This is really cool, you are father doing having stage of retirement. I appreciated to your father with this act, that's it.
Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job
131–140 of 232 posts
Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job
#132I can totally understand how hard can it be. I`m 28 years old from Romania and looking for an IT related job.
Its difficult and for me because i never had a 9-5 job. Always worked from home as a freelancer since college so i got no past experience and no one hires you without 2 years or more experience :(
Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job
#133Forget the job adds, they will only attract a lot of competition. What he needs to do is finding firms which are growing and send them a letter. This way he will sidestep that whole hiring process and the firms appreciate someone who takes an active approach.
And those who points out how important it is to be active on the net are right. At least set up a nice LinkedIn account.
Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job
#134Everyone's going to advise leading-edge technology options.
Consider the other extreme: long-established businesses are desperate for developers capable of working on old systems like COBOL, 370 Assembler, etc. His "tons of experience" mean he is familiar with old-school tools & mindset, things which new developers can't fathom in a world of smartphones & clouds. Such developers made a pile of money 15 years ago when a burst of manpower was needed to solve the then-looming "Y2K bug"; those talents are still very much in demand, and there's a lot fewer developers able & willing to work on those systems.
Mainframe developers are still needed. Society isn't creating any more of them. Supply + demand = write your own check in this niche, so long as you'll work on anything anywhere.
Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job
#135A 25 years old programmer in a country similar to spain will get 1100€ per month.
A 56 yo will probably expect much more, and companies won't be willing to... I mean, they are just evil.
Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
No! - You likely won't, because of Spolsky [1] And... your parent commenter is right: "When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.", jeresig [2] [1] The development abstraction layer ( http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/DevelopmentAbstractio... ) [2] John Resig on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/jeresig/status/33968704983138304 )
At least you should try. Maybe start small (and stay small..), there is always some path to escape from cubicle nation.. ;) As for "github is your CV" hype: http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-an... https://blog.jcoglan.com/2013/11/15/why-github-is-not-your-c...
On "the ethics of unpaid labor": YOU haven't been to a good university ?
And on "Why github is not your CV": Your animated gif is not advancing the discussion AND nobody said that github=yourCV.
You can bend reality (to your favour) but just not too much!
Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job
#137He's worked as an executive, but never moved onto something more senior like a project manager????
Would not say project manager is more 'senior'.
Over here, on most graduate schemes you can straight in as developer, consultant, project manager depending on what you chose. You usually start of as assistant project manager though.
It's a separate career path, not a senior role.
Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job
#138"Spain" seems like the magic phrase here. Unemployment in Spain is 24.5% right now. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... Meanwhile unemployment in the UK is 6.2% right now. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... I suggest looking for a job in London. A lot of tech companies are hiring there.
I'm working as a SW Engineer in Spain. None of my acquaintances in the sector (with relevant experience) have any problems in finding a job.
Even people that got laid off were able to secure a new position in a relatively short time.
My guess that the problem is more related to prejudices about his age, as the op says.
I have a co-worker that is 50+ years old and entered the company a couple of years ago. He is a brilliant engineer and an incredibly nice guy.
Still, my boss had to fight with HR in order for them to hire him, since they considered him "too old" to still be a developer.
Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job
#139I don't understand the reluctance of the industry to hire old people. I am young, and I love working with old people. They know their craft so well, they have so much experience, they have seen everything; they do stuff.
For comparison, I don't like working with young people. Always excited about new technologies, but they usually have no experience in anything and manage to delay every project and make a mess out of it. And there's also the meta-activities associated with young age. We don't just work, but we do all kind of meaningless forced social crap and boast about life and show our gadgets.
With older people, it's much more professional. It's just professional work, which gets done, and doesn't expand into our private lives.
Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job
#140"Spain" seems like the magic phrase here. Unemployment in Spain is 24.5% right now. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... Meanwhile unemployment in the UK is 6.2% right now. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... I suggest looking for a job in London. A lot of tech companies are hiring there.
This. Our UK office has hired and relocated two developers from Spain over the past year or so. EU employment law makes it easy to move to a new country and work there and low-cost flights make it cheap to visit home.
Many Spanish young developer do this because salaries are substantially higher in UK, and an experience in an English speaking country is highly valued by companies in Spain (if they ever plan to come back), and of course for the experience itself.
I have at least three ex coworkers that moved to UK for these reasons, even if at the time they were (more or less) happily employed in Spain.