Is there any value to a CS degree at 50? | Hacker News Reader

Is there any value to a CS degree at 50?

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I'm 50.

I've been building hardware and programming since I was 18.

I live in the Santa Clarita, CA.

College was touch-and-go. It was always going too slow for me. By age 20 I was working as an engineer doing both hardware and software. At age 24 I had saved-up enough to buy my first house. I had a good career and was soon making over $100K per year doing the stuff I really enjoyed.

I eventually started a tech business in my garage. Within three years it grew out of the garage and into a good size industrial facility with a dozen employees or so, in-house SMT assembly, CNC machining, low volume manufacturing, etc.

As is the case with most businesses, there were ups and downs.

The economic implosion of 2008 caught me in a perfect storm that ultimately led to killing the business after a two year gut-wrenching attempt to save it any which way I could. At the end of 2010 I had to capitulate and let it die.

Three years later. No job. I've sent out hundreds of applications. Very few call-backs. I've even lied and implied I have a degree just to see what might happen. No difference whatsoever. I had a recruiter tell me I scare the shit out of people because of the experience I have and the number of roles I've played, from rank-and-file engineer to founder/entrepreneur, CEO, CTO, etc. And, he also said, reality is I cannot water-down my resume because my life is all over the Internet in one way or the other.

The good news is that my wife is more than able to support our family and we've been OK. No urgent financial needs at this point.

The last three years have come with a lot of soul searching on my part. You go from knowing you can tackle any project anyone could care to place in front of you to thinking you are absolutely worthless. You navigate this imaginary line back and forth over time. Back and forth.

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[Part 2]

I've kept busy. I had dabbled in web and mobile development before but the bulk of my work --where most of my value in the business was found-- was in high performance FPGA and embedded hardware and software development. I've developed entire product lines from scratch on my own. I am no stranger to hard work.

Not wanting to remain idle I decided I needed to shift away from doing hardware --due to how capital intensive it is-- and focus on software. I jumped head first into web and mobile technologies did a few experimental websites and published a free iPhone app. Making money in the app store is hard.

In the end, technology requires money. I've made a little money here and there, enough to pay for servers and have a few thousand laying around for judicious experiments. I told myself I would never touch my wife's income for my experiments and have stayed true to that over the last three years.

During this time I've also logged hundreds of potential business ideas spanning the range from pure software to web, mobile, physical and hardware products. Most are admittedly bad. That's OK. I forced myself not to pre-judge anything. The other day I saw these guys on Shark Tank who sold over a million dollars in ugly sweaters. My prior self would have discounted that as a dumb product and a dumb idea. I try not to think that way any more. Lessons such as watching something like Instagram do what it did have taught me things I just didn't know.

I have convinced myself I am not employable because of my past and my age. I never thought I'd say something like that in my life. A past of constant learning, accomplishments, entrepreneurship, hard work and, yes, success and failure. And no degree. I can't rightly describe what this feels like.

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[Part 3]

During dinner last night my wife said she wants me to focus on finishing a Bachelors and then a Masters starting next year. She said she doesn't care if I don't work during that time. She feels this will be good for me mentally and that it will/might bring opportunities to the table at one point or another.

If you ask me today I am absolutely convinced that a degree will be useless to me. I've tried to imply I had a degree in resumes just to see what would happen and it made zero difference. I've also seen countless articles, some of which on HN, highlighting the fact that older engineers are having one hell of a time finding work, credentials or not. I don't know. It could take five years to get to a Masters in, say, CS. I'll be 55 years old, not having held a job for eight years and looking for work. How is that going to help me?

My current view is that my only way out is through entrepreneurship. I need to keep trying until I hit upon something that works. I know I have a few potentially good ones but I don't have enough money to launch them correctly. I have to boostrap from small ideas to larger ones.

I tried a startup pitch competition. I the judges where real assholes to everyone, it was a regular "let's see who's dick is longest" fest. Not my scene. Regrettably. I also think a lot of VC's want young 20-somethings who will virtually kill themselves working. I can't neglect my family and simply can't live like that at this stage.

Looking for thoughts, ideas, opinion. I am sure there's something I might be missing in my thought process. It'd sure be nice to go back to feeling like a productive member of society as well as to contribute to the financial well-being of my family. The kids are getting older. It isn't going to get any cheaper.

Thanks!

EDIT: Please reply to this comment so all three parts have a chance to stay together in the thread.

Don't make any 4+ year commitments if it's not something you truly want to do.

"My current view is that my only way out is through entrepreneurship. I need to keep trying until I hit upon something that works. I know I have a few potentially good ones but I don't have enough money to launch them correctly. I have to boostrap from small ideas to larger ones."

