I am an unemployed programmer. I am 50 years old. I have 15 years of C#, 15 years of sql server, two years of golang, two years of node.js, vue.js, svelte, css, html, postgress, rabbitmq,
etc etc etc.... My skills list is about 10 times this short list I just threw up.
They tell me there is a skills and labor shortage in tech.
That's complete bullshit
I am UNEMPLOYED for a year. I don't believe one dam word the government or the media says anymore. Not one word.
Not about the cough. Not about the labor shortage.
They will tell you the economy is booming meanwhile they are boarding up New York City and there is homeless everywhere. It's the same thing right across america. We are being lied to at an awesome level.
Might also be an attitude problem on your side. If you're serious about getting a job, consider coaching.
This "nobody is hiring, everything sucks, and I'm the victim here" narrative isn't really helping you.
Also, bringing up stuff like "lies about the cough" (which I assume is OP talking about COVID) absolutely undermines your credibility as an individual capable of critical thinking, which is necessary for software engineering.
I don't know about the OP, but I think sometimes people forget that getting hired is only part skill list match. The other part is likability. I've worked with enough smart assholes to never want to do that again if I can avoid it. I also frequently reflect to make sure I'm not being an asshole.
You've got cause and effect flipped here. It's not the bitterness that causes one to be not hired, its not being hired that causes bitterness. I experienced the same when trying to get in the field. The narrative at the time was that there was a labor shortage, and they were trying to push for more H1B visa holders. Yet there were very very few entry level positions, nobody was training, and the company that hired me paid horribly($12/hr) and didn't teach me anything. Keep in mind, I had recently graduated from university in the field.
For decades, employers had far more leverage than employees. Now that that's eroded a bit, everyone is panicking. But this is exactly what is needed to employers to actually train and care about their workers.
> The narrative at the time was that there was a labor shortage
Not unique to the particular time or place : Dutch employers are complaining about a lack of technical workers for decades, think welders / metal workers / machine operators etc.
Except they pay sh*t. Somehow the statement about the lack of workers gets printed in the media everytime.
Now we have the 'free transfer of people' in the EU. The EU is not there for you, but for the employers ( just like HR ).
I think this is something that every university graduate needs to understand so as to not be bitter.
Your first years of your career will be shit, there is just no beating around the bush around this fact. You will be treated like a kid, you will be paid like shit (borderline minimum wage a lot of the times), and you will have to work ridiculous amounts to be seen on the same level as other people in the field.
Once you break the 1-2 year experience mark then you can begin to expect entry level benefits for entry level positions. After you break the 5 year experience mark, then really the world is your oyster. 10 years or more and you can demand blank checks.
> It's not the bitterness that causes one to be not hired, its not being hired that causes bitterness.
That's a pretty absolutist statement. Is it not possible that both are sometimes present, and lead to a downward spiral of poor attitude and unemployablility?
I don't know. I am fifty one years old, last year I was sent packing. I found that it is increasingly more difficult for me to find a new job as a programmer, as the years go by. I am very grateful that I found a job, eventually.
Dear Calltrack, don't get too upset by the reactions in this thread, some people here are, well, not very compassionate, to say the least.
Sure tech companies generally are generally on your political side and not on his but he's most likely not getting hired because of ageism and because people don't really need people with tons of experience.
A kid with some basic knowledge who will comply to whatever bs is being told is good enough. Plus they can easily convince him to care about the company, do overtime, etc. Good luck trying that crap with a 50yo.
Would you rather , on this site, people post what they honestly think, or what they would say in a job interview situation? Because if the latter, you might be better off not assuming that the OP is dumb enough to let out their unvarnished thoughts in an interview.
This sounds like a complete misunderstanding of the situation. In a thread about employers having trouble with hiring someone posted their honest frustrations as a potential employee looking for work. It is extremely unlikely that any cover letter, resume, or job interview is in any way similar because that context is completely different.
Just to pick one common idea among recruiters, it often takes about a month of job seeking per year of experience to get a position that is a solid match. That means that the people posting here with decades of experience can expect years of leetcode interviews before getting hired. Recruiters seem like a better source of information than currently employed and in demand coders.
These aren’t honest frustrations, lol, this person basically called covid a hoax and said all the official labor numbers are made up.
And idk what recruiters say this about experience but that’s not even a claim that could be substantiated. What even is a “solid match”? Sure, if you have crazy specific requirements to be willing to take a job it will take you longer to search. That applies regardless of age. Maybe on average older candidates tend to me more rigid in their expectations and are less open to working with new industries or programming languages or something, but that’s their choice.
