Can I get an IT job at 58 with no experience?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Neither do I. I would never submit to that.

-I- was indifferent to Linked-In, and maybe other old 50+ people. Certainly the younger developers managed it quite seriously. It never occurred to me to even care about it. For one thing, I was a career programmer in a huge company and never really thought about looking for another job. For another, LinkedIn was just the last of an array of social media ‘connection’ sites I was supposed to care about, and the rest were gone.

And it wasn’t MY HR department that wanted to look at people’s accounts. My HR department warned us about the practice when giving us our exit job search talks and all that stuff. And I knew two guys who had actually been asked by other companies when they went looking. Maybe it only happens in Canada.

Aside from the people in your company, do you have classmates from school? Vendors, partners, customers, etc and other industry professionals you work with? Do you go to industry events, trade shows, etc?]

That’s not what they are looking for. They wanted 25 connections to people who could vouch for my skills and work, not a high school classmate from 40 years ago or some vendor I worked with for a couple of weeks. I could probably cough up a dozen people if I tried really hard, but the whole practice makes me a little nauseated and I’d rather just stay retired. The notion of having to be networked up to get a job shouldn’t be something the left is happy about either, as it’s especially difficult for minorities, immigrants and other disadvantaged people to build that kind of network.

Maybe you don’t need 500+, but not having any social media presence is apparently a big red flag to recruiters. Particularly in the tech industry.

Then I’m screwed. I don’t tweet, and the only thing on my facebook feed is the odd photo of a dog or some astrophoto I took. And none of my facebook friends except one are programmers. They’re most relatives, friends and old high school acquaintances.

But this isn’t about me. I was simply offering examples. Lots of older people don’t do the big social media thing, other than maybe facebook. I’ve certainly never cared to indulge, other than here and the odd other message board. And I’m guessing that what they’d see of me here wouldn’t help me get a job in this environment. I’d just be ‘trouble’, because I don’t conform to what they want.

But again, let’s just generalize this to what other 58 year olds need.

42

Look, your HR people don’t seem to know shit. Kind of like most HR people.

But you can’t cry “ageism” while a) not being up to date on the latest technologies and trends and b) refusing to use modern job search tools. No one cares about Facebook or Twitter or most other social media. Maybe you don’t need LinkedIn if you aren’t looking for a job and aren’t in a role where you need to constantly network. I would even go so far as to say LinkedIn is mostly bullshit in that it has become its own self-perpetuating industry of people generating content of questionable value in order to get their “personal brand” out there.

But the fact is that networking is the best method to find a job, just as it has always been. And for that, LinkedIn provides a valuable service as both a digital Rolodex of your contacts and a massive database of companies and their employees. So as stupid and annoying as it is, you really do need to be on it if you are job hunting. I mean unless you actually have a solid list of potential hiring managers as personal contacts you can just call directly.

Also, another thing I’ve noticed is that older people (by which I mean older than me as I’m 47) tend to get hung up on how old they are. Complaining about how things are “different now” or bemoaning the fact that no one uses COBOL anymore or whatever. And they end up positioning themselves as these unhirable relics. I mean I know nothing about the OP other than he is “old” and has no IT skills. What he should be doing is selling us on his 30+ years of project management and business process skills.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go prepare for another round of interviews with a tech company that has apparently developed a platform that has significantly reduced the need for software programmers at all.

43

In case it isn’t clear, this is in support of the good advice of @msmith537 .

About 15 years ago, I lost a major internal struggle over technology directions for the business unit of the Fortune 150 company I work for. My research group was dissolved, and I was shunted off to a staff position for the BU’s CTO. I was at a crossroads. I was in my mid-50’s. I could leave the company and look for a position doing the same research I was doing, or I could work for the CTO and continue my career within the company. I chose a middle path. I remained with the company, but I maintained my professional life, my networking within the research community, even writing some influential papers and volunteering for various boards. Somewhere along the way I joined LinkedIn (almost by accident).

About 8 years ago, I got sucked into another research group that ended up losing favor and being dissolved. This time, I decided to update my resume, just in case. As I was doing this, I realized that I not only had “fuck you” money (by that time I was 25 years into my career at the company with a fat 401 plus an actual pension) but I had a “fuck you” resume. Read objectively, my detailed resume plus my LinkedIn profile and ~800 scientific, government R&D, and tech company connections had all the right hot tech topics plus a hefty dose of industry experience. A weight lifted off my shoulders.