This seems to say it all - what you want to do/be. So do/be it. If you don't have enough money to launch it "correctly", the launch it "incorrectly" and work your way to "correct". I'm currently bootstrapping from small ideas to larger ones, and while it isn't exactly kush, it's doable. It takes awhile and isn't going to be the answer to "how do I make a quick buck?".

I read somewhere that VC's on average fund people that are 40+, it's just not sexy and thus newsworthy (trying to find source). Also, if you have issues with people with larger than average ego, then you might need to avoid VC's as well...

Edit: Also, vet your current good ideas. Talk to entrepreneurs, investors, business people, potential end users about them. Even ask the judges at the pitch competition individually their thoughts (even if there was some ego amongst them - individually they could be awesome).

Based on what I've read so far, you're in a really comfortable position, so don't shift specializations.

Capitalize on your rich experience with embedded hardware and software development. At 50 I'm pretty sure you have a wealth of contacts from people in that field (people you consulted for, past work buddies, etc.) warm them up and make contact: you now have a client/referral list. Ask them how they're doing, take them out for coffee. Discuss what they're currently doing and what they need help with. Start with one tiny project.

Ask your wife for a little help, ask her for some contacts. Talk to others in your field, take them out for breakfast or lunch, offer to speak in an event, you can offer consulting or training workshops.

Go back to building a business, it's your best bet, and you've done it before. Outsource the bulk of your work into your other known contacts that can refer you to high-end consulting shops in the South-east asian or Indian region. Disclaimer: I'm from the Philippines. It's 2013, there's so much more tools for remote collaboration than it was a decade ago, you'll get a good english speaking/writing workforce for less than US salary rates.

Don't study unless you really really want to. 4+ years is a lot of time. You could have made another business up and running at that amount of time.

Don't shift specializations just because of current market trends. Who knows, hardware might boom in the next decade. Honestly, currently, the web itself and all mobile app stores are over-saturated with everyone trying to make a dent.

The point is, no one can predict what is going to happen in the next 10 years, just stick with what you know and what you can do to answer a need from your contacts. If a specific "solution" you're offering picks up traction, "productize" it and put a little more focus on that, but don't bank the entire consulting shop for a product unless it dwarfs your consulting revenue by 3x-5x. Consulting cultivates client relationships, and business is all about building professional relationships that would earn you more money.

I'm not 50, I'm only 26, the 50+ year old people I know end up in three ways:

- Teaching (writing books with their knowledge, offering workshops, teaching in universities, etc.)

- Retired

- Business

Again, I'm only 26. Take the input with a grain of salt.

Well, retirement isn't for me. I will never stop working on something so long as I have the physical and mental ability. That's just how I am wired.

Teaching at universities is out because, well, I don't have a degree. Ironically, I am a pretty good teacher. I've conducted seminars in the past with audiences in the hundreds of people. I enjoy it and I do have a knack for making complex topics accessible.

I have been thinking about perhaps authoring a webinar or two or launching some kind of an engineering-related educational effort. I have one idea that could be an interesting Kickstarter project for young (and not so young) engineers. Thinking about all options right now.

Well, that would be combining business with teaching. Maybe that's a good option for me.

Maybe you can make some video tutorials on your expertise. Saying, I'd be interested in how CNC works.

I would definitely go for the teaching option. Maybe you could start like this:

1: If you have a little runway, start by learning some teaching basics, especially regarding teaching adults. Or K12 if that is what you'd like. Start by doing some of the MOOCs, coursera, edX and some others have some good education courses. The benefit of this is that not only will you learn some of the theory behind teaching, you will find out what works and doesn't work for students in an online learning format. This will be valuable for part 2-

2: set up a blog with a learning management system (LMS) to offer some short video or screencast (my favorite style of delivery) based courses for free. Use this as an R&D and market research site to see which courses get traction, how to prepare materials, interact with students, etc. Your blog posts are there to show off your knowledge and experience which should get people interested in trying out the courses and help you build a mailing list for part 3-

3: with the data from 2 above, plan a book release and some more in depth for-pay courses. Use your business skills to sell online+book+in person training for enterprises (you may find it easier to partner with a training/consulting company who may already have contacts with potential clients - less money in the beginning, but as you build your reputation you can eventually go independent) Which leads to meta-business point 4-

4: Document your journey through the above points, and sell a new book and online training course targeted at people who are in your position (ie me) so that we can all join you by buying private yachts from all the money we make :-)

5: post results here on HN for support and inspiration for others

This is what I'm doing (albeit half-assed at the moment) and I have 15 years of teaching under my belt, but no degree (by the way, I have gotten teaching posts at universities based on the strength of my teaching skills, so give up on that route just yet!) If you want to reach out for info on where to start with learning teaching (I'm the head teacher and a teacher trainer at a school in the Czech Republic) me email is in my profile, I am more than happy to chat with you about it and I have a lot of resources I am more than willing to share with you for free.

