The Unemployable Programmer • Hacker News Board

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#131

Post by mpermar » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:20 PM UTC

robotkilla wrote: post #79

mpermar wrote: post #47

Now, seriously, if a software engineer in his/her forties is unemployable in 2015, what the heck is an accountant, lawyer, a builder, a painter or a woodworker to just name a few? Come on. We are so lucky we did choose technology as a way of living. Sorry but stop complaining and start learning back new stuff. Can't believe what someone has to read. -- A developer in his forties.

You do realize that for the last several years we've been trying to churn out new developers who will accept jobs for very low wages (or even come on as interns and work for free) and they've got an edge on the so-called "new stuff" which pushes out the 40 year olds? There's an even bigger push for this now. It seems like everywhere I turn someone is learning to "develop". Sad to say, most of these people only know h…

Sure there is tons of new cheap developers. More than ever. And that's because there is more demand for developers and software than ever. Years ago you could only sell software running on gigantic servers or desktop computers. Now there is tablets, smartphones, tvs, consoles, glasses, watches...

Of course there is demand for cheap workforce, and of course there is more demand than ever for skilled workforce. And salaries are going both ways, down and up. Certainly there is people demanding very cheap software engineers and so certainly never has been better paying software jobs.

So it's a matter of skilling oneself up, specialising or searching carefully. But I 100% believe there is no better industry to be job searching on our 40s.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#132

Post by mkozlows » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:23 PM UTC

omouse wrote: post #125

mkozlows wrote: post #82

This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing…

> And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing move... unless you turn it into one, by letting your skills stagnate and wither, which is on you. Working 40 hrs without training or proper mentoring leads to skill stagnation. A $500 training budget will get you nowhere and you'll find yourself using long weekends (like I'm doing right now) learning new skills. Mayb…

Three points to that:

1. This differs more from workplace to workplace than industry to industry. Many dev workplaces will give developers a week or two of official "training time." Many other industries have workplaces that don't do that.

2. The reality is, training on new technologies has more value to you than it does to your employer. If your employer uses J2EE, Subversion, and Oracle, there's little benefit to them sending you off to learn Node, git, and Mongo. But there's a big benefit to you in knowing that, potentially. If the benefits of learning flow more to you than to your employer, you shouldn't be surprised if the burden of learning falls onto you.

3. But mostly, if you're a person who finds software development genuinely interesting (the hobbyist-type), you'll keep up on stuff basically recreationally. When you read about the latest whatever, you'll be curious and want to try it out and learn how it works because you're interested in that. You don't need any formal training to learn new technologies, just a little motivation and time. An hour spent not watching TV can get you a long way in understanding a new technology.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#133

Post by mpermar » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:23 PM UTC

jacknews wrote: post #64

mpermar wrote: post #47

Now, seriously, if a software engineer in his/her forties is unemployable in 2015, what the heck is an accountant, lawyer, a builder, a painter or a woodworker to just name a few? Come on. We are so lucky we did choose technology as a way of living. Sorry but stop complaining and start learning back new stuff. Can't believe what someone has to read. -- A developer in his forties.

I don't think the comparison with lawyers and accountants really works, those careers seem to reward seniority quite heavily. Perhaps for builders and painters (as in walls, not canvas), it is more appropriate, since in technology I guess programming is more equivalent to a tradesman, than an architect.

Works with any industry. Sure, there is highly rewarded lawyer or accountant professionals. Just as there is highly rewarded developers. But all others tend to be pushed by younger and cheaper workforce. And Software is one of those blessed industries where one on his/her forties can refocus and get reskilled pretty quickly. Tell an accountant to reskill.

