Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired

Some tough love here, from the parallel universe you. It was people like you in the late 1970s who inspired me to be a programmer (literally, talking to Hughes aircraft programmers on the bus to high school about the JOVIAL language), but one thing I knew by the time I was about 12, say, 1973 or so, was that aerospace engineering in the Hughes aircraft world was boom and bust. I did not learn programming until I was 21(completely self-taught), in the early 1980s, but what I understood from the beginning was that I had to keep my skills up.

Ever since then, even after getting a job as a program manager at Microsoft in the mid-1990s, I have continued until this day to assume that I would be fired and would have to find another job. Which means that I have studied every day for almost 40 years because I knew someday I would get old and less easy to hire. For the last two decades, I ran an extremely lucrative business, yet continue to keep my skills up.

But I haven’t heard from you is that you have tried to adjust to the market. The simple fact is, if you want to get paid what programmers get paid these days, you need to know what programmers know these days. After all, you made a good living in the 1970s because you had a special set of skills for that era. The easiest thing for you to learn at this point would be database backed web development, perhaps in python or (my favorite), Go. You could learn what you need to learn part time in about a year.

I have two suggestions. I'm 75 with 54 years programming experience. I got a job because the employer (a university) couldn't find anyone to do the work at a pathetic salary. That's suggestion number one: find an employer who is desperate. The misconceptions and prejudices of the employment system would prevent my resume-application from ever reaching the person making the hiring decision.

The second suggestion is present yourself as a solution to an employer's diversity issue. You would have to lean very hard on this diversity angle to get past the recruiter and the HR office. Once you reach the actual decision maker switch to the benefits offered by a long and diverse career.

Good luck

Have been writing code since the mid '70s. But, that has been mostly with startups. YMMV

Two years ago, I ran out of money. So, I started interviewing. One example was interviewing for the Apple Watch team. My experience included the design and code lead of an Apple Watch product, which was featured by Apple. But, I failed the Coderpad. Why? The interviewer wanted me to use a new Swift generic syntax, which I had never seen before. With an unfamiliar code editor. In under 10 minutes. Did it matter that I had an Apple Watch product, which he could download from the AppStore and ran super fast on a Series 0? Nope. Did it matter that he could download a 29K Swift based functional ontology that I wrote? Nope.

The point is that there are two skills: writing code and getting past the interview. The latter is often conducted by a 20-something, just out of college. So, there is more emphasis on tacit knowledge of the tools and techniques. It feels more like passing a finals exam.

A few years ago my CEO hired Gayle Laakman to prep the team for an acquisition by a FAANG. I loved the puzzles and read her book [1] cover to cover. But, I hated the premise of avoiding "false positives". A famous false negative is Max Howell [2] (who went on to write Apple's Swift Package Manager)

So, how did I get a gig? I kept trying. Learned new frameworks. Focused on jobs interviews which had a take home. During the on-site, I insisted on using my own laptop. An often overlooked factor in achieving a coding flow-state is muscle memory.

I've been told that some companies are shifting from whiteboard to take-home -- particularly during covid. Post covid, if the option is available to you, try moving to the Bay Area or Austin and attend every single hackathon that looks interesting. If you don't want to leave HI, maybe contribute to an open source project in some way.

Or perhaps, start a company. Maybe there's an opportunity in refactoring Aerospace code? I dunno. Now, I'm guessing ...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9695102

My situation is somewhat different but there's similarities.

Also over 50 (barely), skills are not exactly outdated (Azure data engineering/analytics), but been looking for a job since being laid off early in the pandemic (going on 1.5 years gap on the resume). Took a few months hiatus in 2020 since the job market was pretty much dead and got a few certifications. Just this month got 4 rejections, partly because of big gap on the resume (specifically mentioned in one of the rejections). Being older white non-veteran male doesn't help either.

What I'm finding interesting is how people surprised that it has been difficult to find a job if you were laid off during or right before the lockdowns. I don't think people realize how difficult it has been to find a job in this environment.