Lee

[Edit] for an LMS try looking at Moodle or the edX platform, both are open source, and Moodle also has a rich plugin environment including modules for payment systems. I have a lot of experience with Moodle, and I'll be trying out the edX platform over the Christmas break. There are some others out there, but these 2 seem to be the best from a no pay system

Sent reply off-list. Thanks for your pointers.

Have you ever considered teaching? With all your practical experience you could open up coaching center and start teaching? Doesn't require much investment and this is a good time too, people are realizing the importance of knowing how to code and with all the efforts being made by govt. encouraging people to learning to code, this might just work out for you. And like others, I too don't think a college degree will help you. Best of luck.

I'm your age, with a similar story, and completely understand where you're coming from. 25 years ago everybody wanted to hire me. Now it's depressing. I don't have a solution yet to getting hired into today's market where 6-figure income flow to kids performing skills it only took a few months to learn. Some ideas: (1) send your resume and practice interviewing with someone who will give you an honest respnose about why you're not getting offers (real companies won't give an honest response). (2) spend a couple of months putting up a free website on heroku with whatever are the "hot" products of the moment (arduino? raspbery? node? angular? go? mongo? zurb? etc...) then instead of a resume showing how old you are send a resume showing the stupid-but-well-paying stuff you can do with what's hot at the moment. (2a) put it all on github and show HN (3) go to meetups where the people you want to work with are and talk to them, show something in the lightning talk, and say you're looking for work. (4) go to hackers/founders things, buy beers, and say you're technical. (5) get tattoos, skinny jeans, and a skateboard, stop posting anything anonymously (nobody but old fogies believe in anonymity any more) and pretend you're only 20.

If ANY of those work, please let me know so I can follow my own advise.

As for school, only go if what you want to do is to learn more and if you think that's the way to learn.

Yup. Twenty-five years ago I could walk out of a job and into another within hours. Things change.

I've done the meetup thing. I'll say that most tech meetups have been a total waste of time. "I have an idea for <x>. Could you be my tech co-founder and build it for nothing?". Please.

The other aspect of meetups is that a lot of them are loud drinking parties. I don't drink. No, not some prudish thing. I just don't drink. The stuff doesn't attract me at all. And, of course, if I my intent is to meet people I kinda want to be able to hear them. So driving to a meetup an hour away, at a bar, with loud music and booze isn't my idea of something productive. Could be wrong.

Tru dat (I'm feeling more youthful already, saying something like 'tru dat'), most of these networking things will not workout, but most of anything doesn't work out, maybe you have to do 100 for that 1% chance of a chance. Yes, the kinds of alcohol-based meetings your talking about aren't the best. I'd recommend instead the educational meetings, like user groups where people are giving talks showing off their latest use of X technology. E.G an arduino group, a python group, a goggles group, whatever tech floats your boat. The people in those kinds of meetups, in my experience, are more than not serious about the tech and not just looking for a drink.

Another thing I didn't mention is the personal email to someone at some company, being honest about some real connection why you and them should be together, not in response to a job listing but just in response to why you'd think they're a good fit, or praising them honestly on something they do. I at least tend to get responses, if nothing else, from these outside-the-box attempts.

Degrees don't help as much in getting a job after 30. Getting degrees just makes the shitty software mobsters angrier. You're going to want to find a job through personal connections. A university is a great place to make personal connections.

>During dinner last night my wife said she wants me to focus on finishing a Bachelors and then a Masters starting next year. She said she doesn't care if I don't work during that time. She feels this will be good for me mentally and that it will/might bring opportunities to the table at one point or another.

First? I'd argue this is as much a relationship issue as a career issue. Treat it as such. When you are down, and relying on your support network to help you out, remember that you are relying on your support network to help you out and act accordingly. I mean, every relationship is different, and I can't tell you how to act in yours, but be conscious that you are using your support network.

(this can cause problems for you as much as it can cause problems for other people; accepting help can be hard. But either way, it's something you need to come to terms with.)

Next?

>My current view is that my only way out is through entrepreneurship. I need to keep trying until I hit upon something that works. I know I have a few potentially good ones but I don't have enough money to launch them correctly. I have to boostrap from small ideas to larger ones.

See, after a business failure? I really like to work for other people. Usually when I get a full time job, people think I'm pretty great, and generally I make more money working for other people than for myself (Apparently, I am not a particularly competent business person.) Anyhow, working for other people tends to rebuild both my damaged self-esteem and my damaged financial situation.

