Ask HN: Starting a Career in Programming at 61?
177 points| wofo | 4 years ago
A bit more context, in case you are interested: he has worked as an executive at multiple companies in the past decades (CEO, CCO, CFO). As he grows older, he has noticed it becomes increasingly difficult to find work, even though he would love to continue working for the years to come. I think he feels inspired by seeing me thrive as a contractor, with access to a global marketplace and seemingly endless working opportunities.
He learned to program when he was a student, probably Pascal or Basic, but as far as I know he has never needed to use that skill in his professional life (though I assume his excel-fu is excellent, because that is the preferred "programming language" in a business environment).
I have no idea what to advise him, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Maybe I will even send him the link to this page so he can read along!
[+] [-] lbriner|4 years ago|reply
At risk of getting flamed...
It's tricky I think because even if he can learn to program to a suitable standard, I think the reality will be that people will see him as a "junior" but you will have a different working dynamic since it is easier for an e.g. 30 year old to coach someone who is younger if they are doing it wrong but could be tricky trying to coach an older person unless they have genuine humility, otherwise your dad might feel patronised or be offended by some youngster without the experience to coach well.
Another avenue, if it is just the industry he likes rather than programming specifically, he could probably get more distance by utilising his exec skills to do a technical management role like Product Manager, Product Owner or Project Manager. He could then get as much exposure to the programming as he wants without needing to produce as much of it as would be expected of a dev.
Don't know, just thinking out loud.
[+] [-] rookie_knight|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mywittyname|4 years ago|reply
Bingo. This goes for young people too, but is more important as we age or rise through the ranks. Accepting advice from an "inferior" with grace, humility, and thankfulness is key to gaining respect and learning at the rate necessary to stay on top of a field.
I've taught things to people who were a million times more intelligent than I and 20 years my senior. I gained so respect for them after seeing how quickly they learned, and how appreciative they were of having my time.
One thing I gleaned from the experience of working with these guys was how letting someone teach you something is a great way to impress them.
[+] [-] devoutsalsa|4 years ago|reply
I started teaching my self to code w/ the intent of getting a coding job at age 38, and I got my first coding job at 40. Breaking into coding was brutal for me. I couldn't get taken seriously as a junior. I just had to keep grinding until I was good enough that someone would take me seriously as a mid-level.
The way I did that was go super deep on learning Ruby super well. Then I found a company that needed someone who was really good w/ Ruby. They were willing to overlook my lack of depth in other areas because I had a skill that was critical to them. After starting the job, I had to work super hard to brush up on junior & mid level skills just to do my job at a good enough or better level.
After less than two years, people started thinking I was actually better & more experienced than I was. I could talk a really good game because I had spent so much time learning while I was getting experience, and then I started getting taken seriously for senior level roles. People saw my physical age & just assumed I was more senior & experienced than I was, so being older was actually an advantage to being taken seriously.
After about 5 years of coding, I finally felt like my work life balance was somewhat normal. I could start having a life again, stop learning quite so hard, etc. Now I'm just a normal, boring senior software engineer making a median-ish USA salary.
So I guess I'd say if OP's dad's path would be similar to mine, I'd ask him if he really likes software enough to spend a couple years learning to code & finding a job, then grinding for a few years to get to normal, and then enjoy 5 years of being a competent team member. It's certainly doable, but I think it's worth how bad one really wants this path. I think getting into software just for the money is not how I'd want to spend my 60s, but I'd absolutely do it if I found the coding enjoyable enough to self-teach & grind on learning for as long as it took.
It's also possible that other opportunities would open up just because of dad's knowledge of software. Just saying he likes to program, even if that's not his profession, could open up opportunities at a tech company doing other things, such as QA, support, scrum master, etc.
[+] [-] crdrost|4 years ago|reply
If the constraint is instead that programming looks fun but you want to get exposed to as much of it as possible, I mean, I would suggest that OP’s Dad start building an indie game or so? Doesn't have to be a bestseller to sharpen thinking about design and aesthetic and underlying mechanics and state and data structures... I work in web but the amount of framework churn and such is kind of something I wouldn't force others through.
If you did want something more webby, you would want to practice with something you find interesting... If you wanted, maybe something that touches a lot of other technologies. If you think about writing your own GitHub, you start with git repositories and cloud hosting and deployment, you can move into CI/CD type workflows pretty easily, maybe that is a better way to start off web programming?
The other thing I will say is, Big Tech companies are often places where you can get one role and then ask for their developer education tracks where they teach their accountants etc how to become developers if they want to pivot. Say for example, being a manager at Google but having some 20% project that lets you contribute code and get feedback. Bigger more established companies have fewer problems with ageism, because they are much more sensitive as lawsuit targets for those sorts of things, so they have to get their s** together.
