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Ask HN: How can an older worker going back to CS after a break find a position?

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Re: Ask HN: How can an older worker going back to CS after a break find a position?

#31

Post by nitwit005 »

michaelrpeskin wrote: post #4

In this case her Army experience is going to be the thing to focus on. She could look for small government contractors who need tech work (because they’re government, the tech lags cutting edge which is good for her) and subject matter expert work. If she can do both it’s a big win.

I'd agree, but for reason that some HR organizations are set up to hire military veterans.

You can do a Google search for "companies hiring ex military", and Google will pop up a job search based on military occupation codes. Or you can look around websites dedicated to it.

Re: Ask HN: How can an older worker going back to CS after a break find a position?

#32

Post by Clewza313 »

nateinaction wrote: post #25

I’m not sure how helpful this is but I worked Tech Support before applying to be a developer. If she wants good hands on training in sysadmin and programming there are support jobs (especially at startups) that are terrific for launching (or relaunching) a dev career.

Tech support jobs are good for bootstrapping when you don't have dev or sysadmin experience. For the OP's friend, though, who has programming experience, this would likely be an unnecessary detour.

Re: Ask HN: How can an older worker going back to CS after a break find a position?

#33

Post by Clewza313 »

entangledqubit wrote: post #23

IIRC, Google had a program that originally targeted this demographic and has since broadened their scope. If the acquaintance talks to a recruiter there, ask about "engineering residency".

This targets "early-career" folks: https://careers.google.com/programs/eng-res/

Re: Ask HN: How can an older worker going back to CS after a break find a position?

#34

Post by andai »

lhorie wrote: post #5

Don't want to sound negative, but there needs to be at least some value proposition. An employer isn't going to be super impressed if the pitch is "I'd like flex hours, training, open to anything, gimme gimme gimme". Everyone is "willing to learn"; the difference is who talks the talk and who walks the walk. She needs to have some sort of target role and be at least able to demonstrate passing familiarity with some p…

My friend's father works with COBOL. Apparently it's quite lucrative. It isn't used much, but it's also hard to hire people for those jobs so they tend to be well paid.

Re: Ask HN: How can an older worker going back to CS after a break find a position?

#35

Post by lhorie »

andai wrote: post #34
lhorie wrote: post #5

Don't want to sound negative, but there needs to be at least some value proposition. An employer isn't going to be super impressed if the pitch is "I'd like flex hours, training, open to anything, gimme gimme gimme". Everyone is "willing to learn"; the difference is who talks the talk and who walks the walk. She needs to have some sort of target role and be at least able to demonstrate passing familiarity with some p…

My friend's father works with COBOL. Apparently it's quite lucrative. It isn't used much, but it's also hard to hire people for those jobs so they tend to be well paid.

Yeah, I read about some roles paying upwards of $200k, but I think they were in California (OP is asking about NY, which I don't know much about)

Re: Ask HN: How can an older worker going back to CS after a break find a position?

#36

Post by bobthepanda »

nitwit005 wrote: post #31
michaelrpeskin wrote: post #4

In this case her Army experience is going to be the thing to focus on. She could look for small government contractors who need tech work (because they’re government, the tech lags cutting edge which is good for her) and subject matter expert work. If she can do both it’s a big win.

I'd agree, but for reason that some HR organizations are set up to hire military veterans. You can do a Google search for "companies hiring ex military", and Google will pop up a job search based on military occupation codes. Or you can look around websites dedicated to it.

IIRC this is usually some condition of applying for federal contracts, and federal spending is no drop in the bucket.

Re: Ask HN: How can an older worker going back to CS after a break find a position?

#37

Post by zentiggr »

FWIW, I went from building single board computer and learning COBOL in high school, to lots of personal / freelance projects, to lots of menial jobs, to the Navy, to C/C++ programming in 2000-2007, to tier 2 tech support until about two years ago, and I'm now working for a DoD contractor supporting a legacy Java app and learning C# as the language of the rewrite.

53 now. It's been a weird ride, my own faults contributed a lot to not progressing anywhere near as fast as others that I feel I could code as well as... but I'm having fun with this and if life turns out that way this job will be a good solid stepping stone to any other Sr Engineer position.

Re: Ask HN: How can an older worker going back to CS after a break find a position?

#38

Post by jdlshore »

dham wrote: post #6

Not to ask the obvious but she took 20 years off to raise her kids and now wants to be home for her kids? How much longer will her kids be at home? That being said, coding is coding. Just needs to do a sample project.

Kids typically leave home at 18 or 19 years old, and there tends to be a 2-5 year gap between children. Someone who left the workforce 20 years ago could have a 19 year old in their first year of college, a 16-year old in high school, and a 12-year old in middle school.

Teenagers need parental attention just as much as younger children—more, in some ways, because while they don't need constant attention like young children do, when they do need help, it tends to be more serious.

Re: Ask HN: How can an older worker going back to CS after a break find a position?

#39

Post by jhawk28 »

michaelrpeskin wrote: post #4

In this case her Army experience is going to be the thing to focus on. She could look for small government contractors who need tech work (because they’re government, the tech lags cutting edge which is good for her) and subject matter expert work. If she can do both it’s a big win.

Big government contractors are more than willing to hire also.

Re: Ask HN: How can an older worker going back to CS after a break find a position?

#40

Post by topkai22 »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #29
rsj_hn wrote: post #10

I have interviewed and hired older workers and have worked with older workers in all of my previous companies. Age discriminatin is a real thing, and yet someone hired those older workers, so it's not an insurmountable thing. You often hear things like "well, you need to keep constantly learning new things", which is true, but older workers don't need to pretend to be younger workers as they have their own advantages…

> Do not hop from job to job I disagree 100%. If you take a job and it's not a good fit, leave. You're not doing anyone any favors by sticking around & being miserable. Don't take a job w/ the intention of leaving, but certainly don't stay only because you feel guilty. The benefit of leaving a job you don't like if you relieve the company of retaining a bad fit, and you reward the new company w/ the experience you go…

You shouldn’t be afraid to leave a bad job, but if you are in your 3rd job in as many years and are thinking of leaving the problem starts looking like you rather than your employers.

I can buy I’d you move once or twice quickly, if are clearly showing progression, or have some explanation (those were contracts, my source kept getting relocated, etc) but I agree with GP that regularly flitting between companies/positions in less than a year isn’t great look without an alternative narrative.

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