Another thing? Unless you are going for VC? Now is the worst time to bootstrap (unless you are selling to the VC funded... and if you plan on selling the company, rather than selling a product to the VC funded? I suspect you are too late on the bandwagon.) - It is difficult to compete with people who have VC and don't immediately need to make payroll.

So yeah; were I you? I would focus on contracting and/or on getting a regular job.

Now, I live in Santa Clara, not Santa Clarita, but from what I've seen? there are a lot of old guys in the embedded systems market. Can you handle VHDL or the like? Can you handle contracting?

I'm assuming that your contacts are stale or otherwise not all that useful. (First thing? call everyone who worked for you in the past. I've found that ex-employees generally think more of me than I think they ought.)

If you really don't have contacts (or want easy work... in my experience, if I get a job through contacts, I actually have to /work/ - if I can attract a random recruiter, usually the standards are way lower.)

That is... honestly, I don't know exactly what it is. I have really, really good luck with recruiters, and I don't know why.

Part of it is that if a recruiter spams me about a job I'm qualified for (and it is spam; none of them put any effort into vetting me first, as evidenced by all the offers I get for jobs that I'm obviously unqualified for) I respond.

But... part of that is that I'm on the recruiter mailing lists, and my resume kicks off the keyword searches. I don't know why or how this happened. The last recruiter who contacted me (I wasn't interested, but I referred him to a friend who got the job.) He said that he found me on Dice... but I haven't been active on DICE for at least four years, so I don't know if the guy was lying or if the net was just that wide.

I've even gotten jobs responding to craigslist ads (posted by body shops.)

But yeah, I... don't really understand why I seem to have such luck with recruiters. But, body shops and recruiters are a good way to go if you are down on your luck and need to get your foot back in the door.

I have one comment to make. I don't mean it as advice (I don't give good advice), but as a potentially (ir)relevant semi-obvious but perhaps overlooked fact. You meet lots of people in school. You may be right the degree may be no use. But that doesn't automatically mean that getting a degree is no use.

with all the varied experience that you have, why would you want to focus on a programming job. If you are good at sales, evangelizing tech, there are plenty of non programming opportunities where you can add significant value. Look at all the tech companies that want a community manager. There are lots of international tech companies that have good products that are dying to get a foothold in the US market. get in touch with them; tell them you help market, evangelize their product; you can help support their US customers. having a holistic business perspective is an extremely valuable skill.

- you may get lucky and find a job where you'll be able to give all you can, but this is not probable.

- most jobs you'd get would suck one way or another, prepare for a life of pain.

- you may get a degree in CS, but this won't help at all to get a job. Do that only if you don't need to earn a living and want to have fun learning.

- but since you don't seem to be entirely "financially independant" (what would happen if your wife lost her job?), there remains only one good alternative: keep being an entrepreneur. You would be a good co-founder.

Classify and group your experience. Then write one resume for each category. One for software developer, one for hardware technician, one for system admin, one for entrepreneur/project manager. Then think about which resume to select for each job. Always write a cover letter that discusses your RELEVANT experience, and don't hesitate to customize one of your resumes for a specific job. And leave out an old or unpopular stuff such as RPG IV. Oddly enough I noticed a job just appeared on careers.stackoverflow.com for someone with RGP III or IV experience, but it is the first time in 10 years that I have seen that stuff even mentioned. I thought it had died out in the 70s.

If you do want to apply for a job using old stuff like CNC then either make a special one-time resume or edit a stock resume that covers more recent manufacturing stuff. I know people still do CNC but my thinking is that in CA it is likely to be considered outdated since most manufacturing is now outsourced out of the state.

I just wanted to say "maximum respect." I am the same age and I think it is really cool that you would even consider going back to school. If it is a possibility, I would definitely go, although that might be my heart talking much more than my head.

Every once in a while I go out for beers after work with some of the guys that I know, and almost always there is somebody asking what the "next one" technology is; the one that is somehow going to carry him until retirement. That could be practical thinking, but absolutely nothing makes me sadder to hear. We live in a golden age, an age where great ideas and phenomenal code literally flows freely around us. Our generation was lucky enough to live through the dotCom boom and see endless opportunities, and now we are 15 years from age 65 with so many languages and paradigms out there that I fear I will never have enough time to learn them all, even in a cursory way.

Go back to school. Be the guy that does every exercise in SICP, TAs the course in data mining, and can still tell the guys in your study group what it was like to edit Pascal on a DECwriter II.

I wonder how many people on HN have actually touched a VT-100? Or an 8 inch floppy disk? Or how about removable platter 10 MB hard drives the size of a washing machine?

