Sorry to hear you are having hard times. I notice you don't mention anything about your skillset? I am based in the UK and there seems to be a huge supply of work around in mobile and web. Whats your current skills in?
The Unemployable Programmer
61–70 of 464 posts
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#62Reading 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…
Start making friends in the US, now. Look for meetups, find Facebook groups, figure out which companies have a significant presence in the area where you'll be relocating. You're starting from nothing with your social network but you already have valuable skills. Get to work on the networking now and you'll set yourself up to easily find work once you land ... if not sooner.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#63IMO your problem is not lack of degree (personally, this is the last thing I check on a resume). Nor your age (I am also 40ish and more productive than ever). Your problem is your debt.
>(personally, this is the last thing I check on a resume)
I've found myself doing the same. "What has this person done?" is my internal dialogue while I parse through resumes.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#64Now, 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.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#65> When companies find out I don't have a degree that's usually the end of the road.
So, this is the reason why no one will hire you? I find it hard to believe. The current company I'm working in found out that I don't have a degree after I signed the contract — they just didn't care at all.
But I would have huge problems hiring someone spent last 10 years responding to emails and doing nothing.
Judging by how easily you dismiss advice about github, you must have tried it. Care to give a link?
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#66I'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 other technologies I recently started to learn). Turns out this was the correct thing to do as I was made redundant about 6 weeks ago and it turns out there are a lot more JavaScript jobs in my area than Perl jobs. At least I've got a couple of projects I can point to now to show I have some experience. I'm still looking for something new, but I'm very glad I started working on expanding my skills before it became an immediate necessity. I guess this is the industry we work in. Oh, I also created a "hireme" website to try and sell myself. I'm not sure how effective it will be, but if nothing else, creating the website and listing my skills was a big confidence boost (I didn't realise how much I knew) - https://hireme.grepular.com - Feel free to steal the idea/design.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#67I did mostly software engineering and software architecture in my studies, just to find out that no one gives you a job as software architect right after university. Everyone has to start as a developer and one day, if he's lucky, he will score a job as software architect.
If I wouldn't have had a job as a programmer on the side (first a few months as intern) while studying, I wouldn't know much about programming.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#68We have openings we can't fill because we're specifically looking for "nerds" (those who actually do live, eat and breathe code). And I've got a similar CV with the exception that I never left writing software (I did give up on hardware development). Care to e-mail me a CV?
It's funny you mention that. My hiring success (in terms of impact the new hires made) went way up when we stopped wording job postings using traditional enterprisy language & bullets and instead posted much simpler "hackers wanted" at the local universities. Note: this was in Mexico, not the US, though a handful of the folks I recruited there have gone on to work for SV startups. I feel obligated to note one special case because I still feel a little hurt by it and consider it poaching. (Gbox) http://www.gbox.com has 5 of my former employees (3 devs, 1 SQA lead, 1 UI/UX) out of their total staff of about 20-25.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#69Hmm... I'm a 35 year old programmer and I work in Defense/Aerospace. If you think finding a good developer is hard, try finding a good developer who also holds a security clearance. If you're any good at all, you will always be employed and well compensated. The work can be dull, with Vogon-esque processes and procedures, but I have side projects to keep me sane :)
Every couple of years (ok, at least every year) I'll try to apply to non-defense jobs, and I get the impression that there's a glut of highly qualified engineers in the private sector -- "Sorry, we're being deluged with applications right now, we'll totally get back to you someday." And the interviews generally involve 3-4 rounds of hazing via Knuth. In the defense sector, they verify your clearance and credentials, check for a pulse, then show you to your desk.
Some are interested until they hear my current salary "You'd have to be a 10x RockNinja to make that kind of salary here." Yes, even Silicon Valley companies (and I live in an area with a relatively low COL). I'd love to find a remote job, but those seem to be even more competitive (understandable, I suppose).
Guess I'm stuck.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#70> When companies find out I don't have a degree that's usually the end of the road. I have a difficult time believing this. I've worked for & know of companies through connections that care 10x more about your portfolio than degree. We've passed on Stanford grads & even a guy who worked at NASA, because they just couldn't physically bring themselves to code when we needed them too, they couldn't sit in front of a com…
Completely agree, you can spot the competent programmer from miles away who was atleast some opensource projects he thinks of as "hobbies" in his portfolio.
companies dont care what you think you can do, because you have a degree. they care for what you can do for them, if what you are doing in your own time complements the things they would like somebody have done for them. the choice becomes easy.