If he or she would put some contact info in that blog post they might be able to strip the 'un' from the title.
The Unemployable Programmer
21–30 of 464 posts
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#22The developers we hire in their 40s don't all have degrees, but what they do have is relevant experience. Now that relevance may be domain knowledge in the industry, or it might be experience with particular part of our stack - the classic example is the very experienced Oracle developer. You'll all too easily lose out to the young, hungry graduate who will also need to learn lots of things on the job, but doesn't co…
> The OP might well have lots of relevant experience but it hardly comes across in the post.
Strange, I read it very differently. Just because those things aren't specifically addressed didn't leave me with the impression there isn't anything there. Very early in the article it was stated how they spend a lot of time honing their skills, presumably all their life, not sure I agree with your impression this is an unskilled individual.
> After 20+ years in development there's a degree of expectation that you have built bridges along the way with people who can recommend you
That's different from just asserting they lack in skill, however. If you read the article, it's clear why they can't satisfy this specific expectation. It seems callous to simply proclaim they should have built industry relations all their lives, and now there is nothing left to be done.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#23Here's the dirty little secret about "employability" you hardly ever read about in places like HN: It's not about you. It's about your user and what they accomplish with the tools you build for them. It doesn't matter who you are, what you know, what education you have, where you've worked before, what turns you on, or what you think is cool. It only matters what you can do for others. It's really that fucking simple…
> I have never lacked work. And I'm confident I never will with this attitude.
I believe you. But that's also because you started this path in life a long time ago. If you're 40+, you've never done freelance/contract work and you need to start finding customers or new employment in a hurry then it's going to be a hungry winter.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#24You don't have a degree, do you have a portfolio? If not, then how can you expect to get a foot in the door with no easily verifiable proof of competency?
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#25True story: had an uncle who outperformed everywhere he worked. He faked his own references (via fax at that time) to get in the door, and when people made reference to university he just sidestepped the question or gave vague "yeah" type answers as he had not attended but had left school at the minimum legal age and become self employed (and failed a couple of times). Everyone else studied for 4 years to do what he did better than them.
Not saying you should fake it, I'm saying employers need to stop thinking donuts can't be iced by anyone with less than a masters degree. I've seen a masters grad unable to get through a door that had a security card swipe thing because there were no instructions, even though she had the card in her hand. Sometimes a course isn't what's needed to get a job done.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#26I'm also a self taught programmer, but I have never been treated less for not having a degree. I'm rather fortunate I guess. I once even wanted to work in San Francisco (I'm based in The Netherlands), and the first job I applied for actually hired me and flew me in every so often.
I took this to be less a post about not having a degree but rather, not keeping up with the market. How it's easy to just do the work that's in front of you and not consider how your choices now will affect your career in 10~20~30 years time.
Not having a degree doesn't help finding work (it shouldn't make a difference, but unfortuantely with most HR depts it does) but if the poster had been willing to aggressively work on their career instead of coasting at the "traditional office" the story could be very different.
I've done a few years with a mixture of small company/freelance work myself and I'm back in an enterprise company for the first time in ages and on a purely technical level it's a giant step back. There's huge resistance to changing existing code and/or introducing new technologies. Often with good business reasons (the product is done, it's in production and huge changes are not needed) but if you're on the technical side then you absolutely have to be looking out for your own skills if you ever want to work outside of that company again.
If I was a hiring manager, seeing 10 years at a "traditional" company on a CV with no signs of interest in the field outside of the job would be setting off alarms. I absolutely would rather hire someone with experience and fully developed professional skills than a fresh grad, but the nightmare is that your experienced hire is used to just following their 80 page internal process guide every day and they wouldn't be able to handle any new situations.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#27Moral of the story is: stay in school, kids.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#28Here's the dirty little secret about "employability" you hardly ever read about in places like HN: It's not about you. It's about your user and what they accomplish with the tools you build for them. It doesn't matter who you are, what you know, what education you have, where you've worked before, what turns you on, or what you think is cool. It only matters what you can do for others. It's really that fucking simple…
> I have never lacked work. And I'm confident I never will with this attitude. I believe you. But that's also because you started this path in life a long time ago. If you're 40+, you've never done freelance/contract work and you need to start finding customers or new employment in a hurry then it's going to be a hungry winter.
you need to start finding customers or new employment in a hurry
What I'm suggesting is being the first to present a believeable plan to solve someone else's problem. You're right, finding them and figuring out what they need isn't easy. But once you do, you have a huge advantage over all the other "unemployable" programmers.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#29Where are you based? What programming language skills do you have?
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#30To the author - it's very difficult to go freelance directly to customers. However, one possible channel is via digital agencies, who often need work done on a contract basis. They usually have their marketing channels worked out. Attend in-person meetups, and let the organiser know that you are looking for work, and it will start to open doors.