Your job is not your profession and your professional life should be a priority if you want to have options in the job market. Networking is key in this. LinkedIn is a low overhead way to help in maintaining your professional networking. Not the only way, but I can’t see the downside that would cause the reactions I’m seeing from some posters in this thread.

44

A lot of people are turned off by “networking” for some reason. They really shouldn’t be. But one of the keys to networking is to be networking before you need something. Pre-COVID-19 I would go to relevant Meetups, alumni functions, professional groups and conferences as often as I could, just to be aware of what else is going on and just make professional contacts. Doing things like meeting people for lunch or coffee with no agenda.

45

There are a lot of companies still out there using COBOL programs. Banks, for example. And state and federal government. If you don’t mind digging through thousands of lines of spaghetti that has few or no comments, there still may be a place to be found.

Just a few months ago, the state of New Jersey was begging for COBOL programmers to come out of retirement because the software they used to manage unemployment needed to be updated in a huge hurry thanks to people being laid off due to the pandemic.

46

The word “networking” makes me think, probably unjustly, of going to big parties and going around schmoozing everyone and trying to cultivate lots of relationships with people that I can use for my own benefit, which sounds like an introvert’s nightmare.

47

This is outright illegal in most states, and problematic in others.

If you ever get this request, the correct answer is “I’ve lost interest in this opportunity” and your next move is to report it to the DOL.

48

I’ll just say this… I wouldn’t wish Agile/Scrum on anyone, least of all a late-career person unfamiliar with IT.

It’s great in theory and sounds like a good idea, but in practice, teams either already work in a somewhat agile fashion anyway because they’re very good at what they do, or it’s some onerous crap imposed from on high that doesn’t work right, and nobody likes, except for the true believers (i.e. people who have invested in Agile in hopes of career distinction).

49

It’s an unfortunate truth that networking is important (often it’s not just what you know, it’s who you know).

Taking it a step even further, software engineering has taken on a sort of celebrity culture. It’s not enough just to know the tech or the door-opening names. You have to build a marketable persona like “Bob, your Go-To for Golang”. Your persona needs to get in all the right cliques, post in all the right communities, use appropriate in-chat memes and have a working knowledge of whatever pop culture thing is viral at any given moment." Your code can’t just be good, it has to show well (and well means some dimension of “cool” and “accessible” no matter how mundane the problem domain).

Sometimes I write “show code”, a dumbed-down version with slapdash formatting and bad variable names, so that certain out-to-pasture decisionmakers can comprehend what I’m doing and “contribute suggestions”, all of which are discarded before delivery.

I blame the fact that sales, marketing, and advertising have taken over and are remaking software in their own image. I respect the necessity of these specialties but I hate everything about them. They’re turning software into a soft-skill social activity that rewards bullshitters, cliques, and hasty slipshod work.

50

What you describe sounds more like a culture where there’s an in-crowd, and they’re picking candidates who they think fit into that culture, more than they’re picking the absolute best programmers. You see this all the time elsewhere- at my last company, ALL the execs had a certain look- they were all very fit, they all tended to wear either dress shirts/dark slacks, or khakis, dress shoes and golf shirts embroidered with course names. And they all were white, frat-boy types.

Why? Because those guys are the best execs out there? Doubtful. But they all did fit the exec culture at that company, and people are likely to hire people who they perceive to be like them.

I’m betting you (HMS_Irruncible) are probably on the old side for a developer, and are running into a bit of ageism w.r.t. the memes, communities and pop culture.

51

It’s somewhat different than that. It seems like software as a whole, or large swathes of it, have collectively decided that “hip chic” is important, and people invest tons of time and effort trying to look and act the part.

I’m on the older side, but I can pull off a convincing “hip chic” theatre performance. What grinds my gears is all the time wasted on fun memes and banter when there’s work to be done. Like it’s routine to see people hunting for 15 minutes on imgur to find the exact funny/cool meme that expresses “OK” in response to a throwaway Slack message. So much time is wasted that you’d think it’s a union shop. Don’t even get me started on ping-pong tables (everybody who plays ping-pong at work should be fired).

I don’t mind getting paid to sling memes or whatever, but it gets ugly when one of these young time-wasting punks suggests we should use the new cool Javascript framework (coincidentally the only framework he knows) instead of putting in the hours to learn the one we just replaced last year. Stop memeing on the company Slack channel and learn your damn job.

