Job market for a 30+ person learning to code?

I became a startup founder when I lost a position at a startup because they hired a younger (cheaper) person. I have 20 years of experience with several patents, etc. Literally we were expanding the team, I interviewed the person, he got the new position, then I was let go. Totally age discrimination, but I couldn't prove it, of course.

Even 20 years ago, Microsoft, et. al. focused on hiring kids right out of college... they're young, easy to mold, cheap, etc.

I won't say the job market is closed to you, but I think that the best power you always have comes form making something yourself. IF you have trouble getting a job in this field, building your own startup -- and I mean, a real business that sells someting to people, SaaS, or whatever business model works for you- something like patio11 -- would be making your own job.

These days we don't need the capital concentration that companies represent, you no longer need to do time as an employee. You can make your own job.

When people are looking for older developers they are often looking for experience - for someone who have enough technical understand to command respect and lead a team of less experienced developers.

I do not believe that this first group would be the right fit for you.

However, there are some developers that are worth their weight in gold. In my opinion, age does not even come up in such discussions. These people are usually very good at one thing.

The thing that you want to be good at could be something current like Node.js (which will eventually become an old technology), or it could be something timeless - like 'shipping'.

My suggestion, try to be the person who has shipped multiple products. Think of the smallest products that you can build, then try to remove 99% of the features, while still keep them useful, and build them.

If you have a couple such products under your belt, I doubt that you will ever be job hunting.

I'm in exactly in the same boat as you but I'm focused on javascript and HTML-5 technologies. I started off doing 5 months of C++ and realized that my ability to make anything tangible (and more importantly enjoyable) with it probably wouldn't come to fruition for at least half a decade. I decided to focus on HTML-5 technologies and a niche focus on audio based applications as a catalyst to learn and have fun. I will tell you this, the few opportunities that I've had have come out of having little projects visible online for people to "see". Having "real" projects up and viewable is an absolutely huge differentiator, and here's the kicker, they don't have to be that "good", they just have to demonstrate competence and ability. Right now I'm working with an entrepreneur and former coo of one of the biggest tech companies in the world, and all I did was respond to a craigslist ad. I unabashedly told him I was new at this and older. We talked for an hour , laughed alot and the exact same thing happened with the phone conversation I had with his tech lead who's been doing back end work for 30+ years. If you're proactive and have the coding "brain disease" others who are infected will more than likely take to you. For the record I've only been doing it for a year/year-and-a half (not including the C++ stuff). But I also want to emphasize one thing , I've never taken a class and am self-taught. I want to do this and I personally enjoy it.

Age doesn't matter. If you are smart, work hard at getting better all the time, and stay up to date on the latest tech/langs/methods you will be hirable.

All but one of the best devs I've worked with are older than 37.

Though the ramen/YC/bootstrap companies get most of the press there are so so so many jobs at larger, more established companies with great benefits and work/life balance where you get to solve hard problems. They are actually pretty fun places.

Seriously, don't think about this again. You are wasting time you could be spending learning a great design pattern, or making your own Android app or whatever.