Also worth saying, the prior job history is an asset. A lot of developers do not speak business-ese. If you are a solid programmer who can talk to C-levels, you are a potential CTO at the right sort of place. Because you can translate, and because you feel comfortable walking into a contract negotiation with some client as “okay, how can I not say ‘no’ to everything but push back on the really hard problems while ‘yes, and’-ing all of the tractable stuff to get them on board.” Consultancy is one of the ways to do that, but not the only one. But worth calling out that as an asset if it helps focus the journey more.
[+] [-] TheCoelacanth|4 years ago|reply
If he can sell himself not as a programmer, but as someone who does X with programming as a tool that they're going to use to do that, preferably where X is something that he has some expertise in from earlier in his career, he might be able to get people to look at him as an expert X instead of a novice programmer.
[1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...
[+] [-] MentallyRetired|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inglor|4 years ago|reply
- One time I posted on HN that I am willing to tutor people from Gaza for free (am Israeli). Got contacted by a Nigerian man (over 50+ years) instead. He successfully did FCC and a few other courses and got a job (with minimal mentoring) in the field.
- One time I had a student at a program I volunteer in for a minority group who was almost 70, they successfully completed the program and got a job.
- I've met plenty of 50 year olds transitioning to coding from other engineering gigs (like rail engineering) when they immigrated - my wife's family for example has several examples of people doing that.
Agism is real, there is discrimination but sharp minds who work hard and are willing to start at a junior's salary and at the same conditions as 20 year olds (long'ish hours) find jobs - though that's anecdotal and based on my experienced.
I say: if your father is passionate go for it. Don't forget you're on HN and you should consider entrepreneurial routes like:
- Do any of his old employers need a website or app?
- What about local businesses or programs?
I got most of my early experience building and selling indie (flash) games and working on projects (flash game sites and socket servers mostly) until I was "hireable". The other gigs I got were all websites and apps for family friends and neighbors to get experience (I got paid for whole websites less than I charge for a single hour of consulting today lol - it was totally worth it).
[+] [-] reactspa|4 years ago|reply
Thanks.
[+] [-] shtopointo|4 years ago|reply
Will he, an executive before, have the required patience and humility to start at the bottom rung again, to e.g. step into a company with 20-year olds that know more than he does? 20-year olds that may not always be as kind as he would like them to be?
If I were in his shoes my answer would be no.
But the solution I would consider: have him build his own product.
He's of a certain age, so he probably has experience to areas that us younger folk have no idea about. Is getting medication a pain? Is there an app he'd wish he had on his phone or on the web to help him with various activities? Something friends of his age would like? Or something he could build for the children of older parents that could help them out?
If you're saying that he used to be an executive, I imagine by this point he's got enough savings to be comfortably retired. So, he can spend some time learning ruby on rails and pick up some front end stuff and start hacking away at a product he would like to see in the world.
Expose it publicly (the "hey I'm 61 and here's my side project" is bound to get a lot of clicks) and then go from there.
But that's what I would recommend. I wouldn't necessarily recommend he learn a stack and apply for jobs.
[+] [-] mortenjorck|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheRealDevonMcC|4 years ago|reply
I'm only employed now because I'm proficient in an older language (APL). Never mind my decades of experience in many other languages and extensive domain knowledge in finance, not that I'm bitter or anything.
[+] [-] anyfactor|4 years ago|reply
I love working with people who are more than 40 or 50 years old. My experience is pretty limited in this matter but I have found older people too be more forgiving when I make mistakes.
Also, older people has that art of speaking thing figured out. In my experience, older professional people don't just say "thank you", they tend to say things that are positively meaningful. Even when they reject my proposal, they will make the effort to actually let me down easy and slowly.
Writing this I just realized the counterpoint of this post. With age people are naturally more suited for managerial roles rather then full time technical roles. Understanding programming may give someone an edge, but with age people have more to offer beyond programming, which is management and communication.
[+] [-] blackmoon12|4 years ago|reply
After the first 2 decades your worth as an individual contributor (or at most, team lead) stagnates. You're probably at the top of the pay grade already, and the older you get the more you'll have to work with more junior people, as 'equals' despite having substantially more experience. It's very hard to give you any sort of career progression. You may be a lot more productive, but your 'multiplier effect' is small compared to a manager, or someone who deals with a lot more stakeholder complexity.
It's even more pronounced in current times where a 25 year old makes 100K (a lot in the UK). They're very unlikely to double their salary over the next 10 years in similar positions. Whereas most people start at 25K.. work their way up to 100K... exec level etc is 200K.