The guy is frustrated and people say things like that when they're frustrated, it's understandable, though he certainly isn't helping himself by expressing such thoughts.
The "lies" he's talking about, I think, are a side-effect of the dichotomy of having an investor class that is doing better than ever and a working class that's in a downward spiral. Sadly, economic performance is measured strictly for the benefit of the investor class. So yeah, when someone who's involuntarily unemployed sees booming market numbers and talking heads on TV are calling out an economy that's "bounced back", it looks like a lie (and honestly I believe it is a kind of lie too).
The media downplayed covid until some places started closing. Then they kicked it into full on "zombie virus everyone is gonna die" mode real quick. On top of that, they (meaning social media as well) tried to circumvent the CDC numerous times by flagging things they've said because the media doesn't want COVID to die now that Trump is out of office. Trump was a damn goldmine and they're trying to force COVID to be another one.
OP's statement leads straight to "they're out to get me," which is absolutely not helpful, and it's absolutely an indicator of a difficult hire.
If I'm interviewing someone and the person is demonstrating a victim narrative, that is a huge red flag.
Similarly, the inability to see shades of gray (e.g. "using MySQL is always utterly stupid, you should never use it in favor of Postgres") which OP demonstrates with their COVID statements, makes a person virtually non-employable in my book.
> OP's statement leads straight to "they're out to get me," which is absolutely not helpful, and it's absolutely an indicator of a difficult hire.
Not at all. If you've been out of work for a year and seeing your savings (if you have any) dwindle and vent on what is an internet comment sections, doesn't indicate how you are in person at all.
> If I'm interviewing someone and the person is demonstrating a victim narrative, that is a huge red flag.
You are ignoring the present situation entirely. Governments have put everyone's life on hold for well over a year now (we are in month 17). Statements from authorities have been contradictory, non-sensical, they have lied in some cases and some have broken their own lockdown rules (e.g. in the UK Matt Hancock which was in charge of public health IIRC was exposed as having an affair during COVID, which BTW was illegal under the lockdown rules).
So many people can see it for what it is. One rule for them and one rule for the plebs.
> Similarly, the inability to see shades of gray (e.g. "using MySQL is always utterly stupid, you should never use it in favor of Postgres") which OP demonstrates with their COVID statements, makes a person virtually non-employable in my book
You are reading far too much into comments around COVID due to your personal bias (which btw is obvious here). Because you disagree on a particular issue doesn't not indicate someone's thinking in a different field of expertise. e.g. there are many great scientists that believe very deeply in Religion. Which as a non-believer I would think would be at odds with one another.
I have personally found it very difficult to find a job during COVID as well. I am almost 40 now and it worries me that I might experience the same in the future.
In addition to Matt Hancock, there was also the case of exemptions from quarantine for UEFA football VIPs. [1]
I think it's right the UK is returning to personal responsibility, especially as many of the rules haven't seemed to be science-based e.g. you must wear a mask entering a pub, but you are allowed to remove the mask while eating seated.
It's health-theatre, rather than virus prevention.
There were many notable people who were exposed as to exposing that we all should be lockdown while breaking the rules themselves. It is quite frustrating when I live in an area where almost everyone followed the rules.
Yes there is a quite an element to theatre to the whole thing, which makes sensible discussion about the issue impossible. Which I believe is somewhat by design.
The basic takeaway is that you make it impossible for the average person to keep up the thread of events and they become apathetic to it. I've also watched Adam Curtis's "Hypernormalisation". It is well worth a watch.
The fact was that I wasn't right. They were doing decent work and their beliefs didn't affect their work.
A lot of non-believers (in the past I would have include myself in that list) seem to believe because they don't believe in a higher being that they are somehow more "rational". Nothing could be further from the truth. It took me a long time to realise that I wasn't being more rational than the faithful and I dogmatic about things that were simply quasi-religious. It took a lot of introspection and several times I had moments where my ideology hit reality hard and I spent several days dealing with cognitive dissonance and having to accept I was just wrong.
Indeed, but I think that was the point. It's entirely possible to hold irrational beliefs in one area without them affecting your work in another area.
Whether you think it's at odds or not, in practice many great scientists have been devoutly religious. For example Newton.
After some searching I found both old recommendations, and new ones about this explicitly [0].
The problem here is that nobody knows for sure, and someone must decide based on precautions and ongoing research. It is expected that new knowledge will make old information obsolete. An ongoing situation will also change during its course. Media just reflects this and there's no expectations of perfection.