Damn it. Today, one, if willing, can just learn the latest new technology and not only become 1000% employable but also relevant. Can't think of any other sector like this. We're so lucky.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#134

Post by omouse » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:23 PM UTC

mike-cardwell wrote: post #66

I've spent the last 13/14 years writing Perl so I started getting worried a year or two back that I was making myself unemployable by not branching out. I've been doing a lot of front-end development since, learning JavaScript and NodeJS to a good level, familiarising myself with JavaScript frameworks like React and Angular and learning/launching a couple of simple sites using NodeJS/Express and Python/Django (two ot…

I've been wondering what's happened to all the Perl devs. It seems like 5 years ago there was lots of solid web dev work happening in Perl still and now it seems like a sea of Rails and Scala/Java.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#135

Post by Zimdale » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #93

alkonaut wrote: post #19

I think being around 40 with a decade of dev experience should be pretty attractive, at least if the programming experience is somewhat modern. 10 years OO-programming should be translatable to any OO language with ease, regardless of what you actually used before, for example. There are "unemployable" developers out there, but they are 10-20 years older and have 15 years of niche in-house platforms in some huge ente…

I've interviewed people like this though not as extreme. Basically person gets a job. They learn the job in about 3-6 months and now repeat the same job for years without ever learning anything else. So on paper it shows 5-10 years experience, but in reality they still have about 3-6 months experience. Part of the blame lies on the company for not giving the employee a growth path, but the largest part lies on the em…

> They learn the job in about 3-6 months and now repeat the same job for years without ever learning anything else. So on paper it shows 5-10 years experience, but in reality they still have about 3-6 months experience.

This is the most spot on thing I have read regarding this issue and is why interviewing is so challenging when it comes to developers. This is also why the interview process for developers is so grueling and long. You would be amazed how difficult it is to figure out how much ACTUAL learning experience a person has vs. someone that has done the same thing for 10 years.

I also feel this is why 20-somethings are popular, at least you know for certain how much experience one could possibly have.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#136

Post by vonmoltke » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

mkozlows wrote: post #82

This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing…

> This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs.

What is baffling is this Valley-centric, web and mobile development-centric line being repeated constantly in this thread. Most of the world is a different story. Outside the Valley and a couple other metros, and outside the web and mobile fields in general: 1) degrees are usually required; 2) employers are much pickier.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#137

Post by voidfunc » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:27 PM UTC

omouse wrote: post #125

mkozlows wrote: post #82

This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing…

> And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing move... unless you turn it into one, by letting your skills stagnate and wither, which is on you. Working 40 hrs without training or proper mentoring leads to skill stagnation. A $500 training budget will get you nowhere and you'll find yourself using long weekends (like I'm doing right now) learning new skills. Mayb…

Can anyone please tell me what developers use training budgets for? I feel like most things I have learned are from free resources such as blogs and StackOverflow. What do people spend money on? Books I suppose are the most likely candidate, but those can definitely be bought with $500...

Do people actually get value out of conferences? Those always seem more like cash grabs and marketing events than actual training value-adds.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#138

Post by branchless » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:27 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #130

branchless wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers should realise that when you come to an interview the interviewer isn't looking to dismiss you because you can't recite Knuth. For the vast majority of jobs they are desperate for you to be competent having just interviewed 5 incompetent people. I've worked as a programmer for 3 very good paying companies over 15 years and none of them could get enough good developers.

Welllllll... Yes and no. Yes, companies are generally desperate for programmers right now, and companies definitely want you to succeed in your interviews. Interviewers on the other hand can be a fickle bunch. I have met many (in fact, maybe even most ) who seem to treat it as some kind of hazing or initiation and act as if the candidate is an opponent to be outsmarted. It doesn't help that in literally none of the c…

It's an interesting distinction and yes I have sympathy with it. However in general the "pissing contest" devs are a minority and in particular for the more senior/experienced devs it's most often the case that they want you to be good and will give you the chance to be good.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#139

Post by strathmeyer » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:28 PM UTC

I got a degree but am still unemployable because I didn't have a job when I graduated and apparently nobody hires unemployed people. It's like there's just some tiny step I need to get over. Recently a recruiters said all I needed was a little Java experience and I could be making a lot of money. But I have plenty of Java experience, why can't I find a job anywhere?

The worst thing about all of this is how harsh and degrading everyone is when you want to get into the industry. Questions are met with disgust derision, as if you are spoiling everyone's worldview. But I am just trying to describe my experience for survival reasons.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#140

Post by jschwartzi » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:28 PM UTC

fweespeech wrote: post #109

mkozlows wrote: post #82

This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing…

> This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. I've had about 40-50% of places reject me due to a lack of degree. A couple even sent me hopeful…

I've been with teams who wouldn't hire anyone who couldn't finish a degree. It doesn't matter which kind, but they had to have proven they could do the degree.