Successful 'pure' programmers who get jobs usually have an infra flavour of the month skillset, or make it clear that they're happy to get paid the same as someone with say 10 years of experience.
Most of them though go into strategy or become contractors.
[+] [-] agumonkey|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] AlphaGeekZulu|4 years ago|reply
I learned Rust at age 55.
But! Programming is not only about learning a language. There is this huge background of methods, practices, technologies (network/ip/socket, data formats, databases, unicode, regular expressions, xml/xsl, markup languuages), Operating Systems, procedures (CI, VC...) and so forth. This vast amount of knowledge is gained by experience over decades. The young programmer does not have the experience either, but has enough time ahead to become a senior eventually. It will be very difficult to reach a senior level when starting at 50 or 60 - there is simply not enough time to catch up. I started programming at age 16, btw.
So I would definitely let him dive into programming just to see how it goes and support him on this challenge. It will also serve mental fitness in high ages. Getting into programming at that age, with the need to make a living from it and no plan B - I consider this too risky!!
[+] [-] cgfloat|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|4 years ago|reply
That said: being a bit older probably gives him a fairly unique perspective on many of the things younger devs might not even realize can be an issue, and if he were to aim for something that allows his age to work for him by strong association with the demographic that that particular software targets then it could work out well, assuming he has an aptitude for programming.
Excel-fu may well be a stronger card than any of the regular application programming languages if he wants results, it may well be that something like 'R' would be well within his comfort zone.
Best of luck, and props to your dad for even considering this!
[+] [-] alberth|4 years ago|reply
My father worked into his 80s and I saw firsthand how once he hit 60 years old how much harder it was for him to land a new job. As such, I’ve always gone out of my way to ensure such folks get a fair shot in my ~25 years of being a people manager.
And every time I’ve hired someone 60+, even if they are new/junior for the role - it’s worked out in spades.
The unique perspective, what’s seems like a “new” problem is often an already solved problem from decades ago, just the wealth of knowledge … and again, this surprising still applies even if the individual is junior in their experience.
What’s best is the work ethic & respect. It’s sad but true, that individual knows you could have easily hired a 20 year old kid but didn’t. And the thanks, trust and respect you immediately gain with them often translates into them becoming a dedicate individual who goes above and beyond in their job.
So just saying, please actively give these folks their fair shot and not just hire the new kid straight out of college.
And that 61 year old might be you some day.
[+] [-] tychonoff|4 years ago|reply
After completing a PhD in pure Mathematics, I started working the next day writing scheduling algorithms in Fortran on an IBM 4341 (my supervisor played poker with the company President, so that helped).
Although I picked up Fortran quickly, I had to study scheduling algorithms because my specialty was mathematical logic.
Then I became a university Statistical consultant, but I knew nothing about that either (my boss wanted to learn logic).
Five years later, when Prolog became a popular AI language, I quit my job and began writing expert systems as an independent.
Prolog (PROgramming in LOGic) is based on the first-order predicate calculus, so my formal training was exactly what I needed to understand logic programming.
After that I branched into databases, which I'm still doing as an independent.
So, I didn't need to know anything about computing to become a programmer.
But my domain knowledge (math) gave me a powerful tool to solve some computing problems.
[+] [-] sleepdreamy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpindar|4 years ago|reply
Of course, its likely that I'm doing something else wrong as well.
[+] [-] tharne|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcrosby95|4 years ago|reply
Of course it could be your age/something you're doing - I don't want to deny your experience with the situation - but also sometimes things just don't work out.
[+] [-] mhitza|4 years ago|reply
Another practice is applying en masse, if you're not already doing that. I used to apply sequentially to jobs, picking only the best fit and going through the interview process one by one. A waste of time, bulk apply to dozen of job listing (and directly to companies) and pick the first company that throws in an offer (and which also seems decent during the interview).
[+] [-] markoman|4 years ago|reply
Also, I wonder you should create your own 'Ask HN' to uncover whether your approach to job finding may have flaws, since there are many older IT workers out there who are finding work.
[+] [-] mikro2nd|4 years ago|reply
The thing to sell is your experience. i.e. "consulting". The market is smaller, but the rates are higher, and the value you can deliver is orders of magnitude greater. That's a good thing (and a good feeling!) Nice to say, "I cost my client x, but I delivered 10x to them in cost-savings/profit."
[+] [-] UncleOxidant|4 years ago|reply
Programming/software dev is not a field I would choose if I were trying to avoid age discrimination. It can be hard enough for 61 year olds who have been in the field for 35 years and have all that experience to find work.
I'd encourage him to do it as a hobby, but don't get his hopes up about being able to find steady work doing it.
