A new career in software development: advice for non-youngsters
shape-of-code.com
shape-of-code.com
I started to learn software development at 37 years old (shoutout to freeCodeCamp.org!). That was in 2017. I went the frontend route, so I naturally started with html, css, and javascript. Then, since React was already the most popular framework then, I started to learn it and build projects solely on React. I skipped Jquery, pre-ES5 javascript, and things like that. I focused on what was fashionable.
It turned out great for me! I am a very happy and successful (in financial terms compared to what I earned early or expected to earn these days) web developer.
Funny enough, my first job was using Ember. But six months in, the company decided to migrate to React, since it was getting harder and harder to hire people that wanted to work with Ember. Then a couple of React jobs. And now I started a job using Vue. So still learning fashionable things.
Btw, I never noticed ageism against me. I worked on a big Brazilian startup and then on three small American startups. Of course, plenty of the jobs that I applied for and didn't get could be because of ageism, I'll never know, but I consider myself to be successful in getting jobs, so at least I think it is not something that affected the general outcome of my career.
Which is why the most coveted positions in this field are in a few corporations that pay top dollar. Getting hired there is a different story in terms of barrier to entry and competition you will face including ageism which is unfortunately very much present.
So for someone non-young who looks at his future 10-20 years and tries to calculate risk, startups should not be taken into account. If one can't get a job at the top corps, one shouldn't enter the field. The risk is just too much.
How do you expect to get into the field, not just graduating college with a CS degree? Your advice is like a self fulfilling prophecy. Go work at a startup. You'll learn tons. Sure, job security won't be as good as an established company, but the barrier to entry isn't either.
I'm not saying this is universally true at Alphabet, as there are definitely groups that don't do a good job of this, but it's very doable.
One starting from zero doesn't gain deep expertise in anything in a startup in the span of a few years. As long as the market is breaking one record after another and money is raining from the skies, this is not a problem. But it's an illusion and like all illusions, eventually will collapse. And when it does, you're at the bottom of the totem pole and as expendable as one can be. And this doesn't even take into account technological progress that is rapidly obsoleting many of these low-barrier-to-entry jobs.
If you count on your company to never lay you off, you end up like old IBMers who got complacent, found they didn’t have a marketable skillset and when they got laid off and couldn’t find a job, they complained about “ageism”.
I’m 48 for what it is worth.
What?? I think I never read anything in HN that I disagree more with.
I got fired December 1st last year because the company I worked was heading to an IPO and decided that they didn’t want to work with full time contractors from outside the USA anymore. I got paid the whole December month. I started in a new job in January 18th.
Being a good frontend developer is what minimizes the risk of my career, not working on companies that will exist in 20 years. I doubt a lot that I will be working in the same company that I am now in 10 years.
I just feel this field has become incredibly over saturated and it's now a race to the bottom.
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but from one perspective it seems to put downward pressure on the salary of primary care providers.
In some areas of healthcare employment, growth will be higher than average [5][6], but doctors don't seem to be one of them.
[1]https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/29-1215.00
[2]https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/29-1229.00
[3]https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/29-1224.00
[4]https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/29-1213.00
About 6x the salary of the job I had before changing careers (I took a pay cut when I started as a junior).
Definitely a race up for me.
the role of front end developer has become incredibly commoditised. I currently work for faang and I gave up applying for jobs because nobody replies. I just wait for recruiters to contact me.
You can make a 2x2 matrix with "legacy code quality" on one axis, and "language percieved desireability" on the other axis.
You can make truckloads of money, earn much respect, with nearly zero negative ageism, in at least one of those quadrants.
"Building new" versus "maintaining existing" are different mindsets, and often a choice.
For older people just getting started, "maintaining existing" is often the wiser first decision. From there, the particular mix of language and tech stack count, and often the more obscure the better.
Find a good niche.
On Glassdoor for Cobol [0] the standard range is $54k to $179k (presumably in NYC metro where I am) with a reported maximum of $306k. The standard range for React [1] is $49k to $257k with a reported maximum of $550k.
I'm not saying Glassdoor is perfect but better to have these discussions based on some measured data than just common mantra that legacy is boring but pays better.
[0] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/cobol-programmer-salary-S...
[1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/react-developer-salary-SR...