I'm also not observing "labor shortage" which is presumably the result of a "big resignation". Companies are taking their time responding to the applications and scheduling interviews, recruiters and HRs routinely disappear if you don't follow up, a huge percentage of my applications never get answered at all without a way to follow up (I only apply where I see some fit with my skillset), requirements are very specific and at times not realistic. Applied for a position which required min 5 years of experience with Azure Synapse which only went live in 2020. Another company was/is looking for BI director with experience in developing strategic roadmaps, setting up data governance, master data management, building and managing a distributed team, who also has recent 5+ years hands-on experience setting up new BI environment in Azure, designing the data model, building ETLs with Azure Data Factory, and building and maintaining PowerBI dashboards (I was deemed "not hands-on enough").

You’ll need to get up to speed with modern interviewing practices. Unless you know someone - people don’t care what you’ve done. They care about how you perform in the interview.

True with most of the top paying companies. I’d suggest doing a 100 problems on LC (try the subject study guides first) before interviewing again.

Doesn’t sound fun but that’s how it is now. The bar is high for all candidates - at least for top paying companies. Haven’t seen one yet that lets you skip the bs unless you know someone high up.

I would never work at a FAANG unless I had no other option. They will pay you handsomely, but they will take their pound of flesh. It's also extremely monocultural: your life, your world, your culture, is about their bottom line.

Personally, if I was presented with a leetcode interview (I was interviewing a few months ago), I bowed out pretty damned quickly.

You really need to catch up on the tech. In addition to what the other comments are saying, look into contributing: https://github.com/MunGell/awesome-for-beginners

Obviously, FAANG is for some people. You seriously need to have a very hard think if that is you.

Despite various laws etc, don't mention your age on your resume, and only list a few previous roles (perhaps the last 5-8 years max with "more details available on request" or something vague). Don't put your graduation date etc. Don't list job history going back decades. Basically don't give people any ammo to think you are "old".

Bias - unconscious or otherwise - is real. It sucks but you may need to try to work around it and play the games. Don't lie, just don't mention it or bring it up.

Good luck.

As a web developer who works almost exclusively in PHP/SQL and devops, if I was presented with a "Leetcode" challenge or any other intentionally esoteric / purely theoretical bullshit interview technique I would immediately but politely excuse myself from the process.

That nonsense is utterly non-representative of what the average programmer will be doing on a daily basis.

Even Leetcode's most "easy" problem just seems utterly ridiculous to me: https://leetcode.com/problems/two-sum/

What next? "Vim golf" scores in interviews?

Yes I have done this in my 40s: Go to a coding boot camp. Sure, you will be possibly the oldest one there, but do it. Do the work, stay humble. Choose a focus (front end, full stack, backend) and sharpen on the latest tech.

I went in-person, but remote learning could work. I highly recommend choosing somewhere where there is code peer-reviews and instructor reviews. Self-learning is harder than it looks when you have a family.

When I recently was hired, I noted they specifically wanted cloud programmers, not local desktop programmers. Therefore, make sure you choose a bootcamp that works with Heroku or AWS or Vultr, etc, to get that exposure.

Also, consider going to local meetups that focus on coding (meetup.com or other channels). Listen to what they're talking about and what the latest trends are. Some even offer mentorships.

You can do it. (And after you've done it, help others.)

The churn rate of current software development practice is quite rapid. When you took several years off, you "fell out of the job market". In effect, you need to reboot your skill & tool set to make current.

In addition, you must reboot your interviewing skills. I've been a professional software interviewer (600+ interviews) and have seen most very experienced software developers do quite poorly during interviews. The interview skills required for FAANG-like companies and startups alike are very different from the skills required to work as a typical software engineer.

The interview is the gateway to getting the job. As such, good or great interview skills (i.e. algorithms, data structures, time & space complexity) are a pre-requisite to getting a job.

I hope that the above advice is useful and helpful.

Two pieces of advice:

1) Think of getting hired as a numbers game, and think of applying for a job as a sales process. That means having a funnel for companies, e.g. "discovered -> openings available -> resume drop -> recruiter screen -> interview round 1,2,3 -> offer". Make a spreadsheet and start filling it; don't just list companies you know about, start googling tech you're interested in to find more companies you can add. If certain types of interviews seem to go better, look for similar companies you can add, too (as musesum suggested)

2) As others have said, gaming the interview process (with e.g. leetcode) can only help you. Perhaps unlike other commenters, though, my advice (based on a friend's long-term unemployment situation) is to focus on fixing "only interviewed once or twice a year" rather than "my skills no doubt became somewhat outdated," at least for a few months. If you do notice a big drop-off in your funnel (recruiter screen, first round interview) then focus on that part.

