execs.
| shtopointo wrote:
| Everything is possible of course.
|
| Will he, an executive before, have the required patience and
| humility to start at the bottom rung again, to e.g. step into a
| company with 20-year olds that know more than he does? 20-year
| olds that may not always be as kind as he would like them to be?
|
| If I were in his shoes my answer would be no.
|
| But the solution I would consider: have him build his own
| product.
|
| He's of a certain age, so he probably has experience to areas
| that us younger folk have no idea about. Is getting medication a
| pain? Is there an app he'd wish he had on his phone or on the web
| to help him with various activities? Something friends of his age
| would like? Or something he could build for the children of older
| parents that could help them out?
|
| If you're saying that he used to be an executive, I imagine by
| this point he's got enough savings to be comfortably retired. So,
| he can spend some time learning ruby on rails and pick up some
| front end stuff and start hacking away at a product he would like
| to see in the world.
|
| Expose it publicly (the "hey I'm 61 and here's my side project"
| is bound to get a lot of clicks) and then go from there.
|
| But that's what I would recommend. I wouldn't necessarily
| recommend he learn a stack and apply for jobs.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| Beyond age-related things to solve for, his experience as an
| executive probably has a much more niche range of everyday
| inconveniences that a lot fewer people out there are building
| or have tried to build for. Maybe things that CEOs don't
| necessarily have to do themselves, but that he's noticed his
| EAs always spent an inordinate amount of time on, and for which
| a product could make them more effective.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Sounds like being a mentor, career counselor, resume
| reviewer, business plan reviewer could be some areas his
| expertise could really come into play.
|
| But nothing wrong with coding if he wants to learn either.
| da39a3ee wrote:
| I tend to think that it's best to only recommend a programming
| career to people who actually like programming.
|
| So: I'd tell him to spend 3 months going online and learning
| Javascript or Python, and pick a suitable first project (or first
| contribution to an open source project) and get to the point
| where he's actually working on that. Then see whether he loves it
| or hates it or inbetween.
| zwieback wrote:
| If he has to make enough money to support himself then I'd say
| it's a bit tricky. If it's more for keeping busy and the mind
| sharp then yes, go for it. Especially if he has a lot of domain-
| specific knowledge from his time in management.
|
| My grandpa learned programming, (BASIC, on a TRS 80) when he was
| 80 and got proficient at it quickly although it was just for fun.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Assuming he is currently employed I wonder if taking on some
| programming work as part of his existing role might be a good way
| to slide into it. If he knows and uses Excel then writing VBA
| would be a good first step.
| tharne wrote:
| This is really good advice. The amount of business critical
| processes out there running on excel spreadsheets is enormous.
| A small amount of automation of these using VBA can be a game
| changer in a lot of places.
| thinkxl wrote:
| I started programming at 30 and started technical lead positions
| at 35. I'm teaching two friends in their 40s to program in
| Python.
|
| I know there's still a considerable gap between 40s and 60s from
| my stories, but the point is that he should try it and you help
| him.
| didip wrote:
| I don't know if your dad wants to hear that ageism is super real
| in our industry.
| Seltzer777 wrote:
| If blacks and women can be hired based on skin color and not
| merit, then the sky's the limit. I say go for it.
| draxil wrote:
| There will definitely be a place for someone with your dad's
| blend of experience and interests. I'd suggest that possibly he'd
| be better in the product owner role, some tech interest and
| sympathy but with the wider perspective of the other jobs he's
| done.
|
| That said, there's probably also a programming role where that
| not-programming experience would be an asset to someone who can
| also learn the code.
|
| Of course there's probably many many other places where it
| wouldn't work, the trick is finding that correct fit. But most of
| being a good developer isn't programming it's thinking about the
| system, the use-case etc. There's plenty of rockstar guys who can
| code amazing solutions, but people with a wider experience and a
| different perspective are much rarer and can be more valuable.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Consider that an undergrad takes 4 years, with a 2 year master's
| on the end of it, but that's for students who are distracted. You
| can completely reinvent in 3-5 years, and at that age, you will
| have condiments in your fridge that have lasted longer.
|
| Can't say much for finding jobs, as I've contracted and consulted
| for most of my career because I prefer the problems and change,
| but really, your options are either to manage, or become
| manageable. That's the decisive factor in finding a job as we
| age, imo.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| Maybe I'm overghinking the term ... but why would you ask for a
| "career"? How about "starting to work as programmer at 61"?
| Sounds much more doable and less over-enthuisiastic.
| jerome-jh wrote:
| I am equally puzzled by the use of the word "career". I would
| add that starting whichever new job at 61 will be a challenge
| especially with no previous experience. Given that, why not
| programming?