It's on what basis opinions are formed that truly matter. Anyone can make thousands of bets and congratulate themselves on 50% of them.
People started noticing during covid but it's been going on for a very long time. I think it's awesome to see so many people realize this now though. We need that to happen.
We reject more senior candidates for soft skill issues than we do for technical issues. Most common one is them aggressively saying "why did you do it this way, you should have done it this way" during interviews without knowing any context.
>boarding up New York City
Not really, we're doing rather well over here.
>there is homeless everywhere
There have been homeless everywhere for decades, if you think this is new then you haven't been paying attention.
edit: Also believing covid isn't real indicates that you have overall issues with rational understanding of complex topics or processing third party information. That underlying mental model tends to leak in interviews and is definitely a massive red flag.
> I don't believe one dam word the government or the media says anymore. Not one word. Not about the cough.
If you really mean this, if you really think the pandemic is all a big conspiracy created by your government... makes me genuinely curious how you come across in interviews.
I don't think you're wrong about the labor shortage thing. Similar story here: quite a bit of trouble finding a job as a 25 year old tech person while you hear left and right that nobody can seem to find any employees anymore. But that one statistic is skewed, or perhaps that companies and employees aren't properly being matched, doesn't mean "the cough" (and what many people that contracted the virus describe as the worst week in their life) is all a big hoax.
I am curious as to how did you jump from not believing the government to pandemic being a conspiracy? Pandemic is real and governments have lied to their people, more so in last one and a half year - both of these statements can be true.
Also you should not question someone's capability to come across in the interviews based on their venting on online anonymous platform. Humans can have vastly different emotions depending on the situation.
Over the past 18 months or so, since the COVID-19 pandemic has been foremost in our minds, a group of people have espoused certain opinions or viewpoints. Namely:
The pandemic is a hoax
It doesn't kill people
Those that did die, died from other causes
That they won't wear a mask
That they won't get a vaccine
That the vaccine modifies DNA
The person who referred to the COVID-19 pandemic as "the cough" may or may not hold any or all of those views. But 18 months of hearing that group of people espouse those views leads many of us to learn that if they support one of the views above, they support them all.
Again, that may or may not be correct or ethical. It's just our experience.
It stretches credulity that you have that many skills and still unemployed. Employers are hiring just about anyone in tech these days. Where are you located?
You can kvetch about the media all you want, but the job market is the best it has ever been, and unlikely to get any better. Sorry to be harsh here, but if you can't find a job in this market, you ought to reconsider your professional choices.
My father-in-law is in a similar position, just ten years older than parent. He always gets rejections based on "lack of cultural fit". Ageism is real in tech.
> but if you can't find a job in this market, you ought to reconsider your professional choices.
There is enough literature out there about the racist, sexist or ageist hiring practices in the tech sector that you might as well rethink your comment here. How old are you?
I know you’re not trying to interview right here and now, but listing tools doesn’t move the needle. That’s not what employability in tech is measured by.
I’m trying to hire for a number of software positions and that’s a common issue I see in resumes.
I don’t want to hear that you’re a wizard with a hammer. I want to know about the times you lead a team in building a house from start to finish.
> I want to know about the times you lead a team in building a house from start to finish.
What if that's not something I can do? If I'm really good at tech, am really good in terms of writing code fast, correct, and readable, but management just isn't for me? Would you not hire me for a software position, also not at a lower salary or with a junior label or something?
We're not interested in hiring "perpetual juniors". The increased oversight of junior employees is an investment in them becoming senior in a 2-3 year timeframe. The skills listed above are for independent action, follow-through, communication, and teamwork, in a tech lead position, which are more important than writing code. If you haven't acquired those skills by now, it's unlikely any amount of mentorship will teach them to you, so it's going to be a pass.
> The increased oversight of junior employees is an investment in them becoming senior in a 2-3 year timeframe.
So in your mind, they go straight from junior to senior? I've been developing software for 8 years now, and still call myself intermediate. Senior is for people with incredibly deep knowledge of multiple technologies and how they work together, in my mind.
We don't have an intermediate role, the step after Software Development Expert II is Senior Software Development Expert. This is pretty consistent among peer companies. Your description of senior isn't inaccurate, but, after many years of schooling, personal development experience, and on-the-job training, it's expected that people will gain that level of expertise in at least one domain -- maybe not to the same degree you're expecting, but career progression does not necessarily stop at SSDE.
Even individual engineers will get tasked with solving problems, start to finish. And even if not, you were part of a team that did it. Talk about the process of how you contributed to some meaningful unit of work.