> Since then, and after my skills no doubt became somewhat outdated, it is absolutely impossible to find work.

This seems like the obvious problem here. You need to make sure that you have skills that are relevant for the current job market. If you're an experienced developer then it shouldn't take you very long to get up to speed, but you can't expect to just not learn anything new and walk into a job.

I would recommend picking a technology, spending 4-6 weeks learning it (in this time you can also produce some sample project code that you can use to convince potential employers of your skill), then start applying for jobs.

Big tech is very much ageist. It goes beyond discrimination during the interview process. Companies like this will take steps to weed older folks out of their company for good, it's awful. What programming languages and skills do you have on your resume?

There's a lot of banks in Europe that have Cobol and M4 legacy systems which need maintenance. Banks tend to pay well and there's few young people competing for these boring jobs.

I'd say double down on the fact that you have experience with old technology. Then find a good headhunter / recruitment firm to work with you. If you're willing to start out as an external contractor, they might get you started working without any interview at all.

Also, do some projects just for fun. Nothing screams "fake" like a self-proclaimed experienced coder with no battle stories.

Build a side project using modern tech. You’ll learn a bunch and then you can put those skills on your CV. I’m happy to look over your CV and guide you on stuff I would look out for. There are also programmes for people that have been out of the industry for a while.

Someone else already mentioned it but I also think it is a good idea to look for University IT/DevOps positions, or maybe scientific computing, etc. They are generally much more interested in reliability over risk and are much happier with someone who will hold things together for a few decades than someone who will bring in fads and then get hired away.

Looks like a lot of advice here is around learning new languages and “staying current”, it seems like this can become a treadmill/rat-race best suited to more junior positions. If you have them, I would advocate you play up your leadership “high leverage” skills, not management mind you, but technical leadership. These will age the best over time, can offer high returns on effort, and get you more appreciation. You still need to interview well but the focus becomes less on what specific language you know and more on how you can deliver for the company.

I would absolutely recommend contracting. Contracting world is full of bs and of profoundly unqualified people still getting paid well. Someone with a track record like yours will clearly stand out there.

therealdavesky I'm over 60, became employed recently for the first time in 11 years. I've been independent 1099 for about 1/2 of my career. My history is mostly in C language embedded systems.

Just keep hammering on indeed, or whatever other site you're applying on.

It took me 6 months to get employed. With many many multi-interview companies not offering in the end.

Just keep at it, you'll find a match...

How many applications are you sending out and who are you applying to? Are you contacting recruiters? That's important information missing here.

I suggest looking at startups as I imagine the number of applicants is much less and interviews are less "leetcode"-oriented. Also as someone else suggested, you can look for consulting work, then if you want to transition to full-time you will have up-to-date experience.

You should contact a technical recruiter. There are I'm sure thousands of software development openings in your area from companies you have never heard of but with salaries that are 60-80% of FAANG.

Just quick perspective check: Facebook and Google are high bars to set for yourself. With some hyperbole we could say that’s like saying you’ve been paying the guitar for 40 years but neither the Beatles nor Stones would hire you. You could have a great and lucrative career playing guitar for, like, the Pretenders or something.

Finance is one field which is desperate for good coders, and which is using tons of outdated software. I'm sure there are other fields like that, too - think really old companies with critical software that can't be ported to newer paradigms in case some tiny oversight breaks it.

I am 55. 39 years since I got my first programming job. I long ago lost my interest in production coding, but my coding skills are highly valued in the testing/training/consulting world.

Part of your problem is that the world expects guys of our age to have moved into leadership positions. For instance, I have two part-time consulting gigs right now where I do coding to get the kids started with certain test tools that they didn’t realize they should have created before I came along. I’m ostensibly coaching and training. But coding is a helpful part of that.

Another part of your problem is it sounds like you don’t know anyone. I got both my current gigs because former colleagues hired me. Socialize!

