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Ask HN: Have you successfully done a career do-over, and how did you do it?

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Re: Ask HN: Have you successfully done a career do-over, and how did you do it?

#61

Post by icelancer »

southphillyman wrote: post #55
khazhou wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the notion of age discrimination at 30+ to be simply ludicrous. I’ve been at multiple top tech companies, and the very common age ranges were mid-20s to (estimated) late-40s.

Older devs exist but they tend to be very senior with a lot of responsibility in my experience. Where does that leave the competent but non architect level dev who doesn't want to be responsible for that level of pressure? Maybe a 40 yr old wants to just take a mid level CRUD job for the purposes of keeping up with his mortgage and has no other ambitions beyond that? It seems like being "just a guy" is looked down up…

Most HR and managers don't think someone who is 40 wants to work for entry-level / mid-level salaries intended for junior and early developers.

Re: Ask HN: Have you successfully done a career do-over, and how did you do it?

#62

Post by nathanaldensr »

komali2 wrote: post #56
nathanaldensr wrote: post #54

I'm dealing with this right now. I have a ton of experience--since I was a young teenager, in fact--of being a software developer, mostly in positions of technical leadership. Most of my resume consists of architect jobs. And yet, to pay the bills, explore a new area of the country, and expand on complimentary skills, I took a job as a senior DevOps engineer contractor at Idaho National Laboratory. Since my contract…

When you ask them why they turned you down, what do they say? Have you tried asking for resume feedback?

Most of the job ads (Dice, Indeed, etc.) obfuscate the actual company behind a recruiter and no-reply email addresses. I would love to reply and ask, but in 99% of cases the reply email is noreply@somerecruitmentfirm.com.

I have talked to a couple of real people, one over the phone and one over email. In both cases I feel like I had a good rapport built. The first guy turned me down because his company only had the budget for a junior programmer. The second guy hasn't yet responded to my reply to him, but I'm hopeful.

Overall, I've probably applied to 100 different places (mostly remote jobs) and haven't even received rejections--let alone a reply--from the vast majority.

It pains me to no end that I am seemingly not allowed to simply talk to a real person. I understand why; I'm not naive. It still sucks.

Re: Ask HN: Have you successfully done a career do-over, and how did you do it?

#63

Post by Declanomous »

_diyu wrote: post #43
rb808 wrote: post #34

I suspect its not as easy as many people make out. I was a great C++/OO dev for 10 years before I got bored, starting doing management, business focussed roles and more high level devops style work. After 10 years of that I wanted to move back into pure coding. With great experience should be easy right? Wrong. I got a mid-level java/python dev job and it was difficult, I was out of touch and everything was different…

I'm only 32 but that's kind of where I'm at right now too. Mastered Objective-C and Mac & iOS development 10 years ago, now it's all Swift and nobody's really hiring for iOS devs in my area (Chicago suburbs), and nobody's hiring for native Mac developers anywhere, period. And all the best practices in iOS have changed drastically since then, too, in terms of both coding and UX. Learned Ruby on Rails 8 years ago, but…

I know a few iOS devs in Chicago. I've definitely heard about the trials and tribulations of switching from Objective C to Swift, but I'm surprised there aren't more jobs out there. Is the commute to Chicago too long for you?

The iOS devs I know are either in marketing or work freelance though. So I'm not sure how much like "a normal job" it is for them.

Re: Ask HN: Have you successfully done a career do-over, and how did you do it?

#64

Post by nerfhammer »

_diyu wrote: post #43
rb808 wrote: post #34

I suspect its not as easy as many people make out. I was a great C++/OO dev for 10 years before I got bored, starting doing management, business focussed roles and more high level devops style work. After 10 years of that I wanted to move back into pure coding. With great experience should be easy right? Wrong. I got a mid-level java/python dev job and it was difficult, I was out of touch and everything was different…

I'm only 32 but that's kind of where I'm at right now too. Mastered Objective-C and Mac & iOS development 10 years ago, now it's all Swift and nobody's really hiring for iOS devs in my area (Chicago suburbs), and nobody's hiring for native Mac developers anywhere, period. And all the best practices in iOS have changed drastically since then, too, in terms of both coding and UX. Learned Ruby on Rails 8 years ago, but…

don't worry, all the people making apps and new javascript/css frameworks have moved on to cryptocurrencies now

Re: Ask HN: Have you successfully done a career do-over, and how did you do it?