Those are only public bids, and not everything goes through public channels.
Companies working with COBOL (or things like AS400) do so because they've been using it for some time already.
So they mostly already know the networks of professionals they will hire for the job, and that's often their own past employees who went freelance, or keep contracting after legal retirement kicks in. Professionals who also act as hiring agents for their replacements.
If you're starting a new career you wouldn't have a network.
And looking after COBOL (or an old tech, without having been introduced to it before) as an entry job is a bit peculiar.
Better looking after the companies that still need it, understanding why, and then going through them for specific jobs, linked or not to COBOL.
I understand the appeal of getting into it for the technology or the money, but getting into it for the problems and how to solve them first will open many more paths (and as much if not more money).
Startups and public companies both seem to pay better base salary for modern tech developers and also give you equity or profit sharing. Whereas the government or government contractor companies that often stick with old tech (it seems) you'll only get cash.
Banks may be an exception since many do give stock or good bonuses. But I don't often see bank positions looking for COBOL developers.
I've worked for a couple public companies, none of which gave any stock or any profit sharing to the engineering staff. I've also worked for private companies that had some profit sharing but it was never discussed other than "there is profit sharing" even when it was a substantial percentage (one place I consistently got 6-8% of my salary as profit sharing).
More popular lately seems to be the pseudo-bonus-pseudo-profit-share thing where you have a set percentage of your salary as "bonus" but it requires the company overall hitting specific revenue and profit numbers, so it's essentially profit sharing with a cap.
I think my point is comp structures are all over the place, but "large public company giving base, bonus, and stock" is a small minority, while "private company giving base, and maybe a bonus sometimes" is the most common.
I just left working at “normal companies” most of my career to work at BigTech two years ago at 46. My base pay was about the same. But my stock/prorated signing bonus brought my total compensation up by around 25%. I can (and do) sell my stock as soon as it vests.
I’m on the low end of BigTech compensation. I work remotely and did a slight career pivot from software engineering.
Yes, I know about the dot com bust. Those weren’t large profitable tech companies and they didn’t have the head count that companies have now
Is there some engineering adjacent job that doesn’t come with a recruiter telling me to grind leetcode for 7-8 weeks for a chance to work on some weirdos space ship finance company? (Only kidding, mostly)
Sure, but the places known for paying well in the industry are also fairly overtly hostile to late-entrants and non-traditional career paths unless those people have already built a successful business and are getting acquihired.
Zip Recruiter puts average salaries at around $88k/yr with the top 10% making over $110k. Payscale puts salaries a little lower than that.
The of the few job postings I see, none have salary information listed -- in my experience, that tends to mean the salaries are low or average. And if you're a COBOL engineer, jobs opportunities are slim, even in a region with a large number of older banks and insurance companies (read: prime COBOL industries). There's like one job each in areas like Omaha, NE; Alpharetta, GA; Montgomery County, AL; Chattanooga, TN; Milan, IL; Feather South, FL; etc. In other words, a bunch of places nobody has ever heard of.
(C#/Java have lots more opportunities at the same type of workplaces, so aren't bad choices but also lots more competition at all experience levels and from more traditional career paths; still, late-entrants with relative domain expertise can be quite competitive with pure programmers.)
I would go for C#, Java, or (if you have a masochistic streak) C++. And SQL.
Honestly Go seems to be over its honeymoon period and is probably a safe bet also (there's 500 Go vs 600 C# jobs on my regular UK job search site).
This. Go is an established technology by now. Plus, it is really, really easy to learn and get productive in...I mean, being accessible even to beginners was one of the design goals of the language. One can literally get to grips with its basics over a long weekend.
JavaScript/TypeScript/Node/React/etc is a treadmill.
Rust is on my TODO list to dabble in; at least at a glance the language has a solid conception, a clean syntax for portability, and the language syntax appears to lean towards clarifying much of the undefined behavior optimization other languages get humans into trouble over.
I'd even take mono / C# over Java; but that's just because of the real world enterprise nightmares I've seen... all the fossilized versions of vulnerable libraries everywhere.
Can perspectives on reality be this far apart, or is he trolling?
That's without considering the related huge levels of gatekeeping now happening in hiring. Some experienced people are just too jaded to deal with it.
