The Unemployable Programmer

Reading stories like these really, really scares me. I'm European, and next year my wife and I will most likely move to the US together (long story short: she is a US citizen, we have decided to move, and have already applied). I'm super excited about that. I currently work as a Rails developer, have a diverse background as a Linux sysadmin and developer, and have never had problems finding (or keeping) work where I live.

What I don't have is a college education. I'm also in my mid thirties, don't really have any US contacts, nor do I know very much about the job market there. Throw in some impostor syndrome and stuff like this creates a certain level of anxiety, to put it mildly.

If you're in your late 20s and coding is all you've ever done, be afraid. Domain knowledge is where it's at.

I am in a similar situation to the OP having started off with a ZX Spectrum, did CS, coded, but in my late 20s I was tempted into fixed income finance, and did that for 15 years at the highest level (unrelated to coding - I was a strategist and trader). Then in my late 30s I picked up Python, then R, and now know both really well (plus C and a bit of JS, Ocaml). What I find in my interactions is that the whizz-bang programmer guys, who are better than me at coding (though not by much - I picked up again pretty fast), are completely useless at mapping their skills to the finance domain, while my knowledge of both fields is where my value lies. I would strongly suggest to programmers that they ensure they know a non-CS domain too, preferably a niche one (we're such a big world now), and know it well - practise it as a primary activity for a few years. Climb the learning curve again even if it's hard at first. It is in the nexus between CS and other domains that opportunities are still plentiful.

There are multiple problems we're talking about here.

One is the selection problem, that orgs have great difficulty in working out who is a good developer and who is not.

The other is that there are a lot of developers who have difficulty in getting work, and to a large extent a lot of them just aren't any good and would be better off in a different career (sorry but that's just the way it is).

Once you've removed the rubbish developers there are indeed far more jobs than developers.

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've got a few things working against you but I doubt you're actually unemployable. I don't want to say you're doing it wrong or that I have a better formula, but here are some things to think about.

Your age, the buzzwords ("skill sets") on your CV, lack of college degree, possibly lack of recent relevant experience -- all of those can be negatives and will keep you out of a lot of jobs. So don't try to get those. You can't fight prejudices or stupid hiring processes.

You have to present yourself as someone who can solve business problems, because that's what companies actually hire and pay for. No matter what the job posting says no company or client actually needs a PHP or Ruby programmer. What they need is someone who can translate business requirements into working software. Get the focus on your ability to deliver.

When I talk to a potential client I start by asking them to tell me their top handful of business problems or pains. I pick one that I think I can help with and talk about that. We almost never get into technology or languages because those are incidental to actual business requirements. Many business problems are not actually programming problems. Just because a client has 300,000 lines of Ruby code I don't need to write Ruby to help them with their PCI compliance audit (real client). Another client had an enterprise logistics system written in Java, but that had very little to do with shipping charges calculating wrong -- I don't have to be a Java guru to figure it out. The problem was fixed with almost no programming, just correcting some data that was formatted wrong between systems.

My point is that you need to present an appealing package with some obvious business value to the client or employer. You don't choose a car based on a list of the parts in it (CV), you choose it based on perceived value, appearance, and emotional appeal.

Instead of applying for every job and putting yourself on job sites and scraping the bottom of the freelancing barrel on Fiverr develop a few skills you are really good at and sell that expertise. Identify companies or business niches you want to work at and knock their door down. Make the deal low-risk: I don't charge clients if I can't fix their problems.

Meet more people. Most people get their jobs from contacts, friends, even casual acquaintances -- I got a job lead from a guy at a bar in LA after we started talking about bourbon. Get out in the world. Don't treat everyone you meet like another node in your network, though. People like to help friends and people they like, so be the guy people like. People don't like to help the constant network-builders.

I'm not saying it's easy, but you need to play a different game, because a programmer in his 40s without a lot of recent relevant experience with the latest toys is not going to stand out. Sorry, but no one cares about your startup experience or what you did five years ago. They care about what you can do for them right now, so focus on that and don't get bogged down trying to win the recruiting numbers game.