#65

Post by crimsonalucard »

matte_black wrote: post #58
_diyu wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm only 32 but that's kind of where I'm at right now too. Mastered Objective-C and Mac & iOS development 10 years ago, now it's all Swift and nobody's really hiring for iOS devs in my area (Chicago suburbs), and nobody's hiring for native Mac developers anywhere, period. And all the best practices in iOS have changed drastically since then, too, in terms of both coding and UX. Learned Ruby on Rails 8 years ago, but…

I was in your position, been working with iOS since the beginning until I decided to just get the fuck out of iOS and start doing some useful things. Went all in with building single page applications in JavaScript and Node, front end, back end, and database administration, and haven’t looked back. Fuck iOS now, native mobile development benefited from a craze where everyone thought mobile apps were the new web apps,…

Node and javascript? Those technologies change and move faster than anything else in the industry. What you're doing now will likely be obsolete within a couple years.

Re: Ask HN: Have you successfully done a career do-over, and how did you do it?

#66

Post by spookthesunset »

ElectronicE wrote: post #28

I got a super comfortable job for the past 15years as a work from home C++ server programmer. It has allowed me to be around and watch my kid grow rather than be away 8-6PM and just come home to dinner and put them to bed. It was very good pay at the beginning but it hasn't keep up and now it's not that good (to bad either). A few years ago I started playing with electronics (Arduinos, Raspberry PIs and stuff like th…

What kinds of projects are you taking on in the land of electronics? I find this area very interesting, but can't seem to figure out how you can make a living on it....

Re: Ask HN: Have you successfully done a career do-over, and how did you do it?

#67

Post by Trundle »

turc1656 wrote: post #37
wuliwong wrote: post #33

I got my Ph.D. in physics in 2010, worked for about 1 year in research then took a year to try and build my own startup while collecting unemployment. I didn't successfully get a startup going but I learned enough web development during that time that I have been doing it professionally ever since.

How were you able to collect unemployment if you decided to leave to try to get a business started?

He's already answered but just in case we have any other Aussie's reading, we actually have a system that lets you do that called NEIS.

You have to do a short business course—From memory it was one hour a week for 10 weeks or something like that—and then you can collect unemployment while working on your startup for I think a year.

The bar to get in is pretty low. I'm sure that a lot of my class/group were intentionally unemployed and just looking for an easier alternative to pretending to look for work, and they didn't get kicked out. That said the metrics they were tracking to make sure you were progressing were more regular small business focused rather than trying to create the next Google focused. Revenue, customers, etc. That fit what I was doing but might not for you the reader.

Re: Ask HN: Have you successfully done a career do-over, and how did you do it?

#68

Post by geoffmac »

ElectronicE wrote: post #28

I got a super comfortable job for the past 15years as a work from home C++ server programmer. It has allowed me to be around and watch my kid grow rather than be away 8-6PM and just come home to dinner and put them to bed. It was very good pay at the beginning but it hasn't keep up and now it's not that good (to bad either). A few years ago I started playing with electronics (Arduinos, Raspberry PIs and stuff like th…

' and now it's not that good (to bad either)'

looks like a few other skills have depreciated too

Re: Ask HN: Have you successfully done a career do-over, and how did you do it?

#69

Post by [deleted] »

khazhou wrote: post #38
southphillyman wrote: post #18

Can't speak on it personally but about 3-4 years ago during my last job search I searched a few "Getting a dev job after 30" type queries. I was around that age and concerned about all the ageism claims. Apparently there are forums full of former developers either out of the industry or struggling to remain in it. There was a lot of talk about depression and guys being suicidal because they couldn't keep up with the…

I find the notion of age discrimination at 30+ to be simply ludicrous. I’ve been at multiple top tech companies, and the very common age ranges were mid-20s to (estimated) late-40s.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Have you successfully done a career do-over, and how did you do it?

#70

Post by beagle3 »

komali2 wrote: post #56
nathanaldensr wrote: post #54

I'm dealing with this right now. I have a ton of experience--since I was a young teenager, in fact--of being a software developer, mostly in positions of technical leadership. Most of my resume consists of architect jobs. And yet, to pay the bills, explore a new area of the country, and expand on complimentary skills, I took a job as a senior DevOps engineer contractor at Idaho National Laboratory. Since my contract…

When you ask them why they turned you down, what do they say? Have you tried asking for resume feedback?

It is very unusual for companies in the US to cite any reason for turning down. It doesn't really help them, and while it might be nice and help the rejected candidate, the probability that said candidate will believe he was wrongly turned down and file a lawsuit is just too high for comfort.
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