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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

On the ageism - I feel for you man.

But I recommend not doing one. You are skilled enough that you could dedicate yourself to 3 to 6 months of serious study of the technologies you are interested in. Teach yourself by doing projects that interest you, and then use those projects as evidence of enthusiasm and experience.

Boot camps might be beneficial if you don’t feel capable of teaching yourself, but they will have so much training-wheels stuff that you are well past so it will be a mixed bag of value. Plus it costs a lot of money.

I don’t think the fact you did a bootcamp will increase your value much. Certainly not as much as self study and projects in a public git repo.

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I know I could easily study up by myself. I have done this my whole life. I am just getting the impression that without being credentialed in some way nobody really would give me a chance. Especially in a new field.

My current job is pretty much repeating the same thing over and over again with ever tighter deadlines. I am at the same time stressed and bored out of my mind. There is no intellectual or technical challenge, just always more pressure. I used to be pretty cutting edge but the last 5 years it was pure stagnation.

Somehow I want to break out of this but between age and lack of the latest stuff on the resume it seems it's really difficult to get a foot in the door somewhere else.

Do people really look at GitHub repos? I have never had anybody ask and I have never looked myself.

I think you need to find a recruiter to work closely with you. The good ones all do - ask around your former coworkers that you trust. Good recruiters will talk to you in-depth, hear what you are looking for, give resume advice, and pitch you to companies.

As a hiring manager, I would definitely be interested in your story and be looking for evidence of self-learning. What you have going against you is high salary expectations despite lack of domain expertise. So be ready to answer questions about how you have worked on various technologies over your career, had to learn them, successes you've had, etc.

Also, that job sounds horrible, you should get out for your mental well-being even if it requires a pay cut.

I've received job offers as a result of my github activity and contributions.

Credentials - in my experience they just aren't a thing in software development. Apart from juniors just starting out I've never once seen a CV or a job application that mentioned any kind of programming credentials or certifications (if I understand you're meaning of "credentials" correctly?). For getting into a new area of development some ways to prove yourself are:

1. Contribute to open source codebases

2. Work on side projects

3. Convince your existing company to use a new technology so you can work on it in your day job.

Maybe others? I can't think of anything else right now..

Github profiles can be a bit hit or miss - I think probably most people don't really look at them. However if you have made meaningful contributions to open source codebases on github then you can link to those in your CV, or mention it on your covering letter or just mention it in the interview.

Not all employers will go out of their way to look at GitHub - often it's just not a clear signal either way. If you have very strong contributions though it can certainly help you stand out.

Here's some open source AI projects looking for new contributors: https://www.sourcesort.com/?refinementList%5Btopics%5D%5B0%5...

are you able to automate your tasks and open up time during your work day to work on learning projects?

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