I'm not sure what you mean for outdated skills? Where I work we don't usually hire for tech stack or languages, we test more design pattern, principles, architectural knowledge even knowledge about paradigms, which are like not things that change often, I guess you have to know what pattern becomes an antipattern. I think maybe you might have found some javascript developers that to me have always felt very stuck and introvert(?) with their tech stack or last framework hunting, but I think to be able to give you an informed opinion one should know also what kind of knowledge you have and what have you built, and what kind of positions you're applying to

If you'd like to send over your resume we can exchange emails and I'd be happy to give some pointers on what might stand out for a modern resume, or also recommend techs you could try get some practice with that are in demand now.

> Over the past few years I have been only interviewed once or twice a year by anyone who seemed interested, most notably Google and Facebook, but neither decided I was a worthy hire. At this point it seems impossible to get even a junior developer job!

I don't see how you can have a mere two job interviews (that likely have many applicants each) and then arrive at this conclusion.

How many jobs have you applied to? What are you doing to stay up-to-date or get back up to speed?

Think like an insecure beginner. Learn to write React JavaScript framework.

Don’t overthink this and don’t think like a technologist. If you can write small declarative code islands to put text into a browser you can get hired for six figures. You have to be willing to be trendy and preference tools over code while working with people in their lower 20s who may or may not value programming experience.

This is why young people should save / invest / risk up in their late 20's and early 30's. Be in a position where you don't really have to work in your 50's or at least maintain the energy to pivot when you realize you are no longer as valuable as you thought. I've already started to feel this at 28.

One possibility is to chose a specialty that is in high demand, and where you are not competing directly with large numbers of younger people. So, for instance:

1. Don't focus on frontend work. There are large numbers of young people going through development bootcamps and there specializing in front end work.

2. Maybe focus on devops. Right now, in New York City, the top devops people are charging between $200 and $300 an hour. And, in my experience (and with some notable exceptions) devops people tend to be older. But this strategy would require you to push yourself very hard to come up to speed on modern devops, which is a vast subject. It really depends on your own self-discipline. If you don't know much about this topic, you'll need to study 12 hours a day for 6 months to come up to speed. But presumably you already know some of the languages that play a large role. Ideally, you already know Python, as Ansible still plays a large role in devops.

If contract work is an option for you, I have a few ideas that might be interesting for you. As an independent consultant, I'm continuously reading the market to get a feeling for current and future demand. This thread is filled with great advice on upgrading skillset and I +1 to all of that because having a viable skillset is a prerequisite for a lot of jobs. You can get some experience by contributing to open source, which is something you discuss in a potential interview - recruiters might not care about it but someone interviewing you might.

On contract work, you'll need to select the recruiters you want to work with. Large recruiting firms have clients all over town and if they send out your resume, they send it to everyone. Essentially, this means if you give your resume to too many recruiters, you're hurting your job prospects. Many hiring managers will skip resumes that are multi-submitted because they don't want to deal with the hassle of which recruiter gets paid if they want to hire you. What has worked well for me, when I use a recruiter, is to go with individuals or small shops that don't have the reach of the larger firms. They're also more likely to pay attention to you because of a candidate shortage and thus easier to create a relationship because you're taking a bet on them as much as they are on you. Go after Jr. developer roles for whatever they want to pay you.

The idea here is to get your foot in the door on any software development work possible. This corresponds to the business perspective of being a contractor, the market determines what you're able to do. When times were hard, my rate went down and I took less desirable work - but it was work. The benefit of any work over no work is (beyond bringing in > $0) that people would rather hire developers that are already working. With contracting, you can get a 3, 6, 12 month gig and get experience. When that's over, it's easier to get the next (better) gig at higher pay - just work your way up over time.

Another idea is to scan CraigsList, attend user groups, or network locally to see if there are any companies or individuals looking for software help. Volunteer work is better than nothing too. Then submit a proposal that is dirt cheap enough to get the work - again this type of market is cost conscious. There are also very few developers, beyond college students, who are willing to do this type of work, especially in today's competitive market. It isn't much, but all of the sudden you have something current on your resume.

Here are answers to some earlier questions, so my situation may become a bit more clear:

“Tell us more about what you want to do.”

