I turned 40 last month and spent the past decade working on my own startup that ultimately failed. I'm now trying to figure out the next step. Someone once said to me, Google is the place you go to retire after 40. I've done my time at various startups, and spent some time at Google. As an engineer the landscape of things is always changing and we've now moved from Cloud to AI pretty rapidly. I'm just curious to know what moves people made after 40 and what worked for them.
Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?
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Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?
#2Just apply to any large companies.
Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?
#3After 40, it's musical chairs. The music will stop and there won't be a chair for you.
McKinsey comes in and says "cut staff."
HR comes in, says "cut 5% and replace them with Desi H1-B's."
Your best bet is to take a deep breath and build another start-up.
In the meantime, take any job of any nature.
Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?
#4Just apply to any large companies.
FB gets over 15,000 applications for each posted vacancy.
Your cv is weeded out by an automated system that's difficult to game.
Even if you have a contact at the company, your odds suck.
You are just as likely to win the lottery.
Perhaps buying scratch-off cards isn't such a bad idea.
Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?
#5[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?
#6I’m 50 and the offers stopped coming in 2022
Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?
#7[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?
#8I’m 50 and the offers stopped coming in 2022
Offers stopped coming for a lot of people in 2022.
Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?
#9[flagged]
We need more physicians who earned their place in medical school by gaming the MCAT. Equality has no place in hospitals.
Re: Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?
#10What software communities[1] are you a part of and who are you helping in those communities? Do you contribute there in the form of (code, documentation, blog posts, conference talks, helping juniors, etc)?
At 40 I think you do well to have a decent network in a focused set of communities of people you've mentored, supported, and worked with. IE folks in a specific discipline, project, thing where you might expect there to be community conferences around or other community institutions. You'd be a mainstay there, always looking to help juniors / new people, paying it forward everywhere you can, etc.
Then finding the next job is about those relationships, continuing to help them through the years, etc
Don't focus on "F-You money", focus on an "F-You network" https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2024/05/08/build-an-f-you-netw...
1 - community can mean discord/slack communities, subreddit, projects, on social media, having coffee 1-1 with people, etc etc