Ask HN: Where to Work After 40? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?

#51

Post by willismichael » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 1:57 PM UTC

dartos wrote: post #33

weatherlite wrote: post #29

> Google is the place you go to retire after 40 I don't get this honestly. About 1%-2% of devs will manage to work at a FAANG, that's it (correct me if I'm wrong). The rest of us will grind code somewhere else. I'm 40 and I'm staying put in the startup I'm currently working for because I like the people and it's not a sweatshop. Eventually I'll find something else. I'm more worried about A.I making me irrelevant than…

Is grinding code at a FAANG really that different?

I think that the intention of the FAANG comment is that statistically speaking there is only so much room for people at those companies. Not everybody is going to land there.

Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?

#52

Post by fresh_geezer » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 1:58 PM UTC

I'm in the same situation, 41 and just folded a startup in November after six years and looking at what to do next.

My concern is if I jump on another startup and it doesn't go well, I will have even less chance to land a decent gig afterwards. Who knows what AI capabilities will be five years down the line?

I have some friends that work in government that could help me get a job there where you are basically unfireable and even get a pension, but the work is not very technically interesting. They all say it's soul-killing but stay for the stability and benefits.

Is a large tech company a better bet? I consider my self a very good developer but not sure if I can pass through all filters and the leetcode gauntlet either.

Deciding which road to go down is giving me more anxiety than ever before.

Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?

#53

Post by Apreche » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 2:03 PM UTC

Am I the only one still getting e-mails from recruiters all the time? My LinkedIn profile indicates I’m not looking for new work, and yet they still come to me in both personal and my work inbox. If I change that setting on my profile I know I’ll be absolutely inundated by them. Most of them I’m sure are non-starters, but occasionally there is one that is promising.

Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?

#54

Post by neverartful » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 2:07 PM UTC

I'm in my upper 50s and I resigned from the corporate employee world in spring of 2024. I've been working my handyman business since then. I don't have enough business to keep my schedule full (and not enough income), so I decided to get back into tech on my own terms. I've started developing a software product that I hope to launch soon. No idea how any of this will turn out, but it's the best plan I've got at the moment.

Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?

#55

Post by angoragoats » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

Suzuran wrote: post #42

It is my understanding that if you are older than 35, have no C-suite social connections, and you lose your tech job, your tech career is over. Your only opportunities will be entry-level since none of your original education will pass automated filters, no entry-level hire is paid anything above subsistence wages, and at 35+ your rapidly-increasing medical issues (the piper's due for 20+ years of treating your body…

Your understanding is wrong, though I do generally share your concern about the state of healthcare in the USA.

Reposting something I wrote elsewhere in this thread:

> I'm in my 40s and I (and the entire team I worked on) was laid off in 2022. After taking a week or so to relax, I was able to find a new position within about 4 weeks, which I'm still at now, and has turned out to be one of the better roles I've had in my career.

I'll add that I had zero connections in my personal network (C-suite or otherwise) relating to the new role I took in 2022. I found the posting on a job site and applied, went through their standard interview process, and they made me an offer.

Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?

#56

Post by prettyblocks » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 2:15 PM UTC

plagiarist wrote: post #48

Suzuran wrote: post #42

It is my understanding that if you are older than 35, have no C-suite social connections, and you lose your tech job, your tech career is over. Your only opportunities will be entry-level since none of your original education will pass automated filters, no entry-level hire is paid anything above subsistence wages, and at 35+ your rapidly-increasing medical issues (the piper's due for 20+ years of treating your body…

I hope you're doing okay because this is pretty bleak. I also have a bleak outlook on the future, the healthcare costs in particular. I don't want to spend years building up money and then have cancer wipe it all out in just months. I haven't (yet) added "tech career ends at 40" to my set of looming tragedies. I'm currently more worried for people starting their careers, they seem replaceable by LLMs. Perhaps I have…

Lots of doomers on here, yet somehow I keep meeting highly technical people still working on interesting things that are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and older. I think HN probably skews really young and tech tends to fetishize youth, so this is the mentality you get.

Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?

#57

Post by smithbits » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 2:16 PM UTC

For me it was management. I was an SDE who started caring more about the users of my code than about the code itself and that led me to a team lead position and that led to management at a small company and that led to management at a big company. I found I really like mentoring junior engineers and I'm a good sounding board for senior engineers. I got to spend a lot of time saying variations on "Hey, let's not do that thing that won't work, let's do something easier that will work." I also focused a lot more on my career and making money rather than most of my life which I spent focused on cool tech and that got me to a place where I could retire easily when the time was right. Now I code for fun and I still chat with former colleagues from time to time and get to say things like "Yeah, but you know option B is the right choice so go do that." None of it was clearly planned, all of it was stressful but in the end it sort of worked out.

Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?

#58

Post by eludwig » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 2:17 PM UTC

willismichael wrote: post #38

eludwig wrote: post #28

It really depends on the type of environment and work you are looking to do. At 59, I applied for a “full stack” (ugh..not my favorite term) job at a large Asia-based multi-national corporation working on support software (web apps) for their entertainment appliance platform. I got the job after a blessedly short interview process that did not involve any leet coding problems. I am on an amazing senior team at a comp…

> fun, challenging, predictable, boring All of these at the same time? Or sometimes one, sometimes another?

Usually one at a time, but sometimes they combine. Also, parts of the same task can be one or the other, so you may have to switch from fun (coding something new) to boring/annoying (writing unit tests) in a single day.

Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?

#59

Post by 9rx » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

jebarker wrote: post #25

dddddaviddddd wrote: post #16

This should be about what you want in your career now, and not about your age. Once you can clearly answer the first question, it will be easy to find the right place.

You're making an assumption that OP has the financial security to follow their desires rather than needs.

Neither desire or need was mentioned, only want, which addresses both desire and need. If financial security is what the OP wants, the parent comment already has him covered.

Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?

#60

Post by n144q » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 2:20 PM UTC

What do you care about? Money, stableness, scope or opportunities?

I know people who "settle down" in companies with well-known work-life balance (usually develop for B2B products). I know many more people who stayed at the same company and climbed the corporate ladder. I know people who jump to a different, big company for better compensation and work in different areas. I also know a small fraction of people who create their own startups -- yes, in their 40s.

It all comes to -- what do you want?