It didn’t seem on-topic to mention goals and such in my original query, so here is a short list of software goals and answers to a question above:

    creating a “killer app” :  Since the 80’s. many many tries.
     was lucky enough to work on CineLook for several years,
 
    synesthesia: the merging and mixing of different types of media : this has been a fixation of mine for decades

    making UI’s that look good AND are easy to use

    data visualization:  good data visualization can really help 

    game development: my first app that sold was a math game

. . .

“Do you have anything you want focus on or do you pride yourself on being a generalist?”

It seems to me that AR will become the de facto standard for UI/UX, and most software will need to adapt to that new metaphor. That includes multimedia and musical software. It would be great to help out in that area somehow. In the 90s I wrote lots of in-house tools, which required me to think like a generalist. This sort of work is fine for me but I would place it as a second priority desire in a perfect world.

. . . “Architect, team lead, or pure development of a system from day to day?” Have led a team on a few occasions and was able to handle it but it would depend on the team. Have done pure development for decades but it doesn’t have to be the only thing I do.

. . .

“And business domains that you’re especially familiar with or interested in?”

Anything involving new uses of media and trans-media. Some things being done in aerospace are very appealing, such as the concept of a 3D-printed rocket. Financials are interesting also, as would be supporting research in astronomy, physics (especially superconductivity) or perhaps infrastructure. Education is also a great field to do work in.

thanks once again for all the info and support!

I'm over 50 as well, and my last job search took 4 months (being fairly picky about what I wanted..).

The key is to 'work the ends' - the demand in tech is in really old tech (COBOL, RPG, CICS) and really new tech ('cloud', Rust, tech-de-jour). Middle ground (Java, C, python (sorta), perl, etc) is either low demand/pay or saturated with people all ready.

Also, trite as it seems - two best resources I have for leads are LinkedIn and personal network. Make sure your LinkedIn provides a good indication of not only what you're good at, but also what you're interested in.

First of the year is coming up, and that always brings a slew of new positions! Make sure everything is up to date, and keep an eye out for positions that seem interesting!

Good Luck!

Well, I can't claim to be making a _good_ living, but if you look online at sites like Upwork or even reddit or various Discord channels, there is a lot of demand for programmers who are willing to work for cheap. And that may not be an option for someone with a family, but there are also a few clients here and there with real budgets.

One of the nice things about freelancing is that if I don't want to use React or Svelte or whatever the latest CSS framework is, there are projects who don't really care and let me do things how I want.

The other idea related to that is whatever business niche it is you have experience or interest in try to follow that community and see if there is any tool you can build.

Question to the audience:

Given the prevalence of Stackoverflow, Reddit, &c, and the launch of https://repost.aws , has anyone gotten on there and demonstrated enough technical heft to turn into an interview?

I get the occasional ping on LinkedIn, but haven't really followed up on that.

Answer to the author: You probably know the deal about cleared work as government contractor. Relatively stable gigs, but nearly impossible to stay cutting edge. You may need to take a "murder" job for long enough to kick-start the resume, but you'd have to satisfy yourself as to why you'd eat the indenture.

I was in a similar situation in 2007 having been out of programming work since the dot com bust in 2001. I got hired at a small startup where I happened to do well on the interview - I aced a couple of brain teaser like interview questions and just happened to be a cultural and personal good fit with the interviewers. I then got to choose the front end framework for the company and chose ExtJS and that keyword on my resume got me headhunted into a major tech firm 6 months later. So pick some current hot tech stack/framework and get some experience with it even if you have to work on open source or pro bono for a bit.

In addition to the other great suggestions: think about how you present your attitude during the interview process.

IME, many hiring managers want to see passion (desire to focus on the user/mission), drive (evidence you will work hard), and humility (ability to be a team player), in addion to technical skills.

Displaing corresponding negative traits can really undermine their view of you. For example, cynicism, ignorance/resistance to hot/new tech/approaches, lack of interest in learning on your own time, condescension for decisions they have made, disdain for the hiring process, etc.

Is Dice.com or Monster.com full of employers. There are tons of jobs, just not at a salary you want. That's a bad matchup that has nothing at all to do with your age. Let's talk about keywords and what that means.

Yes, if you are an Ada developer, that resume is a tough sell. How about you get some experience or demonstrate some experience (with say a github) during your lengthy downtime, with technologies that are in demand? Then interview and fail (because that's not uncommon) and try to learn what they thought you lacked. Improve. Repeat. This is the developer grind.