I did, all three of them. And I punched programs on cards, and debugged them thru batch listings and memory dums coming back two or three hours later :-)

Similar age, similar history, although currently employed and having a blast with some new toys....

I re-entered the trenches by specialising in one hot technology (iOS) and producing a series of apps on my own account.

From your description, I suspect a CS degree would probably bore you and it wouldn't make a great deal of difference to your employability. That's not to dismiss university out of hand though. There are other departments where technology hits the road in a way that throws up opportunities all over the place. In your position I'd consider taking a few courses (not necessarily a whole degree) from a decent business/marketing faculty...real world experience can bring a lot to the table and they certainly do deal with fuzzy, hard to define, difficult, and above all, profitable problems.

I did a fascinating MOOC in gamification a few months back, if only I wasn't so busy....

Clearly, being (viewed by employers as) a jack of all trades is bad. You cannot present that on your resume. Sending out resumes to posted openings - a waste of valuable time. You find a position you're interested in, then you portray yourself as Mr. Whatever that is, because that's who they want to hire. Emailed resume doesn't cut it, you gotta get face to face w/a decision maker.

Different job requirements, different resume, tailored to those job requirements. Don't lie of course, but you can spin a long way without lying. Not qualified, it doesn't really matter. Someone like you, you're smart you'll figure it out. You need to make a good impression and that's it. Acting like you don't need their job can be helpful too, but there's a way to do it - without coming off the wrong way.

I wouldn't put too much stock in what a recruiter tells you (or most others for that matter). Free advice sucks almost all the time (except on HN :), and worse than not helpful it can be harmful. If I'd listened to recruiters about what jobs I could and couldn't get it would have cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years.

Best to keep your name off the Interwebs. You have to control the information flow to the world about yourself. There's services that will help scrub your name off sites, I don't know if they work or not, but I can say when you Google yourself, you want the first couple pages to show up exactly what you want to show (or put there yourself).

Now view this as a good thing.. Most hiring is mostly completely subjective and based off whether someone likes you or not. That's really what's going on. Eventually someone is going to like you, so you will find a job eventually if that's what you're after.

> Clearly, being (viewed by employers as) a jack of all trades is bad.

My problem is that I can't dumb-down my resume. One Google search and most of what I've done, going back thirty years, is all there. I can't get it all deleted. At some level, why would you want to? For example, there's a 1985 paper on robotics I presented at an ACM conference (while still an engineering student) that still shows-up on a search.

Have you actually tried tailoring your resume to a specific job role? Or are you just speculating that people will find you on Google and not consider you?

Yes. My resume is under version control. I have six versions I've evolved over time to address very specific job categories.

My resume is generated with a script that filters out experience and skills on keywords, depending on the target job offer.

And a 6-page resume is not a resume anymore, it's a biography. Keep it under one page, 3 or 4 job experiences max.

Interesting and perplexing situation ! You are located in a good area and have an amazing range of skills. I don't think that any more education is going to help. You've got the best qualifications from Hard Knocks U.

I know many guys at a similar age to you and they too have a very hard time with recruiters and cookie-cutter job descriptions. So contracting is probably a better angle. Here's what I'd do in your situation (I did a similar process for myself) :

1. Make a list of what you are very good at. Like in the top 10% of the field.

2. Rate all the things that you still enjoy doing.

3. Write up a one page spiel on what value you can deliver and for whom on your most enjoyable ninja skillz.

4. Using your contacts, past clients, current research approach companies / businesses who are likely to benefit from that specific skill.

Yup! It looks like sales and marketing. That's the reality of making money - you have to get out there. Read Steve Blank's "Four Steps to Epiphany" if you need more clarification on the concepts and more.

After reading through your statements and responses, what pops out is that the metric being applied in valuing a CS degree is vocational. For some people that might be the right choice. But having waded into the world of CS MOOC's already, it appears that metric might be the wrong one for you.

If you're interested in studying CS, then it's o.k. to indulge yourself when you're in a position to do so. It is not as if it will hurt your career prospects. I'll go further and suggest that at our age, we're going to make the rest of our careers ourselves, and because you seem to have a passion for learning and teaching, that may be where you wind up.

Or not. Why not a degree in mathematics and a Master's in education?

> Why not a degree in mathematics and a Master's in education?

Well, mathematics is a tool for me. I couldn't see going for a degree in mathematics at all. Frankly, it'd bore me to death. Probably the same with a MS in Education.

I am a maker. I love to create. Not engaging in the creative process would just kill me from the inside. Of course, not being a useful member of society is probably killing me from the inside as well. Choices.

If unconstrained for resources, what would you passionately make?

That's easy to answer: Intelligent robots.

