The Unemployable Programmer

I can relate to the author of the article.

Programming is seen as the silver bullet to solve employment in many countries resulting in you competing against a whole continent with a 100 million IT pros, all super smart foreign students who studied in the US, thousands of school leaving kids wanting to become programmers because they grew up playing games or owning laptops/iPads/smartphones and programming is made a core skill in schools. They're even teaching programming in prisons. With all the free online courses and code schools there isn’t a barrier that stops anyone from becoming a programmer where as other industries have barriers of entry. If you are a tech professional, you're competing against the biggest pool of potential workers in the world all willing to do anything to get a foot in the door.

In my experience I find there is a huge ageism issue in the IT sector. At his age the author seems to be insinuating it's due to his lack of degree but I can safely say it's his age and not the degree. I find a manager in his early 30s late 20s won't hire a programmer older than him. Similarly a manager in his 40s won't hire a developer his same age. In applying for positions I find I can make it to the final interview but then it comes down to my age not making me the perfect fit. It's like the unasked question is why you haven’t made it and if you are still looking for a job at 40 so you must be damaged goods. The other big disadvantage in the tech sector is years and years of experience is not valued as it is in all other industries. At 40 the stigma of old tech being listed on your resume is seen as a negative rather than a positive. Fitting in with your co-workers is another big issue with hiring managers and HR and it seen as a risk that you won’t fit in with people 10 to 20 years younger than you.

When I complain to others I hear stories of someone who knows of x developer at 40 who still works as a developer but they’re obviously not starting from step 1 looking for a job so that comparison I always find stupid.

I do agree with other posts that networking is the problem as 90% of job are not on job boards. However as a programmer I find networking is hard because you are focusing on completing x feature/project and generally want to work uninterrupted for long stretches rather than spending time at sucking up to a manager or co-worker that might help you in the future. Also I find unless you have something that someone wants I find networking at 40 is difficult because people generally don’t want to network with you.

The lessons I’ve learnt are primarily the entitlement that I felt x years ago is something I have to get rid of very quickly. I’ve always thought if you give me problems and I always solve it that means I am special. However I realize I’m just like the other billion wannabes with the huge disadvantage of my age. I feel like I have to work 10 times harder now that I’ve been given the scarlet letter of age to wear around my neck. That said knowing the problem is the first step to solving it so I can at least be optimistic.

My advice. Understand you always have to learn and have to solve the networking/self marketing problem. Try to have a purpose even if it’s just a dream of a purpose. Even if have to take up a non IT job full-time because of your situation you can always code part time. With a strong base and today’s ease of access to information, picking up new language is surprisingly easy.

So I'm self taught, no degree, and I get job offers and headhunters out of the blue from all over the central US. Denver, Kansas City, Omaha, Des Moines, Chicago, and small cities I've never heard of.

The best thing I ever did was look at my friends early on who were getting found on linked in and organized my linkedin profile to look as similar as theirs as I could truthfully. The next best thing was taking 6 months off from freelance work to just build a portfolio of small projects that demonstrated the skills people were looking for, and it made interviews much simpler.

I honestly refuse technical interviews at this point because they're a waste of time and I don't study the crap they ask for and it indicates technical leadership can't spot a good developer by looking at what they've built and talking to them about their methodology.

If I really want a new job pronto, I email 5 recruiters who send me the most random postings and tell them what I'm looking for. Last time I did this I had 6 interviews scheduled that week and was in a new job that met my requirements in 2. This is in Kansas City, and while there is a fair amount of tech worker shortage here it's no where near what it is other places.

Honestly the OP's story doesn't sound all that different from my own. Started a tech company in grad school, taught myself javascript and front end work, left just before what we started was sold for a small amount and didn't get anything out of it except exhaustion and credit card payments on top of student loans. But my "40 hour a week vacation" as I called it didn't work out and I got dumped in an executive reshuffling. Did one of those code bootcamps to learn back end C# .Net MVC work in 6 months and got my first developer job at $40k, got the next one at $60k 6 months later, $75k 6 months after that, and $100k 6 months after that.

It's very doable anywhere in the country right now, but you can't just float down stream. You have to have a plan and actively work it and check yourself against the market and learn stuff people want you to know to get to the next level. Your skillset is not a constant, and it's up to you to demonstrate that you have it. If you leave it up to someone else to figure out how to do all that you're screwed, because if they knew how to do that they wouldn't hire so many developers who don't know what they're doing.

It may be more accurate to say that The Valley has different standards for software development on web & mobile than employers in other regions and in different categories. The quality of a developer depends on the overlap of their skills and the employer's needs; never judge a fish by how well it can climb a tree.

On point 3 I'd say yes, enthusiastic people learn new stuff, but it has limits. There is too much technology for any one person to master, but I also think it's a trap to spend too much time constantly learning the latest technology, at the expense of actually building stuff (and learning from the experience).

At least I found myself falling into that the last time I was between jobs -- constantly watching beginner videos on new thing X, Y, Z instead of actually doing something useful in one of them.

Back in employed world of course it can be the opposite -- you become a master of whatever tech your company is using but get little exposure outside that. It is however often possible to guide the company into a new technology and get the best of both worlds.

Nice web site, I really liked your comments in it.

I've been writing this on and off for the past 6 years. Whenever something peaks my interest I write it up.

s/peaks/piques/

Ref: http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/pique