Ask HN: How can my 62 year old father get a job?

[notuger]

Disclaimer: not looking for a job as my father does not speak english, just want some opinions.

My father used to code in the 80's, assembly, machine language, banking services. He stopped coding in the early 90's and now for some years has been studying and deploying some flutter applications for fun.

He decided last year to return to the market, learned git, dart, state management even how to use figma to try some junior jobs, but he's always failing in the last interview part, where the company has to choose between him and some fresh grads (most of the time the recruiters say that the age is a problem)

See, he is not really trying to get a senior job, he is just hoping to get a job in the area again.

Do you guys have some advice for an older dev starting now or returning after decades?

[tomcam]

I’m his age. I am independent but for the last 50 years I have been preparing for that very situation because as a child in the 1970s I saw that the tech world was cyclical. I still keep my skills up-to-date even though at this point there is probably no reason to. The thing your father needs to understand is that he can find a job, but it will just take him a lot longer than most people.

That’s because most of the people in this industry are young and old people scare them. They don’t want to work with old people. Which means your father will just have to work extra hard to sell himself. He will have to be appreciably better at something hard to do than the other candidates, so much better that he will be irresistible. It’s not fair, but it’s what minorities and women had to do for decades.

[no-s]

I took a 5-year break and it was 5 months of brutal futility to get back into the workforce at 60, but once I hit my stride I received multiple simultaneous 6-figure offers in month 5. Positive attitude very essential due to many, many, many rejections. Constantly solicited feedback and tuned my approach to meet goals of targeting industry hiring cycles, getting interviews, technical screens, 2nd through Nth interviews, offers, quantifying offer value, negotiating offers. Very annoying because I really just wanted to do technical work. Non-technical people of course put a premium on other things, I crave getting into the “Flow” state.

It’s important to clearly internalize and relate objectives about why you want to return to the workforce. Discover how people in the target position(s) actually work. Talking to people who want to stay current is helpful. Make a list of things to be familiar with so you don’t blank out in interviews. My kids wanted me to do LeetCode for 90 days and apply at a FAANG. This is how people at the beginning of their careers conceptualize capturing the opportunities. However most of those companies have a substantial strata of management influenced by bias against older technical people. If you’re able to successfully pillage LeetCode and say Project Euler at a handy pace at 62, you’re probably founder-class talent and shouldn’t waste time laboring under artificial constraints imposed by lesser minds, heheh. Join a startup crew or go into consulting instead.

It helps to stay current and be able to demonstrate same. I just made a list of what people were asking for and related it to the content in my resume, sometimes doing tutorials or making up little projects to clarify my understanding.

Addressing Age Discrimination: If you have ever been forced to take management training WRT discrimination and harassment it covered hiring. Often an insecure hiring manager (or their boss) might feel threatened by the idea that a person who previously held a senior principal role could desire to return as a non-manager technical worker. Perhaps most people click through the age discrimination awareness training without paying attention. I ran into enough of it that I was tempted to partner up with an attorney to be become a professional victim of age discrimination...

In my experience only about 1 job out of 500 has superlatives over all. Most others have some degree of suckage. So I try not to sweat the small stuff and rely on karma to round over the rough edges.

[tomcam]

You are a complete badass. That is one hell of an inspiring story. Congratulations.

[no-s]

> You are a complete badass. That is one hell of an inspiring story. Congratulations.

Hah! Thanks! But I wish. This was just to get an ordinary job. I don’t even feel like I’m near the upper quartile of performance yet. There are many stories other than mine, some more heroic. Persistence in the face of adversity has been considered virtuous since before antiquity.

Many decades ago someone pointed out to me that networking was not just adding contacts, it was also about connecting over solving similar problems and sharing inspiration and tips. The more the merrier.

[WheelsAtLarge]

He needs to create a github site with samples of his work while he finds a job. I think the days when you could just say that you can program in a certain language are long gone so a sample site should be his goal right now. Second, he needs to focus on contract work. Look at Upwork and such to see what employers are looking for and focus on that. I've had to deal with finding reliable contract programmers and it's hard. If he can build a stellar reputation, he will have more work than he can handle. Lastly, ask him not to disclose his age unless absolutely necessary. In the internet, you can be any age. Maybe you, the son, can be the front man and subcontract the work to your father. This will also help with the language issue.

If programming random things to create a sample site is not very attractive then copy apps that are useful and hope that one of them hits while he finds paying work. It can't hurt and it will help him get into the cycle of regular work.

FYI, here's a press release by Upwork on the highest paying languages on their site.

https://www.upwork.com/press/releases/upwork-releases-top-pa...

Edit: Added Upwork press release

[cl42]

+1... I coach a lot of new engineers during their job search and good portfolios make a huge difference. You get more interviews, people trust you more, and recruiters are more likely to reach out. If you need help, check this out: https://phaseai.com/resources/portfolio-checklist or email us!

[kb9]

no tienes ni idea

[krageon]

> He needs to create a github site with samples of his work

IME no company you will ever interview at will care about this.

[MathMonkeyMan]

Every interviewer I've ever shadowed on the hiring side has done zero prep, zero resume/portfolio reading, etc.

People don't read emails, so they sure as hell don't grok portfolios.

I put time into preparing an interview for a candidate, but I doubt it matters. My recommendation is always "proceed" unless they're a total wreck.

[dyingkneepad]

I am an engineer who often interviews other engineers for my own team. I look at portfolios. I look at github profiles. I try to find if they have open source contributions, and if they do I read their commit messages and patches.

[WheelsAtLarge]

An app people are looking for is an open source version of the Hacker News software. Maybe he wants to tackle that? It seems simple but the comments area and the spam filters are probably a bear to duplicate. Anyhow, good luck.

