Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 242 posts

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#41

Post by nextstep40plus »

meritt wrote: post #12

> Do you suggest I go solo and take on development jobs myself Yes. You don't want to help juniors. You don't want to waste your time in meetings explaining things to "incompetent" managers. You only want to work in a private office on your own schedule. You don't want to be stressed or asked to put in extra hours. You only want to work on "hard technical problems" that you find interesting.

You're getting really close to what I want. I just don't find it easy to get this kind of job. Do you have experience working for your self helping small clients with fun work and your description?

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#42

Post by nextstep40plus »

eranation wrote: post #11

Did you consider pre-sales/professional services consulting. Most folks who do this that I know are in their forties. Good pay, interesting work, and relies a lot on soft skills

Yes I consider that but I'm an introvert so developer jobs are more suitable.

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#43

Post by nextstep40plus »

maxxxxx wrote: post #5

There are a lot of small, specialized, stable companies that fit your description. The challenge will be to find these companies and get hired. Usually their turnover is pretty low and they don't grow much so there is not much hiring going on.

This is so true and I will not jump ship until this kind of job shows up. I suffer from IBS which might be stress induced so a changed work lifestyle is not just a luxury request for me. I want to focus and work in a relaxed customer focused remote position.

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#44

Post by illumin8 »

jvagner wrote: post #19

The bigger companies I worked for in the Bay Area were more like this than the smaller. As a late 40-something who started his own marketing & technology agency to get out of the "working for others and their bad boss habits" conundrum, the one thing I can strongly recommend is that you have to interview companies as carefully as they interview you. I've directly hired more than 100 people in my career, and it was al…

I'm a 44 year old senior engineer, and the one thing I've noticed is that bad managers are almost universal in technology. I've had about 20 managers in my career and I can count only 2-3 that I would consider great managers, the rest ranged from mediocre to incredibly incompetent.

This, to me, is the #1 reason I gain much more satisfaction from doing consulting work on the side: I'm my own manager, and I can make decisions that are right for the customer, instead of getting told by an incompetent manager that he knows better than I do, which leads to bad outcomes for myself and the client.

I'm much more selective as well, and no longer tolerate bad leadership. This is the biggest challenge with finding the right job. I've discovered that almost 90% of your job satisfaction depends on having a good manager. You can actually enjoy a job that doesn't pay as well, and doesn't have as much meaningful work, if you have a great manager, because they can actually help you to make the work meaningful in the right context.

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#45

Post by vaibkv »

Sure, we have a team just like you mentioned. Quiet, no stupid gossips, etc. Focused on work and individual contribution. Very less to almost no meetings for developers. We always for look for creatively solving the problems, rather than preferring manual labor intensive solutions. And the team is small. But it's not Android related. We are big data development and mostly use Scala. Email me at panghal.vaibhav@gmail.com if you want to apply. We are Austin, texas based and domain is healthcare.

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#46

Post by ethagnawl »

gallerdude wrote: post #28
jvagner wrote: post #19

The bigger companies I worked for in the Bay Area were more like this than the smaller. As a late 40-something who started his own marketing & technology agency to get out of the "working for others and their bad boss habits" conundrum, the one thing I can strongly recommend is that you have to interview companies as carefully as they interview you. I've directly hired more than 100 people in my career, and it was al…

I've always noticed this as a weird development. In an ideal capitalist scenario, people will wind up with the job that suits their preferences to the degree that they have enough career capital to be picky. But in reality, people just kind of fall into whatever job they can get and stay longer than seems rational. As a soon-to-graduate student, I hope I can hold onto the idea that the path of least resistance has a…

> stay longer than seems rational

People wind up _staying longer than seems rational_ because they develop habits (schedule, commute, favorite lunch spot, etc.), develop relationships with their colleagues, feel a sense of loyalty to the company/their superiors/their team/etc. (this is often misplaced, but irrationality rears its head yet again), don't want to go through the hassle of interviewing, don't want to have to change doctors if/when their insurer changes, etc., etc.

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#48

Post by jonathankoren »

Not finding an open office plan is going to be tricky. That’s been the fashion for well over a decades now. Buy headphones.

Complaining about colleagues and managers, is well... a bit sad. You’ve been around the block a few times. You know how people act. There’s no perfect place, you just decide what pile of problems you want to deal with.

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#49

Post by dev1n »

nextstep40plus wrote: post #43
maxxxxx wrote: post #5

There are a lot of small, specialized, stable companies that fit your description. The challenge will be to find these companies and get hired. Usually their turnover is pretty low and they don't grow much so there is not much hiring going on.

This is so true and I will not jump ship until this kind of job shows up. I suffer from IBS which might be stress induced so a changed work lifestyle is not just a luxury request for me. I want to focus and work in a relaxed customer focused remote position.

Related to IBS, IBD, etc., I've found this subreddit [1] to be super helpful (not for me but for someone I know)

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrohnsDisease/

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#50

Post by ilaksh »

nextstep40plus wrote: post #41
meritt wrote: post #12

> Do you suggest I go solo and take on development jobs myself Yes. You don't want to help juniors. You don't want to waste your time in meetings explaining things to "incompetent" managers. You only want to work in a private office on your own schedule. You don't want to be stressed or asked to put in extra hours. You only want to work on "hard technical problems" that you find interesting.

You're getting really close to what I want. I just don't find it easy to get this kind of job. Do you have experience working for your self helping small clients with fun work and your description?

I have experience with something like that. I'm 40 years old and been working remotely most of the time for maybe ten years.

I mostly find good projects online. Building prototypes helps get contracts.

However, the major problem I have had is finding those awesome low stress remote jobs or gigs that _also_ have "US market rate" pay and that can sustain it. I have certainly been successful in that to some degree but my current startup hasn't had funding. And rather than give up when he started running out of money, I cut my rate.

So in order to save money I recently moved to a beach area in Mexico. It has an amazing view of the ocean and is affordable.

However there are downsides. I have discovered new types of diarrhea that I did not know existed. The water was shut off for five days. And yesterday the ATM had an error and just decided it couldn't give me my $170 even though my account was debited.

So today I am trying to find an inexpensive place to live in the US again.

Post reply on HN