[+] [-] nmaley|4 years ago|reply
My advice to your Dad is to aim for a job in consulting and analysis rather than coding. Get some certifications in a SaaS platform like Dynamics or Salesforce or whatever. That way he can leverage his business experience and people skills. I've found that people who combine experience with solid knowledge of a software platform get quite a lot of interesting job offers, even if they are older. If he later finds out he has an aptitude and interest in development then he can go down that path after he has mastered the functional stuff.
[+] [-] iRomain|4 years ago|reply
Regarding programming, it depends if he just wants to work or work to earn money.
If the former, he could look at OSS projects that interest him, there are so many! He could make meaningful contributions (for the project and for him)!
If the latter, he can definitely give it a go but maybe not get his hopes up too much. He could start his own startup/blog/company though which might not be a bad alternative to paid work.
Also he could look at the no-code tools which would allow him to build stuff quicker than learning to program. It would probably be a step up from Excel already and he could see if he likes it and wants to dive deeper (some contractors are specialized in building stuff on top of no-code tools)
Anyhow, good on him to want a career change at 60+, I wish him all the best!
[+] [-] jstx1|4 years ago|reply
Finding a business position that's a good fit for him would be a much easier way to stay employed until retirement than switching to programming.
[+] [-] fdschoeneman|4 years ago|reply
Good luck to him and to you. He seems like a cool dude.
[+] [-] caprock|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eddof13|4 years ago|reply
My dad did similar, after going back to school in his mid 50s and getting a CS/cybersecurity degree, he tried the engineering side for a bit but ultimately went into technical recruiting for a big enterprise, which is a six figure position.
[+] [-] subpixel|4 years ago|reply
One approach would be product or industry specific. Maybe he'e really intrigued by applications of GIS and that could lead to exploring specific companies in that space and the talent they need.
Another would be open source. Maybe he's really interested in databases and could dive deep into that part of open source and find out what things he wants to do.
No guarantees with either route, but the older you get, the worse the odds are if you are just a person with programming ability like many others.
[+] [-] ac50hz|4 years ago|reply
Make sure the machine and monitors don’t become a reason to stop the process of learning and doing.
Approach this as a series of goals and don’t expect overnight miracles.
Make copious notes. It could be useful to focus on programming for a particular field or set of applications, if he has core knowledge. For example, tools that could have helped him in his previous roles. Don’t worry if these aren’t original nor large.
Be organized but don’t let the organizing obscure the hands-on coding and use of the tools.
Find sympathetic people and groups, for support, mentoring, ideas, and reference. I suspect that he has developed good strategies for networking and communicating with people and groups. Now is the time to take advantage of those skills.
I know that he knows that he doesn’t feel like he’s 61 and that’s important. In my experience the roadblocks are erected by reacting to other peoples inevitable ageism. Ageism is real. But it’s not going away, so work around it and work with it.
Having groups to work with, and support each other helps immensely. So, approach programming as a member of a group and don’t try to do everything himself.
Languages and platforms? That’s a different discussion, and I’ll avoid the inevitable arguments in this open forum.
And document the process and journey. Make the documentation process part of the journey too, of course, and use the IDE and YouTrack to help manage this process too. Other people will want to know about these experiences.
[+] [-] ac50hz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Havoc|4 years ago|reply
Are you sure that is the right causal relationship here? My gut feeling would be that it has at least in part to do with the C* level roles. McD cashier jobs are a dime a dozen and rapidly hire and fire. C* level tends to be slower and more scarce just by nature.
> I think he feels inspired by seeing me thrive as a contractor,
If he is somewhat stable financially he might do better as a finance/PM/operational consultant. That lets him leverage years of experience as credibility. That will play much better than a 61 y/o with a coding bootcamp or similar.
>He learned to program when he was a student,
My dad was in a similar position - except he was a professional programmer for years. After a long stint in management layer he found he couldn't get back into the tech market. Instead project management type roles went better
[+] [-] Delphiza|4 years ago|reply
However, using programming tools and concepts to provide more value than his younger Excel-munging peers. Definitely, and will help him figure out what he is good at.
Subscribe to Datacamp and start learning python. Get some of those Excel spreadsheets that executives like to drown each other with and start doing some business analysis on them in jupyter notebooks. He can definitely find an edge doing financial analytics, financial forensics, that sort of thing.
We (programmers) would be shocked at how bad those business spreadsheets are. He can use his experience, and desire to learn, to find plenty of work munging executive financial and other data using programmers tools.
[+] [-] fjfaase|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iguanayou|4 years ago|reply
I've been programming for 20 years - the amount of environment / config / tooling stuff to deal with just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
[+] [-] arethuza|4 years ago|reply
He was late 60s.