I don’t care about what tools you know. I can teach everyone how to program. Everyone. Programming is really not hard.
I can’t teach everyone how to be an adept problem solver or how to work in a team (in any role) to actually ship things reasonably bug free and on time. I can’t teach everyone how to work in harmony with others. I can’t teach everyone how to gracefully handle all the business realities that throw wrenches into software purity.
To add a bit: what I’m trying frantically to figure out in the hiring process is if you’re an asshole or not. I can’t fix that. If you don’t know some language or tool, that doesn’t even register as a problem to me. But if you seem stubborn and too opinionated, especially on trivial things, I don’t care if you’re a programming wizard.
It isn’t unreasonable to want to hire people that will be able to grow into senior positions. If you are demonstrating that you’ll never do that, this is a red flag for hiring.
No one gets a job because of how long they’ve been alive or how frustrated they are. I suggest changing your attitude and I’d also suggest avoiding rants about the government and media, as well as spreading misinformation about “the cough” and NYC during your job search.
I was unemployed for 9 months in the UK. I was a contractor/consultant and had to take a full time position.
When Lockdowns started I was literally finishing a contract and was happy to have some time off. After month 7 of not having any work and eating into savings and constantly lockdowns meant I had to go full time.
Interview process was frustrating to say the least. Lots of pre-screen "tests" which some were two to 3 hours of asking computer science style questions that are irrelevant for web development.
It was a frustrating process that was exasperated by COVID.
Have you tried remote-only positions? I’d assume they tend to care less about age, if that’s the problem.
I employ freelancers and pay competitive fees by European standards. I would hire someone with your experience without thinking too much about it (provided you had a modicum of people skills) since I only care about people being courteous and getting the job done, and not about “culture”…
As noted elsewhere, it seems Europe may be a better place for older folks. I know that some nations have some fairly strict laws about discrimination.
In the US, we have the same laws. It's flat-out illegal to discriminate by age, as it is by race, religion, gender, pregnancy, marital status, etc.
Out of that list, if a company tries anything other than age discrimination, they are pilloried and investigated.
However, in the IT industry, age discrimination is actively encouraged. Companies write job ads that basically say "Bros only."
The story I hear, is that older folks are "just waiting for retirement, and won't be loyal." That's rich, in an industry that has been completely formed around the idea that engineers will stay at a company for no more than two years.
In my case, I had my retirement set, years ago, and would have been willing to work for half of what a lot of younger folks would demand, if the work was motivating, and the work environment was good.
I have an enormous portfolio of exemplary work. My skills are "five minutes old." I'm not some old duffer, sitting on COBOL skills (which, I understand, would actually have made me more attractive).
It's been my experience that no one ever bothers to look at the portfolio. They've already made up their mind, and the only reason they are talking to me, is to tick off an EEOC checkbox.
> In the US, we have the same laws. It's flat-out illegal to discriminate by age, as it is by race, religion, gender, pregnancy, marital status, etc.
This is true, sort of. Age discrimination is different where it matters - the threshold to prove age discrimination is so high that the law could just as well not exist.
I don't see any evidence Europe being better for older folks. On top of that salaries are really really low in Europe.
Unless you are in the US and are going to graduate university at 22-23 best to forget about a career in STEM. Not worth the effort and time. Milk has a longer expiry date than a STEM worker who's perceived over the hill late-twenties or early thirties.
Many things in those sentences are plainly not true. In Europe, you can get very rich (by say western european standards) if you do 1-man consulting well. I mean in top 0.01% salary bracket for some countries while having fairly standard current skillset (soft and hard skills). Switzerland and Luxembourg have very high permanent salaries - not SV levels, but definitely fine ones and affording a great lifestyle.
Quality of life, say in Switzerland, (and I know this can be a hot topic that depends on personal preferences) is way better than basically anything US can offer for similar wealth bracket. That's my personal view, based on my personal opinions, evaluations and wish to give my kids the best and healthiest environment to grow up in so obviously not universally true.
Older dudes are definitely very supported here, but this is specific per sector/company. Average age of my coworkers (banking en Suisse) is around 45-50, all devs, admins, devops. We wanted to hire one 55 year old guy for dev position last week, we made him (a generous) offer already but he chose a different position. He didn't have the skillset list much bigger than what is flying around by OP (maybe some crypto stuff but we don't do it yet).
What you describe are mostly startups full of folks who want to get rich quickly, mostly fail, have attention span shorter than tick of second hand on my watch. You can find those everywhere. But that's a relatively small part of the market and at least here definitely not the best paying one.