Humanoids have fascinated me since childhood. I went to school to get an EE because I wanted to work on robots. Life took me in a different direction. And that's OK.

Clearly something you are passionate about. Let the constraints be part of the design challenge. We can't all be Elon Musk. But we can all try for a little Chuck Moore or Donald Knuth - doing what we're passionate about and letting the chips fall.

Thanks for sharing. If you aren't getting jobs now, despite the experience and engineering skill you've had, why would a computer science degree, of all things, change that, especially if you see it as a resume padder...which, from your recounting, has had no effect so far in your job search.

That said, how do you rate your grasp of software engineering so far? It seems like you'd have the mathematical/science chops for a CS degree and for many entrepreneurial projects...but what about experience in building software efficiently? Or with design? Those two skills would seem more useful to you at this point than spending time in a traditional CS program.

I just got done taking the MIT Intro to CS class on edX. I did this to get a sense of where I stand.

I could teach it. Hands, down.

I am going to take the second class in the sequence for the same reason. My guess is I know most of it.

While in school I got as far as Linear Algebra. So, I'm OK with most math. Although, frankly, I haven't really had to use Calculus very much over the years.

My approach has always been to take deep dives into whatever I've had to tackle. When faced with having to do image processing work on FPGA's and write convolution filters I simply bought every relevant book I could find and jumped right in.

When I came across a problem that could benefit from applying a Genetic Algorithm training a Neural Network, same thing. I have yet to find something I cannot tackle.

You have to keep in mind that what was taught in colleges and universities back in 1984 or thereabouts is stone age when compared to today. I took a C class one semester. I nearly fell asleep. I had already done more on my own than the professor was covering in this class. I was already working with multidimensional arrays when he was covering how to print to the console.

The other reality is that nearly nothing I've done over the last fifteen years even existed back when I was in school. The only way I could have done multi-gigahertz FPGA work was to learn it all on my own. When I was in school I don't even think PAL's existed. I designed and built my first computer. That means, design, buy the chips, wire-wrap the boards and use a dumb terminal and a hex keypad to bootstrap the thing. Different times.

With regards to your question about my grasp of software engineering. Well, you know that movie where the kid goes "I see dead people". I see code. After having done so much work across a number of domains most solutions develop in my head intuitively without thinking. Again, the MIT course I just finished being an example. I really didn't have to think much about any of it. I just sit down and write code. Good, clean and efficient code. Comments and all.

So it sounds like you have as much technical talent as anyone who's launched a successful tech venture...so will a com sci degree help? No, you're obviously hitting intractable institutional biases here...looking back at college, I see a lot of its value in networking and exposure to new ideas, but I don't see non-traditional students benefitting to the same degree...so why waste time and money.

Regardless of your technical aptitude, the fact is is that, particularly in web dev, companies are all too happy to hire novice bootcamp coders for near 6-figure. Maybe there really is a huge scarcity of Rails developers, and perhaps it's worth focusing on that to at least get your foot into the modern development industry, but again, it's hard to anticipate how many walls will be unfairly in your way because of the age discrimination you've described.

So I guess the short way of saying it is that pure coding skills alone won't be your edge, and a degree will not change that. At least when it comes to getting recognition from recruiters and employers. However, code can be your edge in helping you pursue, produce, and promote entrepreneurial ideas, but "Just have and execute a really good idea!" is not terribly helpful advice.

But I wouldn't feel insecure at all, if I were you, about whether your coding experience is relevant today. I was in college less than a decade ago and we started with C and most of my engineering labs were doing things like building and designing the kind of adder circuits built decades ago...That kind of thought process and desire to tinker with things doesn't go obsolete with new programming languages.

> So it sounds like you have as much technical talent as anyone who's launched a successful tech venture

Without any ego at all, I'd say, yes. I may not be absolutely up to speed on every aspect of the cadre of web technologies out there but that's not an issue. I'm comfortable with HTML5, CSS3, Javascript/Jquery and PHP. I am now switching to Python and Django due to a number of reasons not relevant to this discussion.

Can I code all of these technologies like a possessed monkey? No. My style is different. I rely on reference material to support what I need to do. I know what needs to be done and I get it done. In other words, to throw out an example, I know when a state machine is the best way to solve a problem, I know how to design it and code it right the first time. During that process I might need to look up language details here and there because in working with so many languages I decided a long time ago it was pointless to try and remember everythign about every single one of them. I get to job done. Now, if I am working on, say, Objective-C daily for weeks the reference material moves to the background pretty quickly as I don't have to "task switch" between five different technologies in the course of a week. Not sure if this is how young coders work at placed like Google. Perhaps they do rock at the tools required for the entire stack, from server to client-side. Or maybe they specialize and only do JS. Don't know.

