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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

#191

Post by illumen »

collyw wrote: post #155
humanrebar wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I bet you pay more tax than them too for the benefit of doing all their work. But the world needs more babies! Um... no it doesn't.

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

#192

Post by mark_l_watson »

e12e wrote: post #69
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…

Are you really less effective ? I would assume that experience would be a big help in making a developer more effective? Or are you saying you may be as effective, but not as able to work the crazy hours that still seem to be far too common in the industry?

This. I am willing to work fewer hours a week now. For most of my career, I set a maximum of 32 hours a week to work (not counting writing activities). I now work much less than that.

There is a lot of value in having someone who is always available. That is not me since I work in spurts, with long breaks. I think lack of always on, immediate availability is important for some projects, and I am unwilling to do that.

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

#193

Post by illumen »

misulicus wrote: post #132

I can totally understand how hard can it be. I`m 28 years old from Romania and looking for an IT related job. Its difficult and for me because i never had a 9-5 job. Always worked from home as a freelancer since college so i got no past experience and no one hires you without 2 years or more experience :(

So you've been working since 20? That sounds like 8 years experience to me. Maybe you just need to sell it differently.

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

#194

Post by mark_l_watson »

zerr wrote: post #118
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…

Mark, I think you're undercharging. May I ask you, have you tried higher rates and had problems with finding clients? i.e. how did you arrive on your current rates...

Well, I do charge a good rate when I work on site. Also, sometimes people pay more than what I advertise if they want a lot of time and instant availability. In general, customers who are willing to work around my life style get a low rate. This seems fair.

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

#195

Post by [deleted] »

johnward wrote: post #163
yitchelle wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legalities of age discrimination is one thing, and what actually happen on the ground is an entirely different matter. They don't even have to give a reason why he is not hired for the positions he has applied for.

Even in the US. If you feel like you've missed out on a job based on discrimination you still have to prove it and no employer is going to actually put "too old" in writing.

[deleted]

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

#196

Post by mmaarrccoo »

I am 10 years younger than your father and had a though time finding a job too. I have a bachelor in Information Engineering, founded and sold two successful startups in the InfoSec space, have raised venture capital and love programming, but still took me about a year to find a job. Granted, I wasn't ready to compromise too much, but heck, as the months go by, it becomes more and more frustrating, especially when age seems to be the #1 discriminating factor.

I am moved by all the support shown here to your father: hopefully it will help him boost his morale. I encourage you to keep digging too - it's payback time.

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

#197

Post by serf »

zerr wrote: post #117
mqsiuser wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! - You likely won't, because of Spolsky [1] And... your parent commenter is right: "When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.", jeresig [2] [1] The development abstraction layer ( http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/DevelopmentAbstractio... ) [2] John Resig on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/jeresig/status/33968704983138304 )

At least you should try. Maybe start small (and stay small..), there is always some path to escape from cubicle nation.. ;) As for "github is your CV" hype: http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-an... https://blog.jcoglan.com/2013/11/15/why-github-is-not-your-c...

god, the things Ashe Dryden writes are toxic, regardless of her popularity (or , perhaps, vocal-ity).

> "So that we're all on the same page, let's take a look at what the landscape of open source contribution looks like. Someone's made a handy gist of the most active GitHub users (from Nov 10, 2012 through Nov 10, 2013) (thanks to @jclermont for the link). A quick glance through the list shows that the overwhelming majority of these users are white men."

Just to clarify, these are pictures of users she's looking at.

meanwhile at the bottom of the page..

> "I hesitate to break down actual percentages because attempting to discern someone's race or gender identity from their photo and name is dodgy business."

Ugghh, I wish she'd write honestly: "I know that I can't reliably estimate things by eyeballing them, but I will anyway. As long as I cite my indiscretion later on, I can write whatever the fuck I want to."

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

#198

Post by imacomputer2 »

I think startups usually want young employees because they usually don't have families. It's not really about age, it's about time commitment. All those startups with "epic snack rooms", beer coolers, ping pong tables, pool tables, etc. have all that crap because they expect you to live at the office. They want you to work 12 hours a day. Not all of them, but a lot of them. It can't really give that many hours if you have a spouse and kids to take care of. Most people can't, anyway.

It's not age discrimination, but it's still crappy.

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

#199

Post by josu »

fasteo wrote: post #125
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.

Don´t believe this figure. Spain has a huge black economy. Some estimations says that it is about 20%[1] of our GDP. It is in Spanish, but this [2] is a good documentary about it. [1] http://www.antena3.com/noticias/economia/economia-sumergida-... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5FRGu_W_6g

Spain is not unique in that sense. All the countries in the world have an informal sector that is not accounted for in statistics. According to a paper from the World Bank [1] the size of the shadow economy in Spain in 2007 was 22.2% of the GDP, whilst the average for the OECD countries was 16.6%. In the UK the figure was 12.2%.

So while it is true that the informal sector is somewhat larger in Spain than in other countries, the difference does not seem to be enough to explain such high unemployment rates.

[1] http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/I...

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

#200

Post by josu »

My suggestion would be for him to learn FORTRAN or COBOL, if he doesn't already know. At least banks still need programmers for these languages, and I can assure you that not many youngsters learn those languages anymore. The work might be monotone, and he'll be fighting a 40 year old mainframe, but chances are that he won't have a problem finding a job.

He should send his CV here: http://www.geoban.com/es/estaticas/index.asp?wm=320&id=95

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