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Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now?

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Re: Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now?

#51
An honest personal assessment: the bird has flown on your days as a pure coder. Even if you don't particularly want a management position, focus on that aspect of your career. It's going to be hard to convince a prospective company that you're worth the money as a developer if all you have to offer is 12 years of ASP.

I ran the software dept for a small consulting company and yes you'd probably never get a call back from me if you were applying purely as a developer. While we have hired late 30-somethings developers, it's usually because they offer some fairly unique tech skillset (i.e., a few years of production-quality FPGA experience, not a couple months dorking around with "whatever hot new technology" on github--that's something I look for in a fresh-grad). So I think for a purely tech role, beyond getting another job at a similar company doing similar tech, you're a long shot at best.

But beyond that, the one thing that would case me to look at your resume is if you were wanting a leadership position and had the corresponding soft skills and experience. It sounds like you do, so highlight that, and work on it. The advantage there is that management skills: talking to stakeholders, setting expectations and timeframes, finalizing deliverables...are all applicable no matter what the underlying technology. So there's no reason you'd have to limit yourself to ASP management roles.

My previous company had lots of young developers doing engineering with lots of new technologies, but they'd have never delivered a thing had they not been guided by some experienced devs who actually spent most of their time in Excel (or trello or Jira or whatever we happened to be using to manage the particular project).

Re: Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now?

#52
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got to watch out for the HR filter. Often at bigger companies, hiring managers don't even see a resume unless it meets the criteria they specify on it. That means people like you with related, but different experience get cut out when you could still be a good match. Broken system.

Any advice for how to get past that filter? Things to put on the resume, specific things to say in a cover letter, etc.?

Networking helps here. I've never gotten a job where my resume had to be filtered through HR first. You need to know someone who is or knows a hiring manager. Get out there and make friends!

Re: Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now?

#53

I have interviewed a fair number of people for different positions over the years, here's my 2p: 1. I would look at your CV and see your narrow focus but I would still be wondering based on your experiences whether you could move to the technology we use. 2. Good/great developers seem to be in short supply, if you can prove your ability to understand code, build robust things and ship you would be just fine in my int…

The good ones will learn whatever tools are necessary for the job. The good companies know this.

The HR barrier is admittedly present in a lot of places… the best advice there, probably, is to try to network a little to get in through the side door.

Re: Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now?

#54
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly? From what I've seen, the main skill would be, don't go into a DBA role. DBAs are operational/administrative roles by nature (maintain the DB, account/security stuff, respond to server/DB issues). What, I think, you're getting at is more architecture and system building. Having the ability to consider DB bottlenecks and interactions along with a strong foundation in application programming will provide a gre…

Years ago I worked at a financial that had a large tech staff but we only had one full-time DBA. He was a really young, sharp guy and he got to work with basically every department in the company helping them out with stuff. He had his own office, nobody ever disturbed him, he only had to report to one person (rarely) and he got paid fantastically well. Looked like a sweet deal.

Yeah, it can also be an always on-call group with limited options supporting software written by dozens/hundreds of different devs with little to no DB knowledge but is crucial to running the company.

Re: Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now?

#55
post #51

An honest personal assessment: the bird has flown on your days as a pure coder. Even if you don't particularly want a management position, focus on that aspect of your career. It's going to be hard to convince a prospective company that you're worth the money as a developer if all you have to offer is 12 years of ASP. I ran the software dept for a small consulting company and yes you'd probably never get a call back…

Thanks for the honest assessment. It's definitely something I need to consider.

Re: Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now?

#56
post #53

I have interviewed a fair number of people for different positions over the years, here's my 2p: 1. I would look at your CV and see your narrow focus but I would still be wondering based on your experiences whether you could move to the technology we use. 2. Good/great developers seem to be in short supply, if you can prove your ability to understand code, build robust things and ship you would be just fine in my int…

The good ones will learn whatever tools are necessary for the job. The good companies know this. The HR barrier is admittedly present in a lot of places… the best advice there, probably, is to try to network a little to get in through the side door.

That HR barrier is really difficult to understand. There are so many libraries and frameworks these days, and companies are looking for a person with particular experience in a particular combination of things. It doesn't seem to matter if you know similar tech and are willing to switch over.

I wonder how much good talent is never even looked at because of this.

Re: Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now?

#57
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got to watch out for the HR filter. Often at bigger companies, hiring managers don't even see a resume unless it meets the criteria they specify on it. That means people like you with related, but different experience get cut out when you could still be a good match. Broken system.

Any advice for how to get past that filter? Things to put on the resume, specific things to say in a cover letter, etc.?

echoing what mlitchard said. Networking is a big help. Besides that, look at what is on the job posting. Try to use the same key words in your resume/cover letter. Not sure how well it would work, but addressing differences in the cover letter could work to get it past the HR and into the manger's hands.

Re: Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now?

#58

What I hear is that you have been successful (or think you have been) in quite a few different things which you didn't really want to do. Chances are, you will be successful and unhappy at the next job.

No, I've been happy in my career. I want to find positions that I enjoy again, but it just seems like that sector of the programming world left me behind while I was selling out.

Then consider this: There are women who participated in a Djangogirls workshop and are working as developers one year later.

If total beginners to programming can achieve this, you can learn any new technology in a breeze. You just won't have the certification which no one else in the field has anyway!

Re: Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now?

#59
post #53

I have interviewed a fair number of people for different positions over the years, here's my 2p: 1. I would look at your CV and see your narrow focus but I would still be wondering based on your experiences whether you could move to the technology we use. 2. Good/great developers seem to be in short supply, if you can prove your ability to understand code, build robust things and ship you would be just fine in my int…

The good ones will learn whatever tools are necessary for the job. The good companies know this. The HR barrier is admittedly present in a lot of places… the best advice there, probably, is to try to network a little to get in through the side door.

Assuming HR hasn't boarded up all the side doors.

Re: Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now?

#60
post #51

An honest personal assessment: the bird has flown on your days as a pure coder. Even if you don't particularly want a management position, focus on that aspect of your career. It's going to be hard to convince a prospective company that you're worth the money as a developer if all you have to offer is 12 years of ASP. I ran the software dept for a small consulting company and yes you'd probably never get a call back…

You mention age, but then go on to say skillset. Do you mean to say regardless of skillset you are going to pass on 30-somethings? Now that the computing field is finally aging, there are going to be more and more 30/40/50 somethings pure coders. Passing on them because age alone is a huge mistake in my mind.
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