Aging, mediocre programmer seeks wise fellow programmers/technical folks | Hacker News Reader

Aging, mediocre programmer seeks wise fellow programmers/technical folks

15 pointsdennis_jeeves17 comments

Very soon ageism will catch up with me and I'll be unemployed. I'm smart enough to do most business related software development but mediocre enough that I won't be hired by the likes of Google. As they say, most technical work or any work that requires deep focused thinking is a race to the bottom. I see great potential if programmers/technical folks are willing to put aside their overly individualist and reclusive tendencies, and start realistically co-operating. I'll like to get in touch with fellow programmers who have realized this. And want to hash out ideas for any mutual co-operation. I have nothing concrete in mind yet, but I can be reasonably sure that I'm not looking for software related ideas.

A starting point could be some online forum where ideas can be exchanged.

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I am 47 and on disability. I became disabled in 2003 and I get mentally ill in 2001. Had a hard time finding work after I became mentally ill. Also I was old, and ageism came into play as well. When I applied for jobs I was told I was overqualified. That is if they bothered to reply back at all.

I think when you get older in IT and you don't make it into management positions, it is harder to find work. Most companies want recent college graduates because they earn a lower salary and they have all of the latest theories still fresh in their minds.

Did you try to get into consulting? If yes, how did it go?

I could not find any clients who would take me. I ended up on disability because I could not find work. I had to in order to avoid going homeless with my family. Disability makes enough for a house payment and then live on what my wife earns.

The software consulting market is very hard to get into, and once into it hard to find clients. Esp if one is mentally ill and cannot hide it.

Try upwork.com. I don't think it's mandatory to disclose your mental illness there, is it?

Upwork.com and other sites are in favor of the client, who can refuse to pay or reverse the credit card charge. I'd read horror stories about those freelance sites on Reddit where most clients don't pay or use a refund to get free work.

Plus you have to compete with people in a third world nation who work for under minimum wage and can under bid you.

I tried some freelance sites and they even charge you fees to bid on projects.

Basically the idea is to get some recent work into your portfolio, and by the time you've completed the fifth React website of the year, upwork and good hourly rate be damned, you'd have a much easier time to find a good paying gig.

I worked my way up from $25 to $100 per hour in about a year doing this. Take up low quality gigs, and then use them as a springboard to jump onto less lower quality gigs. Rinse and repeat until you're doing the kind of gigs you'd like to do.

Life is full of horrors, we can live it or stay at home. It's our choice.

I believe you're overestimating what it takes to get a job at Google (or Facebook or whatever other company you might be thinking of).

As someone who's approaching middle-age and has done a wide variety of interviews, it's my experience that large companies like Google have less age discrimination than trendy startups. If you don't want to work at Google because you don't think it's a good fit, I think that's a totally valid reason. But if you don't think you can get a job there because you're too mediocre at actual programming, I think you're simply wrong. For all I know, you actually are a mediocre programmer. That doesn't matter.

It's not possible to be too mediocre a developer to get a job at Google because the interview process doesn't measure how good a developer you are. It is possible to be too mediocre at whiteboarding algorithms and answering the brand of design questions they ask, but those are learnable skills.

"most technical work or any work that requires deep focused thinking is a race to the bottom" - how is this true?

Developers being treated as a cost centre rather than an essential part of the business. To be streamlined and offshored wherever possible.

This attitude is widespread in the corporation I work for. Race to the bottom is an apt description, in my opinion. (I am not the OP)

I've seen this more and more (not that I've been /too/ many times around the block...): the engineering team viewed just as a machine that is turned on and off when required by sales and marketing.

Sales sold a new product that doesn't integrate in to billing/deployment/support processes? Just get Dev to make it work.

Marketing wants to redesign the corporate website? Fine, just jot down a todo item "talk to dev about changing a few things on website"

Perhaps twas ever thus though?

It depends on the company's management committee. If they do not come from an technical background, you'll be treated as such. If they came from a "technical background", but:

1) they have no open source projects or other tools made for developers 2) view software development as a low-level work 3) played Spreadsheet Warrior most of the time during their "technical career"

You'll know they gamed a corporate ladder. They turn out to be more vicious than "sales and marketing based" management committees: because with their "experience" they'll call out your "lack of skill" when things go wrong.

This attitude is standard in the UK. The comment from dfraser992 in this thread explains it well, I think.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10987237

I'm starting to realise that the only way to make decent money as a developer in the UK is through contracting.

Regarding dfraser992's comment, I think it's broadly true. I've worked at companies started by people with rich parents/family and every single day they work to keep that class divide between you and them. They're so crass about their wealth and rub it in your face daily.

HR will wax lyrical about professional development but in reality the owners want to keep people down and wages suppressed. It's infuriating. From my circle of friends, there seems to be a glass ceiling of about £60k ($5k/mo take home) in full time salary jobs, outside of management and London finance tech jobs.

This is also why we get those bullshit articles about the "shortage" of web developers or STEM graduates or "coders" or whatever the media buzzword du jour is. The only shortage is of people willing to work for below-market rates.

It's also why the UK will never have a tech scene anything like the USA.

I don't see this being the case in bigger companies in the uk e.g. government, health, utilities, finance. It will definitely help if you have some business specific knowledge too. Try to match this to where you live I'm in the Midlands and there are a lot of utilities and retail companies who can't get enough people, same with banking and finance in London.

That's tough that you feel that technical work is a race to the bottom. Do you feel like you're falling behind?

>As they say, most technical work or any work that requires deep focused thinking is a race to the bottom

Wtf is this? Are you trolling? Is this why folks are pulling in 250k or more as engineers?

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