Or make them do leetcode stuff, I think this situation is basically what that whole part of the process is for.
I've done this many times (before working in big tech) and I have always received a response. There is only 1 company that I've failed to get through for at least some kind of a screen: MSFT. They seem to want nothing to do with me.
A troll, or very isolated individual (perhaps both).
Maybe 20 years ago.
If someone entering the field now has nothing (e.g. CS degree from a good university, high-quality projects), to help him raise above this noise, it's a fool's gamble.
I'm currently trying out whether frontend development could be for me in my mid thirties. I knew that bootcamp marketing and YouTubers were exaggerating when it came to the jobs and their requirements. But I didn't think there would be so much 'noise' indeed.
I guess that means to only go through with it if you are really, really good and actually enjoy doing it. Not because it promises money and job stability.
For someone young (early to mid 20s), I agree with what you wrote. Being really, really good and actually enjoying doing it, should be a must.
For someone of your age or older, I see a lot more risk. If you start from zero, it will take you at least 5 years to build up ammunition (a degree from a good university and some demonstrable experience) that's going to open the doors that you need open and give you a shot at passing the entrance tests. And then the "being really, really good" part comes in except you're now 5 years older facing fierce competition and there's no guarantee that you will succeed (who knows what the market will be in 5-10 years, the trajectory doesn't look promising).
Personally, I wouldn't do it. The skills needed to offset the risk are hard to acquire in the timespans we're talking about, unless you're truly exceptional. But offseting the risk for me means living in the US and working at one of the FAANGs (job security and very high total compensation). Others see it differently.
Funny thing is, I considered coding because I didn't see my natural talent as a copywriter (not in english) to be recession proof enough. Then everyone talked about how coders are in such demand etc.
I never stopped to think that tech is an industry like any other. And that when the economy tanks all those start-ups and companies who are willing to gamble on an inexperienced junior dev will behave very differently.
Doesn't speak for my problem solving skills, actually. Lol.
I will surely re-evaluate my motivations.
Now if only there was a way to monetize a COBOL or ABAP channel on Youtube, hmmm…
*Edited for clarity
I will say we've been trying to hire two seniors for the better part of 6 months and most of the people we end up on the phone with either end up going somewhere (presumably for more $ but it's rare to get a reason), or they do so poorly on the technical screen it makes you wonder if they just used someone else's resume. Nothing in between the two - I've been in my current EM role for probably 3 months, have done maybe 20-25 interviews, and we've extended 4 offers. One accepted then took a different job two days before his start date, one accepted, two declined.
I'll share my personal experience, in case it helps. I only apply to small startups (less than 50 employees, but I usually get hired in places with <10 people). These have much more straightforward and short hiring processes. I find those companies solely from HN Who is Hiring thread or AngelList. I never got anything from a job post on Linkedin (much less Indeed and etc). I am a frontend developer, but I do see a lot of Python positions.
If you filter for companies based in the US only, the pay is pretty good.
There is a lot of luck involved in getting hired (especially after going through an interview, since from there the process is very subjective). It sucks, but you just have to keep trying. One day you will be the lucky one. Good luck!
Or do you give up some TC for the other benefits of working at these small startups?
If you want to drop me an email, the least I can do is offer some feedback on your resume / online profile(s).
Then there's also complete dreamers. I hear football clubs often get guys who've played Champ Manager sending in an application on a whim.
My friends who work in nursing tell me it's not that there isn't a talent pool, it's that they are short staffed due to hiring limitations more than lack of interest, which then feels like being short staffed because everyone is putting in more time, which makes the environment suck, which does make people quit, especially exaserbated with covid and conspiracy theorists treating them poorly. But until the underlying issues are solved, it's not a real shortage as there are qualified people looking for work but not being hired.
Teacher shortage is similar, not willing to pay them enough(even when school funding is high, teacher pay stays low), and the amount of bullshit they have to put up with seems to go up every year, which is unrelated to amount of people with teaching credentials.
Programming has a similar problem, every company wants senior roles but very few are willing to train, so it's a bottleneck more than a shortage.
Why would you assume he's trolling? In some EU countries the market is insanely competitive due to great free schools churning out coders like crazy due to the tech hype, plus tons of skilled immigrants from developing nations trying to break into the market, so companies are very picky since they get bombarded with applications, so people with little experience or failing the culture fit or whatever arbitrary metrics are used, can easily fall through the cracks and not find a job despite being talented.
