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My dad did similar, after going back to school in his mid 50s and getting a CS/cybersecurity degree, he tried the engineering side for a bit but ultimately went into technical recruiting for a big enterprise, which is a six figure position.
Regarding programming, it depends if he just wants to work or work to earn money.
If the former, he could look at OSS projects that interest him, there are so many! He could make meaningful contributions (for the project and for him)!
If the latter, he can definitely give it a go but maybe not get his hopes up too much. He could start his own startup/blog/company though which might not be a bad alternative to paid work.
Also he could look at the no-code tools which would allow him to build stuff quicker than learning to program. It would probably be a step up from Excel already and he could see if he likes it and wants to dive deeper (some contractors are specialized in building stuff on top of no-code tools)
Anyhow, good on him to want a career change at 60+, I wish him all the best!
I am almost his age and despite decades of professional experience I am unable to get a job. Of course, its likely that I'm doing something else wrong as well.
Also, I wonder you should create your own 'Ask HN' to uncover whether your approach to job finding may have flaws, since there are many older IT workers out there who are finding work.
My grandpa learned programming, (BASIC, on a TRS 80) when he was 80 and got proficient at it quickly although it was just for fun.
The probability of succeeding as an atypical programmer is directly proportional to your general enthusiasm for programming. Someone who has been constantly hacking and building programs for fun on the side while working a different career, and finally thinks it might be fun to do programming for a living at 61: absolutely. However it sounds like he doesn't have a prior interest in programming. Even for someone in th…
I am almost his age and despite decades of professional experience I am unable to get a job. Of course, its likely that I'm doing something else wrong as well.
Of course it could be your age/something you're doing - I don't want to deny your experience with the situation - but also sometimes things just don't work out.
Programming/software dev is not a field I would choose if I were trying to avoid age discrimination. It can be hard enough for 61 year olds who have been in the field for 35 years and have all that experience to find work.
I'd encourage him to do it as a hobby, but don't get his hopes up about being able to find steady work doing it.