As a retired software developer with 50 years experience I can say that he's unlikely to get hired. The software business is very age-biased. And, since you mentioned that he was the "director of a center", that implies that he "retired into management" rather than actually continuing to develop software. Plus, as a manager there is no time to keep up with the leading edge. In software, especially now, as the Red Queen said: "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

However, retirement is amazing. I spend most of my days on my own projects, which usually involves taking several courses on youtube. For instance, I'm working on a problem that requires a camera so I'm watching "The Ancient Secrets of Computer Vision" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5WSV6CXsxs&list=PLjMXczUzEY...). Nobody would pay me to learn how to compute the robots grasping pose of a 3D printed object from its GCODE description.

Retirement is great fun and the perfect opportunity to spend 18 hours a day, 7 days a week (modulo random naps :-) ) hacking on whatever software that strikes your fancy. Enjoy it while it lasts.