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Ask HN: Starting a Career in Programming at 61?

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Re: Ask HN: Starting a Career in Programming at 61?

#71

Post by jacobyoder »

mywittyname wrote: post #47
lbriner wrote: post #16

It's great that he is still up for working! At risk of getting flamed... It's tricky I think because even if he can learn to program to a suitable standard, I think the reality will be that people will see him as a "junior" but you will have a different working dynamic since it is easier for an e.g. 30 year old to coach someone who is younger if they are doing it wrong but could be tricky trying to coach an older per…

> could be tricky trying to coach an older person unless they have genuine humility Bingo. This goes for young people too, but is more important as we age or rise through the ranks. Accepting advice from an "inferior" with grace, humility, and thankfulness is key to gaining respect and learning at the rate necessary to stay on top of a field. I've taught things to people who were a million times more intelligent than…

Accepting some advice or input on an individual item vs having someone 'manage' you are different beasts. As I come up to 50, and work with a group of folks ranging from 28-32... the age and experience gaps are highlighted often. I'm happy to contribute, and I do occasionally learn something from someone (often some specific tool I'd not seen before). But there's a resistance to 'learn' from me. We're 'equalized' on a 'team', and "we should all learn from each other!" is a common mantra.

I've done many of these projects before, and will raise issues. "Let's just see how it goes!" and "well... we might make some mistakes, but that's how we learn!" And I'll say "but I thought we were supposed to be learning from each other?" "yes!". "Why does no one ever want to learn from me?" I've done XYZ longer than these colleagues have been adults, but I'm never asked for stuff, people avoid my input, etc.

What's more interesting is that a couple of folks on the client side of the equation (contracting house) have been added who are older, and ... they're quite open to picking my brain. We mesh quite well, and have pairing sessions and learn from each other (but I'm giving more than taking in those cases). With the younger crew... there's just a real standoffishness, and focus on 'team' and 'learning from each other and our mistakes' but... they're willing to make mistakes (repeatedly) vs taking my input to avoid those mistakes in the first place. The client's new person seems to have picked up on this and is raising some issues.

For a while, I really thought it was something wrong with me, but as I jump around between clients/contracts/etc, it seems to be more age related. The larger the age gap, the less impetus there is to work 'together'. And... I'm trying to think back to when I was 25... how open would I have been to 50 year old colleague's input? If they were 'management', I'd have to. Otherwise... possibly not? Hard to remember that far back, other than that I thought I was invincible :)

Re: Ask HN: Starting a Career in Programming at 61?

#72

Post by Havoc »

>As he grows older, he has noticed it becomes increasingly difficult to find work

Are you sure that is the right causal relationship here? My gut feeling would be that it has at least in part to do with the C* level roles. McD cashier jobs are a dime a dozen and rapidly hire and fire. C* level tends to be slower and more scarce just by nature.

> I think he feels inspired by seeing me thrive as a contractor,

If he is somewhat stable financially he might do better as a finance/PM/operational consultant. That lets him leverage years of experience as credibility. That will play much better than a 61 y/o with a coding bootcamp or similar.

>He learned to program when he was a student,

My dad was in a similar position - except he was a professional programmer for years. After a long stint in management layer he found he couldn't get back into the tech market. Instead project management type roles went better

Re: Ask HN: Starting a Career in Programming at 61?

#73

Post by agumonkey »

TheRealDevonMcC wrote: post #42

As a 61-year-old with almost 50 years of programming experience who recently got a new job, I can testify how almost no one wants to hear from an old person. I program for fun, too, and could be doing that full-time if I weren't working. I'm only employed now because I'm proficient in an older language (APL). Never mind my decades of experience in many other languages and extensive domain knowledge in finance, not th…

I'm in the middle and I wonder how I would react if working with a 60yo buddy. I'm not biased much (I'm cool with people of all background and age when I service computers around my area) and I like esoteric/vintage. Which is funny because I'd probably run to spend time near your desk doing some APL pair programming than hearing the 25yo boast about the latest python release at the coffee machine :)

Re: Ask HN: Starting a Career in Programming at 61?

#75

Post by Clubber »

I would suggest starting in something fairly simple like SQL / Report developer, or perhaps specialize in a particular application like something built for integration. The logic being is you don't have to learn so much to get working. With regular development, you need to know database, back end, front end, networking and all that. With SQL/Report dev, it's really just SQL and whatever report tool is popular.

With a specialized application, it's the same. You just learn the application and don't have to keep up with all the changing fads of regular development.

Once he gets a foot in, he can expand to other things as well.

Best of luck.

Re: Ask HN: Starting a Career in Programming at 61?

#77

Post by mhewett »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #40
lbriner wrote: post #16

It's great that he is still up for working! At risk of getting flamed... It's tricky I think because even if he can learn to program to a suitable standard, I think the reality will be that people will see him as a "junior" but you will have a different working dynamic since it is easier for an e.g. 30 year old to coach someone who is younger if they are doing it wrong but could be tricky trying to coach an older per…

Also thinking out loud... I started teaching my self to code w/ the intent of getting a coding job at age 38, and I got my first coding job at 40. Breaking into coding was brutal for me. I couldn't get taken seriously as a junior. I just had to keep grinding until I was good enough that someone would take me seriously as a mid-level. The way I did that was go super deep on learning Ruby super well. Then I found a com…

It would take him 5-10 years to become a competent programmer. Does he want to finally achieve stability in his career at age 70?

I would suggest that he become a business advisor to small companies. His expertise is invaluable and he could be useful immediately.

Re: Ask HN: Starting a Career in Programming at 61?

#78

Post by nngrey »

At age 50, after a successful non-technical career, I took a few college classes and then went to a bootcamp. The bootcamp got me an internship (a bit humbling but it got me in the door) and I have been programming ever since. I will turn 60 this year and I am pretty sure I could do the same thing today that I did 10ish years ago. It was not always easy and I probably got a few lucky breaks along the way, but I would not discourage anyone from exploring the possibility.

Re: Ask HN: Starting a Career in Programming at 61?

#79

Post by rookie_knight »

lbriner wrote: post #16

It's great that he is still up for working! At risk of getting flamed... It's tricky I think because even if he can learn to program to a suitable standard, I think the reality will be that people will see him as a "junior" but you will have a different working dynamic since it is easier for an e.g. 30 year old to coach someone who is younger if they are doing it wrong but could be tricky trying to coach an older per…

The flip side of this is true as well. Ageism is a real problem in our industry. People are just more patient with young college grads and more willing to help them out. As somebody who transitioned to SWE in a big company(FAANG) after a decade of wireless communications research, I found out despite all the processes and supposed practices a big company has in place to onboard people from different backgrounds, you need to rely a lot on your teammates for the tribal knowledge to get anything significant done. And people are far less helpful than they think they are. Often they assume things because in their minds X years of experience means you should already know this stuff. Almost all of it is non technical and specific to the company so you won’t have a way of knowing it beforehand but that consideration is readily given to a fresh grad than an experienced person. Also a lot of the times tenured people will feel insecure/threatened about/by someone else joining at the same level and would constantly point out their shortcomings in order to maintain their place in the hierarchy. Was oblivious to this until I was managing people and saw newer experienced people joining the team face this. Had to coach people to stop them doing this unconsciously.
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