> so will a com sci degree help?

I can't see how other than, perhaps, if employers or investors place value in the credentials. I understand that a degree is useful to establish a baseline. At the same time, I can code FizzBuzz just fine and, apparently most CS graduates can't code their way out of a paper bag. Currently crunching through ProjectEuler.net as a neat way to get better at Python.

The one area that's of great interest to me is machine learning and AI. I've dabbled in it here and there but my work never landed me solidly in projects where I had to learn the material. With all the new-found interest in robotics I find myself thinking that this is an area where I could do very well. I mean, I am expert level at Solidworks and fairly decent at mechanical design and can also do all of the electronics and software. I could see formal learning in ML being a good approach now that I am not busy trying to run a business from day to day. Yet, I find myself asking if that's reason enough to enter into a four+ year program when I could acquire the knowledge from one (or all!) of the excellent ML courses available online today. I'd have to bone-up on statistics, calculus and linear algebra before I could jump in head first. The difference is that I could do this on my own and only on the stuff I don't remember rather than having to endure a year and a half of math towards a degree.

As you can see, I am fairly biased against the whole idea of going for a degree at this juncture. Still, I want to keep an open mind and listen to reason before making a decision. Because my wife is not an engineer I don't think she understands what the landscape looks like for engineers my age, degree or not, any more than I might understand the nuances of her medical practice.

> I was in college less than a decade ago and we started with C

Right. Most anything an engineer (software or hardware) will do today probably wasn't taught in school ten years ago. If you are not learning new things on a constant basis you'll quickly become irrelevant. As an interesting point, I do have friends around my age who have not kept up as I have and are pretty much done with engineering as it's known today. One of them actually stopped doing hardware and software about fifteen years ago and shifted into management. He got laid off. He is unemployed. Nowhere to go.

Ok. I'm close to your age and about to graduate in the spring with degrees in physics and applied mathematics. I have a similar background to yours (entrepreneur, software, and webdev, but not as much on the hardware side). College is valuable not so much for what it looks like on paper, for much of what you said about getting hired as an 'older' engineer is true, but for shoring up your knowledge with formal training. Also, I have had several really good ideas come to me in math classes over the past few years. You never know where inspiration will come from. You will also be immersing yourself somewhat in the culture of a younger generation. There is value to that especially if you plan on marketing something to an Internet market that largely consists of their demographic. You will also meet a lot of people and those connections are terrific, and not just for networking value. But, ultimately, what jborden13 said is true. You shouldn't make a big commitment like that if you don't truly want it. I loved it.

For me, I feel like entrepreneurship is like touching butterfly wings; you'll never be the same again and probably not very happy in a "job". Good luck

@random_user - I'm 47, and have taken a similar though not quite as successful path as you. Started my first job at 17, no degree, got booted out of my first CS class for debugging the instructor's code too much. Worked at a few places, then as a contractor after that. Did some interesting stuff with realtime and embedded systems, and some boring stuff too. I can debug anything. I've used a VT-100, though I preferred the Wyse 50 as my daily driver back in the day.

I live in Los Angeles. If you'd like to grab some lunch some time, shoot me an email:

http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01DldAjfc_NO3uD...

I don't have any job leads or business ideas for you. Just some war stories to swap.

PS This is a throwaway email, it may take a few days for me to check and respond. If you do contact me, send me some kind of a token in your email, then copy/paste the token here as a reply so I'll know it's you and not some clever HN prankster.

Email sent

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I have a recommendation, If you are good with Linux and setting up servers why don't you become a DevOps/Sysadmin.

You can find a job in that field, Here are some of the skills you will need.

1.-Linux know how to write scripts, bash. python, 2.-Learn to automate server setups with Chef,Puppet, Ansible 3.-Learn how to deploy software using Capistrano, Jenkins, Maven 4.-Learn how to help developers setup Dev Environments.

I am a sysadmin been doing this job for almost 12 years and I am not old but I not a spring chicken either, but I have job offers all the time. I have a great salary and I come home and learn more stuff everyday on my own. I get paid to do what I love.

It doesn't matter how old you are, if you are trying to compete with young developers that might be hard but I can tell you that developers hate setting up systems or debuging issues and that's where Devops engineers come in handy.

I have a few books i can send you if you are interested.

Cheers

Thanks for the recommendation. If I could use a bad analogy I'd compare the two world, setting up servers and engineering software to selling marble and being a sculpture.

Part of what drives those of us who write code is that we use that code as a creative outlet. I'll generally extend that to the process of designing products, be it hardware or software. Mechanical design isn't about setting up the CNC machine but rather about the creativity and the designer's expression of interesting ideas. I've walked away from designing sheet metal parts with a huge sense of, yes, artistic and creative accomplishment. Designing something that is beautiful and well done in your eyes are the highs that drive some of us. Software or electrical engineering have similar embodiments of the same concept.