The high demand you hear is true, but only for experienced seniors and, since nobody wants to take in juniors and train them this creates a bottleneck of artificial scarcity despite the high supply of less experienced devs.
Hiring is tough right now, but it's tough for everyone. But that has lead to a huge increase in wages. Every one of my friends in the industry has seen promotions and 40% pay raises.
Wrote these just after I switch careers ~4 years ago:
1. https://zmsy.co/blog/career-switch/ 2. https://zmsy.co/blog/switching-careers-to-software-engineeri...
The author is telling people to pick up Cobol/Basic/Pascal/MUMPS (and not Go or another modern language) as their first language in 2022? To make themselves more employable? How did this make it to the front page? I get that some people will like the old-man grumpiness in the post but put that aside and focus on the actual advice they're giving - it's just outright harmful career advice.
And also, think about it from first principles - why would people starting their programming careers 15+ years later than most people need to pick different tools? It makes no sense at all.
Because the people hiring people that are relatively inexperienced but not practicing undercover age discrimination tend to be very much not representative of the industry, or opportunities for new programmers, at large; people starting their career late need to specifically target that market segment, not the more general one.
Note: I am not convinced of the specific advice, particularly in language focus, that the author here gives, but it is still less wrong than your suggestion that there is no difference between the optimum approaches for (by age) late- and early-entrants to programming.
The difference is more likely to be in the interview skills. How they can make an effort to relate more with the interviewer (since they won't "naturally" connect through popular videogame tastes, memes, slangs, or whatever).
The other place that doesn't practice age discrimination as much in my experience is local companies. They have a hard time attracting anyone in the first place so it's the easiest to get started if you just show you're reliable and willing to learn/work.
That is our gain. I've interviewed some great talent for entry level positions who have 20 year experience in weird non-programming things. They lack the technical skills to be worth more than entry level pay, but their resume shows more passion than many of the fresh out of CS (or boot camp) they are competing against. They also have enough background that if their skills develop as expected they will move up the ladder quickly.
*One low barries to entry* Companies like Vanguard are desperate for Cobol engineers. They'll train just about anyone. I know quite a few financial analysts of all ages that made the leap to maintain their legacy systems and are doing quite well for themselves. There is little competition for this sort of job
*It might work out well for everyone* Not everyone is looking to do the latest, most marketable work. Imagine someone that is 57 and plans to retire in 5-10 years. This works out great for both them and the employer. The employer gets coverage on their legacy systems, springs free folks earlier in their career to build that sexy, next gen replacement, the employee gets a nice, cushy ride into the sunset. If its planned well the replacement system arrives right around retirement time. Migrate and move to Florida
*Some folks are not looking to ride the dragon* Some folks love the idea of a system that is completely understood and battle tested. Some of these legacy systems benefit from 30-40 years of hardening. Adding enhancements and such have clear, uniform processes honed over decades with very little in the way of surprises. For many folks the idea of come in at 9 and leave at 5 with little volatility is very appealing.
To each their own.
On both sides of the market. There's like 75 times as many javascript job listing as there are cobol ones on popular job boards.
You can get all of those things without leaning on a tech stack with such a small job pool. Most development jobs, especially at large companies, are maintenance-oriented development.
Java is the ecosystem to learn if the three points you listed are important to someone. There are gobs of Java jobs out there, many are battle-tested systems built long ago running in established companies. Another benefit is that there's an actual job market for Java developers, which should be a huge consideration for everyone, because having a stable job isn't the same as having a stable job feel good going to every day.
I don't think it's a good idea for anyone to learn it now for a job.
If you get semi-technical there are loads of product owner/business analysts roles to fill in.
Let alone if you just want any job there is first line support / second line support.
There are plenty configuration roles which don't require knowledge of coding but ability to learn configuration settings, operating browser, operating software on different angle than just using it - but being able to congfigure it for others to use.
Java is still fashionable because of android development.
BS.
I'm not one for terse responses but I cannot think of any better way to say it. This author evidently has never worked with anyone outside their graduating class. Without "outside interests" or "family" I predict they will burn out within five years.