[mmphosis]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28155134

[anyfactor]

He can do anything but getting a full time job.

What is even a job? It is just financial security. At your dad's age, is he really looking for that financial security of a job? On the flip side of things nobody would be comfortable hiring him as they might think, he might not fit in with the team or he has a higher possibility of quitting because young people could barely survive the grind.

Recruiters/employers are biased and they make binary decisions on first impressions. It would be brutal for him to be in a job first mindset.

Ask him to look into freelance work and cotract jobs. He might even be able to get some advantage because many people subsitute experience with age.

Or ask him to build something. The software industry is obsessed with the under 40 demography so he has insights to a niche that is untapped.

[guard0g]

Instead of competing with the fresh grads, he should use his age to his advantage. Learn COBOL, and he'll be in-demand by US big banks/financial/insurance companies for the next 100 years.

[silisili]

I generally agree with this sentiment, though COBOL may be overkill. Anything stable and not latest/greatest probably helps a lot - Java, C#, and of course C/C++. Big boring companies seem to have older people - my company's average age is probably in the mid 40s.

[throwawayninja]

ADA is also very hot in those markets

[akhmatova]

From what you said about his current skill set:

He should try to learn at least one mainstream full-scale programming language (Python would probably be the best bet). My guess is that he would be better off doing data or workflow oriented stuff than webby stuff (given how insane and trendy and for want of a better term, "skinny-pants" frontend technology has become these days. In any case ever churning and always chasing the latest shiny).

He should also try to "ping" as many modern tools as he can (docker, npm, CI/CD, etc) even if they aren't part of his preferred toolchain. And be sure he knows how to put together a simple hand-coded website + REST API together from scratch, or something close to it. ust to show he's flexible and unafraid and to destroy the idea that he's trapped in some kind of 1982 mindset.

There are a lot of places (particularly in government, social services, etc) that just need someone to do their CRUD stuff and not complain that they aren't pulling down a FAANG salary or a getting fancy title to brag about or the enjoying the luxury of being able to use latest shiny every day.

He just need to keep looking, and be persistent.

[gprs]

Learning Python would be the best and easiest way to go. Could go into data science visulaization jobs or go into backend api's using Flask

[donnythecroc]

Go to indiehackers - two options there - not very well paid jobs - won't be too competitive because of pay. Second option is tech co founder - there are so so many non tech founders looking for tech Co founders on the boards - he'll be in a position of power.

[taffronaut]

Forget the recruiter pipeline unless he can find a recruiter (also an older person) who will take the challenge. He might be able to network with older coders in order to find companies that value older workers. Look for local tech greyhairs socially or online and reach out to them. Pitch as a no-hassle guy who is mature, flexible and willing to pick up any stuff that others don't want to do as temp, perm or part-time. Above all, find many ways to talk to many people about their work and his interest in current stuff. Try not to go CV, then F2F - that's a losing game for older workers. Find any way to do F2F or chat first and CV if there's interest as a formality after.

[okdood64]

> most of the time the recruiters say that the age is a problem

For real? What country is this in?

[notuger]

I'm located in brazil

[childintime]

I wouldn't put much faith in brazilian recruiters, if any. I presume they wouldn't lift a finger to consider you.

Unless there is a ongoing relationship, in which case you wouldn't be asking.

Maybe he could try monitoring and keeping up some important system, remotely. A night job, but a different timezone could work to his advantage. Assuming he knows english, of course.

Another area would be a test engineer, and try to break things.

[sebg]

Would something like upwork (or similar) be of interest?

If he is returning to the job market, being able to point to recent gigs could be helpful and perhaps given him some insight into current needs various organizations have.

[Kaotique]

In my opinion just keep trying and try to bring up the age topic early just to confirm that the company is really open about hiring him if he meets all other qualifications. At least you can eliminate those companies early on and not waste your time.

He basically is part of a minority group and being discriminated against. Search for companies that already hire from minority groups and are vocal about that. I think it would improve his chances.

[ab_testing]

You can suggest him to learn some older technologies that are still actively being used. The benefit of those are that the younger generation does not prefer using/learning them but lot of older companies still use them.

Things like Oracle, SAP etc.

[rrrodia]

kudos to your dad! (And you for trying to help). I feel like this issue is an overlooked aspect of our world, and often met with cynicism.

I agree with the suggestion to work on bank systems, or any place with old legacy systems that need updating. (he seems to have experience in that area?)

Any place where there might be a hidden bias for 'experience', even if your dad doesn't have knowledge of the specific language.

The other fields i'm thinking of is automation, or a mentor / teaching role?

Are former colleagues / peers of him still working? Maybe you can get some ideas via them.

[fxtentacle]

Work for banks. Seriously, they have a lot of legacy systems and they expect their staff to be 50+ because they know that nobody young is interested in learning ML4.

[freemint]

Just because he is old doesn't mean he knows anything about those legacy systems.

[fxtentacle]

No but he'd be applying to an employer that expects future employees to be old. That's a huge plus in a market where age-discrimination is a big issue.

[readonthegoapp]

Contracting ..

Upwork

Ask friends

Build his own app and publish it to start

[heavyset_go]

> most of the time the recruiters say that the age is a problem

This sounds illegal, sorry to hear that your dad is going through that.

[muzani]

It would be funny to be anonymous on a freelancing site like Upwork, and pick some nickname that hints that he's part of some discriminated group, like RebeccaHarris or RainMan. Then in interviews, just hint that he didn't want to get discriminated for his 40 years of experience.

[viraptor]

No, it wouldn't be funny. Please don't do this.

[luis8]

Does he know spanish?