I can do Linux at a reasonable level and know most of the tools you listed, some superficially and others reasonably well. However, setting up servers isn't something that appeals to me as an occupation. At some level it would be dishonest to go work for someone knowing that I would not bring a degree of passion to the job. As an entrepreneur I would feel cheated if an employee took a job with me just to get by and not to knock it out of the park. There's a huge difference between a business where everyone is really engaged and one where nearly everyone thinks "it's just a job". Perhaps the canonical example of this is the contrast between a rocking startup and a large, stratified and somewhat stagnant company with tens of thousands of employees. There's a huge difference between what both of those can accomplish given the same time and resources.

I am not diminishing what you do. You seem to be passionate about supporting servers and that's fantastic. Those of us who prefer to create software products need people who can provide us with solid systems on which our software can run reliably and efficiently.

A long way of saying: It's not for me.

Maybe try and find an idea that you think someone would pay for, and use kickstarter to fund it? (Of course, this should be something you really want to work on and will be motivated to complete, as well as something that people really want -- they'll vote with their dollars)

For example, I recently saw a kickstarter for a device that would connect to ANY set of speakers and make them into WIFI enabled speakers. This kind of project would probably be trivial for you with a raspberry pi & an audio connector, and with your hardware knowledge, even scaling it up could be easy (ex. moving from a rpi to more efficient hardware solution). I personally am going to try and implement that idea later this year, just because I think it should be very doable for me.

However, my point is that, by putting that project on kick starter, you can get a large lump sum (of course, it needs to be something people want), for development of some tech that COULD grow into a great retailable product.

Also, go to school (happy wife, happy life), but keep developing. I personally think one of the best ways to develop software is by being close to a group of people that could very easily be your target market. Also, going to school, breezing through the classes will do wonders for your countenance, give you a better outlook, and expose you to more fresh ideas (though very little changes in core CS) -- it will expose you to more than just book-knowledge.

Blog about it (you are different, the internet likes that, at the very least, you'll be used as an example of what 50 year old programmers are capable of). Keep developing.

Of course, I'm less than half your age, I don't think I can give you advice you haven't already thought of. But it's like you're an out-of-season architect. As long as your skills don't dull, you just need to find the right thing to use them on. One of the best parts of being a computer programmer is the ability to create with VERY little (comparatively) input funds. Create until something sticks.

I think there's some thinking around that essentially says to try and find a pain point (find someone that is having trouble with something), fit it, then sell them the fix.

Yes, I've been thinking about Kickstarter a lot lately. I am mildly convinced this might be a the best approach.

I am not concerned about you being 20-something. I am looking for perspective I might not be generating on my own. All input is valuable.

My own advise to you and others around you age is simple: Finish school. If you don't, you might just live to regret or question your decision not to.

I haven't run my own kickstarter but have admired a few close friends with theirs...so I'll just say this...unless you have a killer idea that's half prototyped...don't go to KS just yet. There's so much involved with editorial and in particular, video production...and that's not even counting the designing of the rewards...that you will spend as much time being a manager as you will in being a builder. If that's appealing to you, sure, but that doesn't seem like your current aim

Note that when people surveyed successful startups to find out what characteristics they shared, they discovered that most of them are started by people around your age, i.e. over 40. The Zuckerbergs of the world are outliers and people who try to emulate them are chasing the thin end of the rainbow.

You really should advertise for a younger person with some more marketing skills who would like to create a kickstarter project. You have the technical and manufacturing knowledge, and they would provide the branding/marketing side of the equation. Offer to work on their idea or on one of yours. Ideally you would get together, pick three or four ideas, do some market research to narrow down to one and then prepare your kickstarter bid.

Find a problem. Solve it. Post the code on Github or start a business around it. Watch the offers flood in.

"Don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem": Lauryn Hill

Throwing this out there - but given your experience, why not remain an entrepreneur and try raising money for another business? Something tells me you'd have a much easier time than first-time entrepreneurs. Assuming of course your wife doesn't mind (though IMO that should never be a reason not to follow your passions).

I hope to be as accomplished as you at age 50, degree or not.

40 yo here.

No path has opened up for you. Create your own path (again).

Don't listen to the people who tell you you're too old to do it. You have wisdom and experience on your side. By your comment history, you have all the mental tools in place. Stay flexible and nimble. Keep impulses to a minimum.

This is a game of Chess for you, except you're playing for your life.

It may not be much, but if you ever want to chat with somebody feel free to email me.

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