Luxemburg junior salary average is 36K, take home around 2300. 1300 for rent and food you are left with 1000 euros.
Germany is where startups valued at $25bn and $45bn (Zalando and Klarna) are paying less than $100k for 10 YoE with >40% income tax.
Please let's not discuss already obvious things though I agree that Switzerland is better in terms of salary and taxes.
As per your own company you are using anecdotal evidence. Ageism in tech is very well-known and pretending it does not exist is not going to fix antyhing.
Since you mention banking (and I don't want to be ageist here, greyhair here as well) is the prototype of an old, crusty and backwards environment where nothing changes and nothing gets done at a reasonable pace. Unless you think of crazy deadlines being given as reasonable pace. Speaking from experience. I never want to work in a bank ever again.
...by American standards. Ask anyone in Northern Europe if they are happy with their salary and they will almost say yes. It's America that is distorting everything with their ridiculous salaries.
> They will tell you the economy is booming meanwhile they are boarding up New York City
> and there is homeless everywhere
Both of these can be true. The economy is great for all the people at the top rungs of society while the rest may not be seeing any of those prosperities.
I was puzzled by this as well. There was of course instances of this during the George Floyd protests (over a year ago), and a bit right around the election, but that was just companies protecting their property from some of the rowdier protesters.
My wife and I have both been hearing this narrative from coworkers outside of where we live (in NYC), asking if we're living in a ghost town or warzone. It feels strange.
By the way I think the term "flyover state" is probably a bit offensive to folks that happen to live outside of coastal cities.
It's bizarre but if you see the content they are watching and are fed it begins to make sense. They're never exposed to these places so they never have an opportunity to think for themselves.
Often times when I've gone to more rural/southern areas it's amazing how kind the people are - I think on both sides people just forget that there are just regular folk everywhere. The politics attempts to dehumanize.
That's nuts but I can believe it. My own experience is that if I am being interviewed by a 20 something, I am not getting the job no matter what. Not a single exception in a decade now lol. It's real
As a programmer if you’re not working for a year it’s safe to say you’re not actively looking and thus by definition excluded from unemployment statistics.
As a (potential) employer, I wouldn't really care about age. It's all about how much you make money for me. What your performance to cost ratio? People can be cats or dogs for all I care.
Young have the advantage that they usually drastically undervalue themselves and thus provide an unbeatable proposition. They're usually more energetic, positive and optimistic, which is more pleasant to be around and thus makes the work environment more productive.
In an ideal system: if employers fail to hire workforce that benefits their company more, they will fall behind the competition. There most definitely are preconceived notions about people on how they look, but that should be a competitive advantage to a company that can leverage it.
> Young have the advantage that they usually drastically undervalue themselves and thus provide an unbeatable proposition. They're usually more energetic, positive and optimistic, which is more pleasant to be around and thus makes the work environment more productive.
This feels myopic. It cuts both ways. Young employees are often much more susceptible to conflating their personal identity with their work identity, which can lead to serious emotional and psychological issues down the road. Even if we're looking at it purely from an extract-value-from-employee angle, I don't want a team that's running purely on misplaced idealism and ramen cups, because that's not sustainable.
So the counterpoint to your comment would be: older employees have the advantage of serving as an example to younger ones for how to better manage work/life balance, which yields a healthier team in aggregate.
I\m going to go ahead and guess that this is an attitude problem, not a skill problem.
Further - do you _really_ have 15 years of experience of C# and SQL Server, or (as is very common in that space) do you actually have one year of experience 15 times?
Just a side note. I’m actually working on building a remote team and when I went to your profile, the link in there was dead. How do people casually browsing your profile discover what you’ve worked on and learn more about you?
You armchair psychiatrists work fast! Why would he need a therapist when he's got you telling him he's a lunatic based upon his venting on the internet?
There must be something more to your story. Some slight mental issues, way too high expectation from work/salary/special requirements etc. A lot of folks think of themselves as perfectly fine, but on interviews they come as hard-to-work-with introverted weirdos. Applying for a very senior lead/managerial position. And so on.
A year must mean tons of applications and at least some interviews. Do you have any idea/feedback from failed interviews on why they failed?
They tell me there is a skills and labor shortage in tech. That's complete bullshit
I am UNEMPLOYED for a year. I don't believe one dam word the government or the media says anymore. Not one word. Not about the cough. Not about the labor shortage.
They will tell you the economy is booming meanwhile they are boarding up New York City and there is homeless everywhere. It's the same thing right across america. We are being lied to at an awesome level.