Is it more difficult to find work as an older developer?
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A job is worth what it is. Hoping they'll underbid is taking advantage. Nice way to start an employer-employee relationship.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it. ― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
The guy who I've worked with for 35 years said something that has always stuck with me: "When negotiating, it is very important that both parties leave satisfied." Otherwise bad business. The problem with engineers, coders, and techies is that most have no experience here. And companies take advantage. Brutally. I'd almost think universities would require a couple of classes...
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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The guy who I've worked with for 35 years said something that has always stuck with me: "When negotiating, it is very important that both parties leave satisfied." Otherwise bad business. The problem with engineers, coders, and techies is that most have no experience here. And companies take advantage. Brutally. I'd almost think universities would require a couple of classes...
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
When you have a range in mind, and don't say what it is, you're wasting everyone's time. "Negotiating" involves knowing the parameters. If you meet the minimum, expect the minimum, not less because you underbid yourself; that will only create resentment. And if one knows the maximum, and doesn't like it, don't apply ... so "bitching" that they want "too much" doesn't even come into play. But some people like playing games and jerking others around.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it. ― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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I've noticed a trend (at least in South Africa) that a lot of developer job postings are looking for junior to mid level developers. Posts for senior level developers are scarcer. Companies are looking for young, energetic people. It seems like it gets more difficult to find work as an older developer, even though I would think that you would be valued for your experience. I think part of the reason is also that the salary for junior and mid level developers are less and companies are trying to save money. Perhaps there is also a stigma that older developers skills are not up to date?
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I've noticed a trend (at least in South Africa) that a lot of developer job postings are looking for junior to mid level developers. Posts for senior level developers are scarcer. Companies are looking for young, energetic people. It seems like it gets more difficult to find work as an older developer, even though I would think that you would be valued for your experience. I think part of the reason is also that the salary for junior and mid level developers are less and companies are trying to save money. Perhaps there is also a stigma that older developers skills are not up to date?
I landed a new job last year at the age of 59. The new role has required me to learn a new system and programming language, and skill up on Python. I'm in the UK. My trick was to ditch the agencies, and target employers directly. Exception that proves the rule? Maybe.
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I've noticed a trend (at least in South Africa) that a lot of developer job postings are looking for junior to mid level developers. Posts for senior level developers are scarcer. Companies are looking for young, energetic people. It seems like it gets more difficult to find work as an older developer, even though I would think that you would be valued for your experience. I think part of the reason is also that the salary for junior and mid level developers are less and companies are trying to save money. Perhaps there is also a stigma that older developers skills are not up to date?
When i got 50, it was not easy to find a job. I got hired by a consulting company. They said me they don't care about age because they have a pool of customers that represent a lot of different programming languages even cobol. I am now 65, sick and taking care of my wife who is sickier but i am working for many years on a project that will end in a year. This project will show what an old guy like me can do with experience.
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Yeah, look, if I was at Chevron doing PL/X and COBOL, I am sure not much would have changed. But admittedly, I wanted to write software for people/companies. And then on the internet side, software as a service (ASP back in the day, and NOT web pages). I have a friend who worked on the Kernal for Solaris. And is working in debugging for the big Storage Companies. Still doing the same stuff (Heavy C/ASM/Memory dumps... Reading through a core dump like it's a story). There are jobs out there that don't change constantly, which is good. They are NOT usually customer driven solutions!
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interviewed two decades ago with a company. The PM was a twit and the lead consultant was a pompous twit that could spout acronyms but didn't do anything. I solved a development issue the team was having in 30 seconds. Still didn't get the job. Pretty sure the twit figured out what I thought of him. One thing you have to realize. I rarely come across people who can actually hire people smarter than them. And it's getting worse.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Pretty much exactly what I ran into. It wasn't my attitude or what my face told him I thought of him as I was eager and excited to get the job, but you cannot alter opinions of the inferior.
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I've noticed a trend (at least in South Africa) that a lot of developer job postings are looking for junior to mid level developers. Posts for senior level developers are scarcer. Companies are looking for young, energetic people. It seems like it gets more difficult to find work as an older developer, even though I would think that you would be valued for your experience. I think part of the reason is also that the salary for junior and mid level developers are less and companies are trying to save money. Perhaps there is also a stigma that older developers skills are not up to date?
In Germany, we have a law that forbids discrimination due age on the job market. That is why in job postings they never explicitly look for younger developers, even if they in fact do. I had to find 3 new jobs in a row at the age of 44 to 46, so I had a lot of interviews. And in about one third of the cases they did not want to have me without telling me any conrete reasons, even when my profile was an almost perfect fit. So I think it was due to my age. In the other two thirds of the cases, age didn't matter at all. So I still had a quite a fair bunch of jobs to choose from. Might be different if you're 50+.
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I will leave this discussion with this fact. It is a medical and scientific fact (not opinion) that as we age, our memory and cognitive function declines.
In the general sense yes. Even though on average this is true - you cannot use it as a measure of a specific individual any more so than you can use sex or race to determine the quality of an individual. Different people decline at different rates - it is also true (and equally useless) that smart people and those who regularly engage their brains tend to decline more slowly. Medical fact or not, generalizing like that is rather dangerous, and not at all productive IMHO.
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I will leave this discussion with this fact. It is a medical and scientific fact (not opinion) that as we age, our memory and cognitive function declines.
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as we age, our memory and cognitive function declines.
Relative to our own prior state. Relative to the rest of the software development team? Meaningless. I was WAAAAAAAAAAY smarter and more productive than you when I was 25. Now I'm just WAAAAAY smarter and more productive. ;)