52

How about we agree to not casually dis union workers, unions or union shops?

It’s a matter of respect. Your bad experiences were not because it was a ‘union shop’ but because jerks worked there and they got away with it. Happens all the time in non-union work places too.

53

Let’s agree to disagree. We turned our development teams to Agile in a span of 3 years and while not perfect, we’ve measured impressive gains in Time to Market and code quality. It’s been frustrating at times and we’re not done yet, but it can work, just like any software development methodology. For us, it’s been a game changers, for the better.

54

I think it works fine- well even for pure software development shops. The kind that produce software as a product, and can gear their entire business along Agile/Scrum lines. I mean, if I was in charge of a company that wrote commercial software, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

But most places that try to do Agile/Scrum are corporate IT departments with in-house development shops for enterprise applications or corporate web development or stuff along those lines. And it doesn’t work so well in those environments without a lot of buy-in from the business and upper IT management. If they’re not thinking in terms of sprints and user stories, and whatever, and are instead thinking of deadlines, phases, etc… you’re going to have a fundamental disjoint there that’s hard to overcome.

55

Not a fan of HR, but they were simply warning us of some practices out there, legal or not. They weren’t doing this stuff - they were there to advise us on finding our next jobs, and what kinds of things to be wary of.

But you can’t cry “ageism” while a) not being up to date on the latest technologies and trends

Did you see that list I posted above? I did that stuff. My last project before I left was working with Azure and OpenID to build secure cloud-based analysis software. Our environment was Java/Linux with Docker containers to spin off builds and virtual servers for unit and integration testing. We used a continuous build process, and worked in Agile/scrum teams. UI work was responsive design done using REACT, Angular, NodeJS, etc.

Is that up to date enough?

But some old guys wind up as specialists in old tech. Often they are kept around because no one else knows how to fix older software. So they get stuck doing endless customer support of old C++ or machine code, etc. They never get the chance to work on more modern stuff. That’s another reason for ageism - lots of older programmers were stuck working in old tech and are out of date.

and b) refusing to use modern job search tools. No one cares about Facebook or Twitter or most other social media. Maybe you don’t need LinkedIn if you aren’t looking for a job and aren’t in a role where you need to constantly network. I would even go so far as to say LinkedIn is mostly bullshit in that it has become its own self-perpetuating industry of people generating content of questionable value in order to get their “personal brand” out there.

Do you live in Silicon Valley, or Boston or some other area brimming with programmjng shops and customers for them? Try building your big linked-in network when you work for 20 years in a four-person shop in Green Bay Wisconsin, which some of our guys did. Most of programming teams were distributed in small locations around the country as a result of decades of acquisitions - until the company decided to build a ‘center of excellence’ in Silicon Valley, and started replacing the senior engineers who actually built all their software with H1B holders and second-rate people who couldn’t get jobs at Google or other prestige firms. It was a disaster.

But for all those 50-something engineers scattered around the world who were laid off, networking was often not possible, and many of them nearing the end of their careers didn’t think they’d ever need it.

Now imagine you are a minority immigrant. You need to find a programming job, and you find out that you can’t get one without being networked into a fairly exclusive club.

56

Yeah…but I kind of like doing that. I mean I’m not just building relationships for my own benefit. I’ll reciprocate if I can.

Some of the things I liked about our last company was the big “cloud/big data/AI” conference we host at the Javits Center, the various training and team-building trips we had at various offices, and our annual sales kick off boondoggle where we fly the whole company out somewhere to learn about the new products and have a bunch of expensive happy hours and dinners and shit. I even enjoy just driving out to the middle of Bumfuck, NJ and hanging out with the team at some client’s corporate cafeteria or a Panera down the street. But that’s just me.

I don’t suppose they are hiring? :grin:

57

Sounds up to date. So that’s good.

New York actually (although my last company had it’s headquarters in Palo Alto). Look, if it’s any consolation, my boss is ten years younger than me with a fantastic resume and he’s been looking for a job since we got laid off three months ago.

I don’t mean to sound like those HR job coach dildos, but maybe you need to focus on what you can bring to the table with 30+ years of experience? Ok, you have some things going against you - age, being based out of Green Bay, spending the last 20 years in a 4 person shop, plus the economy is in the shitter. But focus on the shit a company might want to hire you for.