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > As he grows older, he has noticed it becomes increasingly
| difficult to find work
|
| Programming/software dev is not a field I would choose if I were
| trying to avoid age discrimination. It can be hard enough for 61
| year olds who have been in the field for 35 years and have all
| that experience to find work.
|
| I'd encourage him to do it as a hobby, but don't get his hopes up
| about being able to find steady work doing it.
| joshwcomeau wrote:
| I used to teach software development at a part-time bootcamp. The
| part-time program was especially interesting because it tended to
| attract an older crowd, people with families and full-time jobs.
|
| I don't know if I ever had students in their 60s, but I'm pretty
| sure I had students in their 50s (I don't know their birthdates
| so I'm really just guessing when it comes to age).
|
| On average, it was definitely harder for the older students to
| find work, but it's absolutely possible. Some companies will
| really appreciate having people with more life experience, more
| maturity.
|
| I think the first step would be to see if your dad actually
| enjoys doing software development. Lots of people just hate it.
| Doing some beginner JavaScript or Python tutorials could be a
| good place to start. If it sparks excitement, I think he should
| absolutely consider doing a bootcamp or similar program.
|
| I think it's an uphill climb, but if he enjoys doing it and he
| doesn't give up easily, I'm confident it could be a viable path
| for him.
| bufordtwain wrote:
| I say go for it. He might want to consider areas such as database
| development (SQL) and stable, commonly used technologies (Java,
| C#) as opposed to front end where frameworks seem to be
| constantly changing. You mentioned he might be good at Excel -
| that could come in handy also, especially in finance and/or data
| analysis type roles. Don't worry about ageism - it's a good
| asshole filter. Also his leadership experience could be useful if
| he wants to manage engineering teams.
| elthor89 wrote:
| I don't know his motivations to become a programmer.
|
| However with his experience as a CEO, CFO. He might want to look
| into becoming a Data Engineer, BI consultant, Data Scientist or
| Data Analist.
|
| With the experience you mentioned he might be better at
| understanding how the "business" thinks and what they need.
| Therefore a lot of his domain knowledge could be applied while
| being in a technical role.
|
| Most of the roles I mentioned involve some programming but often
| that can also be drag and drop tools.
|
| Good luck!
| maininformer wrote:
| If I were you, I would ask him to study up and then give him
| parts of my projects(you said you're a contractor) and we can see
| if it works out or not. If it does in a couple of years or four
| he can be a contractor himself under your mentorship.
|
| Maybe thats what he's asking anyway ;)
| miniatureape wrote:
| I would try to identify an ecosystem where he could start
| building on his own: Custom Shopify functionality, Wordpress
| plugins etc. he can try to find small customers with simple
| needs and scale up as he learns. The ecosystem will provide him
| some guardrails and shrink the surface area to something
| manageable. You could coach him as he goes if you have time.
| omarhaneef wrote:
| Plus, he gets to work with his son which is maybe what he
| really really wants.
|
| It is important to distinguish between needing to work and
| wanting to work.
| welfare wrote:
| I don't think it's vastly different from someone younger who
| wanted to shift career into tech without previous experience.
|
| I would recommend him taking one or a few bootcamp classes to
| bring him up to speed, maybe focus on one area in particular
| (e.g. web development) then find a smaller dev shop where he
| could come in and support in a junior support role to start with
| and then take it from there. Maybe develop a few pet projects to
| build his portfolio in parallel.
|
| It's not impossible but maybe manage his expectations a little
| bit that he's going to have to start more or less from scratch.
| meken wrote:
| What is a "dev shop"? How do I go about searching for one?
|
| FYI I've been a software engineer for like 5 years, but took
| the past 1.5 years off.
| welfare wrote:
| A small dev shop in my view is a company (1-20 employees)
| that typically develops bespoke applications as turnkey
| projects, either from scratch or leveraging some existing
| stack (e.g. Wordpress applications, Salesforce applications,
| etc.)
|
| I would look for companies that describe themselves as:
|
| - Website design agencies
|
| - Creative agencies (look at their webpage if they also have
| development and not purely design)
|
| - Design & Development agencies
|
| You should be able to find a handful just through a Google
| Maps search.
|
| Reach out to them and ask if they could use some junior
| development support, and if there's a particular area they
| need support in.
| lelele wrote:
| I would rather think hard about all possible easier pivots before
| thinking about a whole new career because I feel stuck. If your
| father were pushed by his passion for programming, then I could
| advise differently, but that does not seem the case.
|
| Can't you both think about creative ways to leverage his decades
| of experience as a top manager? Could it be that he is stuck in
| an employee's mindset and that's the true differentiator against
| your success? If so, why not help him in switching mindset
| instead?
|
| If everything else fails, then - sure! - why not go for the
| programming route... Becoming proficient at programming takes
| lots of time, but he would have the advantage of your mentorship.
| And as for our industry's ageism, screw it! I would just team up,
| be the "young face" of our duo and customers would be none the
| wiser about 50% of their software being written by a geezer. Oh,
| well... that's what I would if I were young.
|
| Good luck ;-)
| subpixel wrote:
| My advice would be for him to identify specific applications of
| programming that interest him and then focus on identifying the
| skills he'd need to develop expertise.
|
| One approach would be product or industry specific. Maybe he'e
| really intrigued by applications of GIS and that could lead to
| exploring specific companies in that space and the talent they
| need.
|
| Another would be open source. Maybe he's really interested in
| databases and could dive deep into that part of open source and
| find out what things he wants to do.
|
| No guarantees with either route, but the older you get, the worse
| the odds are if you are just a person with programming ability
| like many others.
| nngrey wrote:
| At age 50, after a successful non-technical career, I took a few
| college classes and then went to a bootcamp. The bootcamp got me
| an internship (a bit humbling but it got me in the door) and I
| have been programming ever since. I will turn 60 this year and I
| am pretty sure I could do the same thing today that I did 10ish
| years ago. It was not always easy and I probably got a few lucky
| breaks along the way, but I would not discourage anyone from
| exploring the possibility.
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