Tell us more about what you want to do. There’s a lot of people on HN who hire developers.

Do you have anything you want focus on or do you pride yourself on being a generalist?

Architect, team lead, or pure development of a system from day to day?

And business domains that you’re especially familiar with or interested in? E-commerce, SaaS, aerospace, business systems, data engineering, etc.

Give us a little more and someone here might take an interest and be able to help directly. The start of the year generally sees an uptick in hiring due to some pent-up demand from the previously 30-45 days when a lot of business processes slow down.

Maybe look for jobs at defense contractors?

Merry Christmas. I'm Software Engineer, near 50 and I faced the same problem with you. I propose to you two paths. The first and is what I did. I moved in a field that I was not very famirial with and it concerns industrial programming and especially in CODESYS (ST programming). This is a relatively new technology but the way you design and programming is similar to those of previous decades. The second is to start your own company related or not to your field, taking advantage of your knowledge, experience and skills. I wish you the best.

Hey Davesky, can you shoot an email with your CV to sam@prairierobotics.com?

As a primer you can read what we've built (and are expanding upon) here: https://betakit.com/prairie-robotics-secures-690000-cad-to-i...

Have you considered learning COBOL? Maybe not the most inspiring language to work in everyday but the ecosystem that uses it has money and has intense demand.

You could even do something crazy like write tooling for COBOL that makes programmers more productive and be loved forever (or make a lot of money).

Practice Leetcode for a couple a months. Then apply again to Facebook, Google and similar companies. There is a lot of luck involved when passing those interviews. So to increase your chances, increase your interview skills and increase the number of interviews. Good luck in your search.

From the sounds of it you have a lot of great experience. We have an awesome team and we are currently expanding. Email me at: Cody@Mandsc.com

I'd really enjoy the chance to talk with you.

On the other hand, people who can code in legacy software have strange opportunites appear in front of them if they are suitably prepared and ready. VB6, delphi and ancient versions of microsoft access are still used in many and varied ways.

Its very much a who-you-know deal though.

If I may do a hunch, since I don't see much information.

But I think older engineers could probably find a better/easier? Job in dev where memory isn't managed.

Eg. C++, hardware companies.

Also, I see multiple references to golang which seems good advice if you want to learn something new.

I would like to ask a follow up question, what tech industry jobs would HN recommend where ageism isn't a problem? I know I can only be an IC for so long before everyone will see a new grad as more economical.

Contract work is a possibility. The benefits aren't as good but employers will take people they wouldn't hire full time.

And work to update skills. Without more details I won't consider giving you advice on what to study.

therealdavesky , I am sorry to hear that. I suggest, dont get demotivated. Keep trying. I am sure you would find one. Good luck.

@all, Is this a general trend for experienced devs? Lets say, someone doesn't have a gap in resume and is well versed with the current tech, system design etc and the current employer is fairly reputed. (Say top 25 in terms of market cap in the US). Will this problem still hold? My understanding is that, at 20+ yrs experience, people expect us to be in leadership roles such as director etc. But then, not everyone can get to that level.

> once or twice a year

Getting hired is a numbers game. If you really want a job, you need to go on 5-10 interviews PER WEEK for months. Even people in their 20s have to deal with this. That's just how it is.

> anyone who seemed interested, most notably Google and Facebook

Google and Facebook aren't interested. They have massive amounts of cash and earmark a huge amount of it to pay recruiters and junior engineers to interview literally every engineer they can find. Getting a first interview with FAANGM is easier than falling off a log. Getting a second interview is harder. A lot harder.

> impossible to get even a junior developer job

To many managers (not me), "junior" means "we're going to give you all of the shit tasks no one else wants to do, and we expect you to work insanely hard, AND we're going to not pay you that much, because there are others willing to take your spot". So vanish any thoughts of applying for "junior" jobs from your mind. You're not the target market.

> after my skills no doubt became somewhat outdated

The best piece of advice I can give is this: A lot of things that were once done manually are now handled by an open-source project. You don't make a search engine, you use Solr or ElasticSearch. You don't configure Linux, you use Docker configuration files. Become an expert in some project that companies actually use.