This is how I see it - corporations are full of elitist classist racist asskissing jerkoffs who want nothing more than to collect big checks for not having to do a lot of work. But every so often, economic necessity requires that they hire some piece of shit loser who knows how to roll up their sleeves and actually do the work that they can’t or won’t do themselves. You just have to position yourself as that piece of shit loser. That guy who can fix their Azure OpenID secure cloud-based analysis Java/Linux Docker containers virtual server continuous build Agile/scrum UI REACT, Angular, NodeJS problems before they go out of business (which they will hate you for, but can’t do anything about).

58

Yeah, the thing is I don’t really need the job, and right now I’m enjoying just doing my own thing. If I go back to software development, it will either be in a company I start like I did 30 years ago, or short-term contract work.

The last five years in my career were very disheartening. The company hired new people who basically didn’t know what the hell they were doing, didn’t understand the market, and made amazingly stupid decisions. By the time we were shut down, the level of dysfunction was out of control. For example, one of our hotshot new ‘center of excellence’ UI guys wanted to ‘gamify’ a factory interface for line workers to control the assembly line. Another rejected one of our UI designs for a console that is used constantly for running machines because ‘it didn’t have enough clicks’. These were obviously people who had minimal UI training, and in the context of consumer-facing web sites. They were completely out of their depth when it came to factory automation, but we had to listen to them anyway. They destroyed our company, burned me completely out, and now I get PTSD just looking at code.

I got very tired of incompetent people being hired into management and proceeding to destroy decades of hard work by very good engineers through incredibly stupid decisions. The entire division went down the tubes, and now the company is trying to sell it off after closing almost all the development shops except for their failing ‘center of excellence’…

One of the problems with getting older and more experienced is that you start to see bullshit for what it is, and at least for me it got increasingly difficult to take orders from people who had no idea what they were doing. I mean, I did what was asked as cheerfully as possible, but the internal stress levels got pretty high.

When you’re young and you’re asked to do a 2-month death march to meet schedule, you just do it and don’t think about it too much. You understand that schedule is important. But after 20 years of seeing managers mismanage products, over-commit and under-staff development, and routinely pull their asses out of the fire by making their teams work crazy hours, you start to get a little cynical about it.

59

Amen to that. But that’s the trend now (or always) as far as I can tell. Convincing upper management types to hire you based on some bullshit you pitch them and then pushing that shit downhill on the developers and their project managers. I suppose that’s the one skill I never developed in my career - getting to that point where I can take credit for everything and defer all blame elsewhere. On some level I naively still believe in the idea of being rewarded for actually accomplishing something.

60

When I first started, the company was still independent and being run by the very people who made the software that made the company so successful. They were a dream to work for, and I learned stuff from them all the time. They gave their developers autonomy and allowed them to make as many decisions as they could so long as the decisions worked out. We got bonuses for shipping on time, bonuses for patents and other performance perks, and in general it was great.

Then we got acquired by a giant conglomerate. For the first few years not much changed, but over time the owners saw the writing on the wall and took their big paydays and left. Eventually, everything just degraded.

There’s a lesson in there about trying to acquire your way to success. Some large companies have this idea that they can just buy their way into new markets. Find the #1 company in the market, buy it, and now you’re in that market! Unfortunately, what the money doesn’t buy you is experience and understanding and knowledge. The people you bought from have that, and if you treat them poorly they’ll leave, and eventually you’ll be leaving the market they so carefully built because you don’t know what they did and you don’t know how to replicate their success.

And huge corporations have so much bureaucracy that it all becomes ‘process’, functionaries replace visionaries, ‘professional managers’ who last worked at a damned clothing manufacturer or something are brought in under the notion that managers are managers, and as long as they are trained in ‘management’ they are interchangeable. Bean counters and marketing guys take over, and actual engineering sometimes seems like an afterthought.

I can remember ‘engineering’ meetings with 50 engineers sitting in a room listening to accountants drone on about year-over-year OM and PE financials, marketing guys talking about go-to-market strategies and advertising budgets, ‘managers’ giving business forecasts, and all the stuff these managers loved to talk about. Then 10 minutes before the end of the meeting we’d get an ‘engineering summary’ or something, and that would be the end of it. Totally useless meetings for engineers, but the guys holding them just had no idea what they should have been talking about.