Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How do you build up your first career close to age 40?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 32 posts

Ask HN: How do you build up your first career close to age 40?

#1

Post by zboox »

I have under 1 year total lifetime experience with full-time work, which was in 2010. That doesn't just include software engineering work (which is what I have done for the past several years)- that includes every type of job I've done since I started taking jobs while in high school.

I've went back and counted my jobs- at department stores, B2B clients, campus work etc. and I only found one year where I was actually a full-time employee of any kind.

In the meantime I fell into a holding pattern of freelance/temp work with little to show in building my network. Many failed attempts to get hired full-time as a SWE are a cause for concern.

Also, I am about 2 years away from reaching 40.

I'm not quite the same as a spoiled kid who didn't need to work for most of their life. I simply am a guy who has held lot of temporary jobs, but displays little "career intelligence".

What advice would you give to an adult that is a late bloomer in professional stability and growth and wants to build a career? How do people build a network from almost zero in a post-COVID world? I might want to glean experiences of class of 2020 students too, to get an idea of network building in difficult times, since I find myself to have more in common with students than the average 30-something professional.

Re: Ask HN: How do you build up your first career close to age 40?

#3

Post by s1t5 »

You have several years of software development experience. If that's true, you aren't really starting your career now, you're just looking for a more stable position. I think that the distinction is important especially in interviews because without it you might be underselling yourself.

Re: Ask HN: How do you build up your first career close to age 40?

#5

Post by zboox »

s1t5 wrote: post #3

You have several years of software development experience. If that's true, you aren't really starting your career now, you're just looking for a more stable position. I think that the distinction is important especially in interviews because without it you might be underselling yourself.

Do I need to make that distinction explicit? Companies are usually more interested in hearing what the employee can do for them rather than what the employee wants out of their career.

Underselling myself is probably also due to my lack of career intelligence. I don't know how to take responsibility for a career. I don't know how to give it periodic maintenance. I'm always living in the now, looking for my next jobs under pressure. Then I become so focused on tasks at the current job that I don't see the bigger picture (especially since I am just a temp worker).

Re: Ask HN: How do you build up your first career close to age 40?

#6

Post by trevett »

You did not follow the typical path and that's fine. Own it. As a hiring manager, I would want to talk to an engineer who had diverse experience and insight into a variety of businesses. Is there a particular engineering area you want to build a career around?

I'm not sure a bootcamp is necessary but I would suggest whatever intensive interview training you think you need to get into a good tech company. Working at a bigger one is a solid way to bootstrap a professional network.

Re: Ask HN: How do you build up your first career close to age 40?

#7

Post by s1t5 »

zboox wrote: post #5
s1t5 wrote: post #3

You have several years of software development experience. If that's true, you aren't really starting your career now, you're just looking for a more stable position. I think that the distinction is important especially in interviews because without it you might be underselling yourself.

Do I need to make that distinction explicit? Companies are usually more interested in hearing what the employee can do for them rather than what the employee wants out of their career. Underselling myself is probably also due to my lack of career intelligence. I don't know how to take responsibility for a career. I don't know how to give it periodic maintenance. I'm always living in the now, looking for my next jobs…

> Do I need to make that distinction explicit?

Yes.

> Companies are usually more interested in hearing what the employee can do for them rather than what the employee wants out of their career.

That's true and is in line with what I'm suggesting.

My point is that you shouldn't position yourself as "I have no continuous experience, please hire me for my first real job". Instead it should be more like "I'm an experienced software developer, this is the kind of work that I've done and these are the skills that I have".

Re: Ask HN: How do you build up your first career close to age 40?

#8

Post by Hnrobert42 »

My company is fully remote. When I interview people, I don’t know how old they are, nor do I care. I look at their job history as it relates to their ability to perform the job for which they are applying. If you were applying for an associate or junior developer position, your lack of experience wouldn’t really matter. I would worry that your bouncing around reflects that you can’t be counted on to stick it out for more than a year.

To change my mind, during the interview, when I ask, you would need to explain what is different about your approach now. Not just that you want to be different, but what you are doing/thinking differently. If you gave a decent answer and everything else lined up, I would take the chance.

So, my suggestion is look for small start ups. Their hiring practices aren’t as rigid.

Re: Ask HN: How do you build up your first career close to age 40?

#9

Post by michaelcao »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #8

My company is fully remote. When I interview people, I don’t know how old they are, nor do I care. I look at their job history as it relates to their ability to perform the job for which they are applying. If you were applying for an associate or junior developer position, your lack of experience wouldn’t really matter. I would worry that your bouncing around reflects that you can’t be counted on to stick it out for…

I am also live in Viet Nam. i am working for a US company in Viet Nam. I am a founder of a vietnam startup. I read your information in hacker news. Could we make friend? I always want to learn knowledge from US experts.

Re: Ask HN: How do you build up your first career close to age 40?

#10

Post by mcv »

You can build up a very fine career as a freelance software engineer. My career really took off the moment I quit my job and became a freelancer at age 37.

Of course as a freelancer, working on our network is probably more important than otherwise; you need to be able to find interesting projects, and you need recruiters and hiring managers to be able to find you. I think I've still neglected this aspect a bit too much; I mostly trust recruiters to be able to find my outdated CV on Linkedin, but another freelancer I know makes sure he connects on linkedin with hiring managers of interesting companies. It enables him to get hired more directly, without recruiters getting in the way.

Do polish your CV. Put the focus on the most interesting projects you worked on. Make sure you describe what you worked on, what the broader purpose of the project was, what (interesting) technologies you worked with, and what your responsibilities were.

If you did personal side projects, list them too. Especially open source projects. It's all software experience.

Don't bother listing projects that were both very short and not very interesting, but interesting short ones and boring long ones are still worth mentioning (but the interesting short ones more than the boring long ones: put the focus on the stuff you want to do).

Non-software jobs can still be worth mentioning if they gave you relevant insights or experience, like dealing with customers or other stakeholders, logistic or administrative processes, creative work, etc.

If you look at your work experience from the right perspective, you may find you know a lot more than you thought.

Post reply on HN