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Ask HN: Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired

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Re: Ask HN: Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired

#41

Post by tester756 »

icsa wrote: post #8

The churn rate of current software development practice is quite rapid. When you took several years off, you "fell out of the job market". In effect, you need to reboot your skill & tool set to make current. In addition, you must reboot your interviewing skills. I've been a professional software interviewer (600+ interviews) and have seen most very experienced software developers do quite poorly during interviews. Th…

> The interview skills required for FAANG-like companies and startups alike are very different from the skills required to work as a typical software engineer.

What are those start up skills?

Re: Ask HN: Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired

#43

Post by champagnois »

bradlys wrote: post #20

You’ll need to get up to speed with modern interviewing practices. Unless you know someone - people don’t care what you’ve done. They care about how you perform in the interview. True with most of the top paying companies. I’d suggest doing a 100 problems on LC (try the subject study guides first) before interviewing again. Doesn’t sound fun but that’s how it is now. The bar is high for all candidates - at least for…

LC?

Re: Ask HN: Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired

#44

Post by Buttons840 »

nicoburns wrote: post #36

> Since then, and after my skills no doubt became somewhat outdated, it is absolutely impossible to find work. This seems like the obvious problem here. You need to make sure that you have skills that are relevant for the current job market. If you're an experienced developer then it shouldn't take you very long to get up to speed, but you can't expect to just not learn anything new and walk into a job. I would recom…

I agree. As a follow up, the OP might benefit from posting the skills they emphasize on their resume and maybe we can confirm whether or not they are indeed outdated, and make suggestions on what new technologies they can learn.

Re: Ask HN: Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired

#45

Post by cc101 »

I have two suggestions. I'm 75 with 54 years programming experience. I got a job because the employer (a university) couldn't find anyone to do the work at a pathetic salary. That's suggestion number one: find an employer who is desperate. The misconceptions and prejudices of the employment system would prevent my resume-application from ever reaching the person making the hiring decision.

The second suggestion is present yourself as a solution to an employer's diversity issue. You would have to lean very hard on this diversity angle to get past the recruiter and the HR office. Once you reach the actual decision maker switch to the benefits offered by a long and diverse career.

Good luck

Re: Ask HN: Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired

#46

Post by johnea »

therealdavesky I'm over 60, became employed recently for the first time in 11 years. I've been independent 1099 for about 1/2 of my career. My history is mostly in C language embedded systems.

Just keep hammering on indeed, or whatever other site you're applying on.

It took me 6 months to get employed. With many many multi-interview companies not offering in the end.

Just keep at it, you'll find a match...

Re: Ask HN: Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired

#47

Post by ivanhoe »

icsa wrote: post #8

The churn rate of current software development practice is quite rapid. When you took several years off, you "fell out of the job market". In effect, you need to reboot your skill & tool set to make current. In addition, you must reboot your interviewing skills. I've been a professional software interviewer (600+ interviews) and have seen most very experienced software developers do quite poorly during interviews. Th…

> As such, good or great interview skills (i.e. algorithms, data structures, time & space complexity) are a pre-requisite to getting a job.

This is so wrong. Headhunters are acting like typical bureaucrats and instead of adapting their approach to make it better at finding the actual talent (the whole point of their job), they push for developers to fit their stereotype tests better.

Just like back in the school when we had to learn what professors want to see in essays, instead of learning to actually write better...

Re: Ask HN: Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired

#48

Post by smitty1e »

Question to the audience:

Given the prevalence of Stackoverflow, Reddit, &c, and the launch of https://repost.aws , has anyone gotten on there and demonstrated enough technical heft to turn into an interview?

I get the occasional ping on LinkedIn, but haven't really followed up on that.

Answer to the author: You probably know the deal about cleared work as government contractor. Relatively stable gigs, but nearly impossible to stay cutting edge. You may need to take a "murder" job for long enough to kick-start the resume, but you'd have to satisfy yourself as to why you'd eat the indenture.

Re: Ask HN: Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired

#49

Post by kjksf »

bradlys wrote: post #20

You’ll need to get up to speed with modern interviewing practices. Unless you know someone - people don’t care what you’ve done. They care about how you perform in the interview. True with most of the top paying companies. I’d suggest doing a 100 problems on LC (try the subject study guides first) before interviewing again. Doesn’t sound fun but that’s how it is now. The bar is high for all candidates - at least for…

I second that.

LC is https://leetcode.com/

There are other similar websites for practicing interview questions. The important thing is to use at least one of them.

Re: Ask HN: Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired

#50

Post by lnxg33k1 »

I'm not sure what you mean for outdated skills? Where I work we don't usually hire for tech stack or languages, we test more design pattern, principles, architectural knowledge even knowledge about paradigms, which are like not things that change often, I guess you have to know what pattern becomes an antipattern. I think maybe you might have found some javascript developers that to me have always felt very stuck and introvert(?) with their tech stack or last framework hunting, but I think to be able to give you an informed opinion one should know also what kind of knowledge you have and what have you built, and what kind of positions you're applying to
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