Figure out how to re-frame your experience in a way that it applies to modern development. Did you spend years in the early C++ days, then C# or Java is probably the way forward. But you have to know it, and know the difference. You have to research. You can't say "I only know C++, I can't do Java" and you can't say "I knew C++ at one point, so I can do Java".

Just interview with random companies, and ask THEM what they need. You have a fantastic free resource in front of you. Companies are looking to hire people, and they're willing to let you waste their time to ask them questions. Take advantage of it.

One last thing. Don't take it personally if a company declines to continue interviewing you. A lot of companies (web and app startups) have zero need for someone with experience. They just want someone who can do a little HTML and CSS (and do it quickly). Experience just gets in the way. Learn what you can from them during the interview, but move on. You're looking for companies that are doing hard things, and can benefit from someone who's seen a lot of things before.

We're always looking for great developers of any experience level.

https://www.erdosmiller.com/careers-jobs

It's probably nothing to do with your actual age. Your skillset matters most. You can either upgrade your skillset or look for jobs where your existing skillset puts you at an advantage.

Get involved in some open source work so you can point it out? Yes, those keyword-driven recruiter things are a nonsense, but maybe that would trigger a useful one?

Also, contracting, as suggested before.

Tech unfortunately moves at a blistering pace. Perhaps see where you'd like to pick things up and do a crash course of some sort (Udemy, etc).

find what companies still use the languages your most proficient in and apply there directly, whether they have a job posted or not.

Maybe getting contracting gigs might be easier than finding perm roles?

Change your resume so it looks like you’re 22 years old.

Hello from another greybeard. I've been in the same boat. I'm not a programmer, though. I was a sysadmin and senior tech-support guy (L3, but I can do anything.) I never specialised: I do Windows, Linux, Mac, and in the past, I did UNIX™, VMS, Netware, all sorts of long-dead stuff back to CP/M.

In 2007, I decided to switch from freelance to an office job before I turned 40. It took me about 500 applications to get my first interview, over the phone. I landed the job on that first phone interview. It was good, reasonable contract rates, shift-based but I needed the money.

Snag: I used to be a journalist, and I preferred it. A journo job came up, so I quit. The journo job ended about 4 months later, just as the Credit Crunch hit.

Over the next 5 years, I applied for over three thousand jobs. Not exaggerating. I was British and I also applied for roles in any country where I spoke enough of the language to write the cover letter: France, Spain, Germany, Norway, Sweden.

I averaged one interview a year, I got 2 roles, one of which lasted 10 days and the other 2 months.

Ready to give up, I managed to get a book deal, which paid enough to pay off the urgent bills and cover a one-month intensive training course to be a Teacher of English as a Second or Other Language. I planned to go abroad and travel as a TESOL teacher, as I figured I was too old to work in IT ever again.

Well, I told a friend, and that got me a referral for a technical writer job at a Linux vendor – but in Central/Eastern Europe, the former Communist Bloc. I'd never considered there.

Well, that job didn't last, but I found another quickly and easily – in fact, I was offered 2 roles by 2 different companies.

I have had half a dozen jobs since then, steadily increasing my pay. I moved cities to the capital.

Now, as it happens, I am back to journalism, but what I would say to you is this:

Ageism is very real and it's rife across the English-speaking world and the West in general. Kids (and you know what I mean by that) will deny this, and point out that it's illegal, which it is, but it happens anyway.

There's no escaping it.

But I found that it's not true in the former Communist Bloc. I didn't make as much as I did in Britain, but then, the cost of living is about a quarter of the West, so I lived very comfortably, thank you.

I successfully rebooted my entire career in my late 40s and now in my mid-50s, I own my own place outright, I have a young family with an adorable tiny daughter, a fulfilling job, a savings account and some investments, and I don't owe anything to anyone.

Get out of the collapsing West. Go East. Not necessarily Eastern Europe, but a lot of the developing world is crying out for English-speaking experienced people.

Sure, there are remote jobs, too, but at local pay, which won't go far in the West.

Pre-COVID I flew back to visit my aging relatives 3-4 times a year, which is a lot more often than I could afford to do when I lived in another part of the same country.

Ageism is not a worldwide problem, but you will have to travel far to escape it. But it's totally worth doing, and I'm glad I did. I even changed citizenship to make it simpler.

same! oh the stories i could tell...