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Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job

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Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job

#151

Post by atlantic »

nlh wrote: post #45
atlantic wrote: post #2

Your father should try to find development work online. Nobody cares about your age, or even your qualifications. It's all about your track record and your capacity to get things done. It takes a while to get your first few gigs, but once you build up a small client base, work goes smoothly.

Have any good resources to suggest? (aside from oDesk, where I sense it's become a race to the bottom price-wise.)

Don't think in terms of offering the lowest price. When you are selling your services online, price also tells the client how much your work is worth. Never compete on price, just ask for whatever you think is fair, given your knowledge and experience. I work on oDesk, and I've always obtained well-paid work. Just a question of patience and establishing a reputation.

Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job

#152

Post by snarfy »

gridspy wrote: post #72
mark_l_watson wrote: post #67

I don't know if his will help: I am 63, and I realize that I might not be as effective as I once was. What I do is offer a really low rate for telecommuting from home, and a much larger rate when working on site. So, for the last many years, I work cheaply from home and occasionally work on site (most recently at Google) for a much better consulting rate. I don't know if your father has the financial flexibility to f…

Don't undersell your experience. You might not realise it, but occasionally an insight to use a particular approach might shave days to weeks off the development timescale. It's not all about how fast you can hammer out bits and bytes.

"Weeks of programming can save hours of planning."

This is where experience really counts. Younger developers who don't know any better will invent another logging framework, I guarantee it.

Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job

#154

Post by penguat »

GrahamGRG wrote: post #101
mark_l_watson wrote: post #67

I don't know if his will help: I am 63, and I realize that I might not be as effective as I once was. What I do is offer a really low rate for telecommuting from home, and a much larger rate when working on site. So, for the last many years, I work cheaply from home and occasionally work on site (most recently at Google) for a much better consulting rate. I don't know if your father has the financial flexibility to f…

With age you can become more effective! As a 64 year old Developer I tell clients that my USP is 'grey hair'. Younger developers may produce slicker code and better SQL structures - but having run businesses I can look at the requirements from a Directors/Owners point of view and guide them on how to get the most benefit for their organisation from the technology.

Not to mention avoiding organizational problems that younger developers will blithely lead them into?

Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job

#155

Post by collyw »

humanrebar wrote: post #109
MicroBerto wrote: post #78

This is crazy. Were I hiring, I'd kill to have someone that experienced and with likely far fewer "life liabilities" (I'm doubting he's going to start having babies or go absolutely insane over some girl he can't get out of his mind... or disappear playing video games for two weeks straight) Have him keep at it. Someone will appreciate what he's got.

Your intention is probably admirable (reassuring someone about a rough situation), but your list of life liabilities basically appeal to other prejudices based on age, gender, and possibly relationship status. I'm not particularly impressed by this logic.

Its reality though.

The age group of my current workplace probably averages early 30's, and we have a lot of people taking time off to have babies. I seem to be the only person that does any work a lot of the time.

Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job

#156

Post by csbrooks »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #138
lacker wrote: post #86

"Spain" seems like the magic phrase here. Unemployment in Spain is 24.5% right now. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... Meanwhile unemployment in the UK is 6.2% right now. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... I suggest looking for a job in London. A lot of tech companies are hiring there.

I'm working as a SW Engineer in Spain. None of my acquaintances in the sector (with relevant experience) have any problems in finding a job. Even people that got laid off were able to secure a new position in a relatively short time. My guess that the problem is more related to prejudices about his age, as the op says. I have a co-worker that is 50+ years old and entered the company a couple of years ago. He is a bri…

Fight with HR to hire him: Is age discrimination not illegal in Spain?

Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job

#158

Post by collyw »

GrahamGRG wrote: post #101
mark_l_watson wrote: post #67

I don't know if his will help: I am 63, and I realize that I might not be as effective as I once was. What I do is offer a really low rate for telecommuting from home, and a much larger rate when working on site. So, for the last many years, I work cheaply from home and occasionally work on site (most recently at Google) for a much better consulting rate. I don't know if your father has the financial flexibility to f…

With age you can become more effective! As a 64 year old Developer I tell clients that my USP is 'grey hair'. Younger developers may produce slicker code and better SQL structures - but having run businesses I can look at the requirements from a Directors/Owners point of view and guide them on how to get the most benefit for their organisation from the technology.

Youngsters these days can't do SQL. Its all MongoDB and Node.

Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job

#159

Post by collyw »

atlantic wrote: post #151
nlh wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have any good resources to suggest? (aside from oDesk, where I sense it's become a race to the bottom price-wise.)

Don't think in terms of offering the lowest price. When you are selling your services online, price also tells the client how much your work is worth. Never compete on price, just ask for whatever you think is fair, given your knowledge and experience. I work on oDesk, and I've always obtained well-paid work. Just a question of patience and establishing a reputation.

Getting a reputation would seem to invove doing at least a few projects at a crappy rate from what I gather.

Re: Ask HN: My 56-year-old father is a developer having a tough time finding a job

#160

Post by dragonbonheur »

with his experience, he should set up a virtual classroom through Hangouts or Skype and make enough of a living short term tutoring people who want to learn how to code fast. Maybe he would not be able to offer certification and diplomas but there is enough interest in learning programming internationally that it may work.
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