> Technologists live in a world of negative unemployment

Just wait until you turn 50...

I don't personally know any sharp ICs who have trouble finding work, regardless of age, provided they keep learning.

I've met many people who have struggled to find work after they stopped learning. But someone who refuses to learn at 30 is less employable than someone who still gets excited about a new framework at 60.

I passed an all-day at Google in my 50s. No offer, though, and that job hunt lasted many months. Pleased to meet you. :-)

I live in flyover country and have worked many years for companies way less sexy than Google. The environment here is different from the Bay Area's "moving on at 26" mentality. Certain industries (especially insurance, financial services, and healthcare) prefer someone who's been around the block and is more interested in maintainable, well-architected solutions. A lot of the in-joke humor about tech culture that you see on HN would probably go over the heads of most of my coworkers because they just don't care. They want to write great software and leave at 5.

Googler here.

Recruiter would not know if you passed or not.

IIUC, Google recruiter would send your package to the hiring committee if your interview result isn't bad (this is at their discretion); the hiring committee has the final say on if someone has "passed", recruiter doesn't.

How do you know you "passed" the all day? Why do you think the lack of an offer is age-related?

The Google recruiter told me that I passed that and the follow-on hiring committee. I have no reason to believe that wasn't true, especially since the people in the all-day seemed genuinely enthusiastic about me.

I didn't say they didn't hire me for age. Rather, I was offering that as a proof of sorts that my skills are current and yet I had a hard time getting hired.

(I did hear via back channels that I was nixed there for being [euphemism for too old]. Hard to know whether that's true, but all things considered, it's hard to think of a non-demographic explanation, aside from bad luck. In any case, I'm over it.)

Please see my comment above. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22079448

Recruiter would not know if you have passed, I assume you mean your package was sent to the hiring committee?

If you did not receive an offer after your package passed hiring committee, one common reason I heard was there is no head count.

A not recent news: Google Settles Age Discrimination Lawsuit [0]

[0]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/07/23/google-set...

I was told by the recruiter that the hiring committee had passed me, and I subsequently had a conversation with a team manager that seemed fine. Then heard I was nixed at the final executive review--something like that.

Was contacted after the usual six months by a new recruiter wanting me to apply again. Asked what happened last time, which he seemed to know nothing about. He investigated, and came back with the corporate-speak I interpreted as "too old" (though phrased in a way that would probably avoid legal issues).

The "no head count" explanation doesn't make much sense to me. And in any case, given the effort required to go through the process, it'd be kind of a dick move to be interviewing candidates when there were no openings.

Their recruiters continue to contact me about every six months.

By "no head count" I meant was it could happen that the head count they are conducting interview for was lost by the time the package reached its final stage. Giving Google's extremely long hiring process, I imagine this happens more often to Google then to other tech companies.

I do wish companies are more transparent about their hiring decisions.

I could see that for a small company. For a company of Google's size and wealth, it simply doesn't make sense not to pick up a good candidate even if you don't need them right away.

In any case, it did drive home the point that Google would never see me as anything but marginal and expendable, and I realized that there were other places where I could really matter.

Do you have any recommendations for someone earlier in their career (<50 yo) to avoid or minimize ageism? Go into management? Be prepared to pick a new career?

Seriously, your best bet (and the advice I would give my 20-something year old self) is to SAVE AS MUCH MONEY AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. And then save more than that. Try to be financially independent by 50. If you can do that then you won't have to worry about ageism. You'll be able to be picky about the kinds of jobs you take.

From a practical standpoint that means don't buy status symbol products (cars, fancy phones, etc) - stick to practical (I drive a '98 Civic that cost me $2400 - great, reliable car). If you buy a house, buy a very practical one in a more affordable neighborhood. Learn to do your own maintenance. Keep your expenses as low as possible. If you don't have a Roth IRA start one today and begin fully funding it. If your work offers a Roth 401k option put some money in there too if you can.

And of course, always be learning new things.

I'm in a similar spot. As enticing as a Tesla Model 3 Performance edition might be, my '00 civic with 220k miles, no heater, and a head gasket problem still gets me to work every day, and I have all the cash I need to replace it the day it dies. My wife and I are in our early 30s and our mortgage payment is less than most of our friends pay to rent a single room because we worked and saved through college.

When I buy something nicer than I truly need for a hobby such as a Mountain Bike, I wait for a great price on a fixer-upper, perform the maintenance it needs, and enjoy it without getting attached, while at the same time putting it back up for sale at a higher price in case someone wants it more than I do. 9 times out of 10 the item will sell in a few months, and oddly enough I've met some incredibly interesting people who wanted properly restored items, such as a tie-dye founder whose been in business for over 50 years and an SVP at Cisco who's in charge of a product I had been using daily for years.

While I'm pretty frugal myself I do splurge on cars; currently own the Model 3. The reason being is that safety technology is always improving. So driving an '00 Civic with 220k will save you some cheddar it may cost you a severe injury or worse.

I'm not saying I don't want one (I rented a P100D on vacation and it was fantastic). Its just not the right decision for me to use as a commuter car despite how much my heart wants one, and I have to actively supress my desire to purchase one, but it does make me feel more fiscally responsible not to buy it. I also probably don't value safety as much as you. I have a twin turbo 300zx track car which I'll never sell and goes completely against everything I described above to be honest, so I'm a hypocrite regardless!

Moderation in everything :)

If you care about safety, don't overlook the effects of weight differential. Odysseys are quite safe, partly because they're pretty heavy.

The other advantage of 90s Hondas (and possibly also '00) is that they're so cheap to have fixed as opposed to how much you have to pay to get a newer car fixed. Parts are readily available and pretty darn cheap. I know a shade tree mechanic in the neighborhood and when I needed to get a new clutch master cylinder put in I ordered the parts off of Amazon for $20 and he did the job for $100. I probably could've done it myself, but for $100 it seemed like it would be better to have him do it as he does this kind of thing all the time.

Yep, I am one of those shade tree mechanics, the only way I can afford my financially irresponsible 300zx. Beware amazon parts however, my head gasket issue in the civic issue was caused by an "OEM" (pretty sure it was counterfeit in some way) water pump from amazon that failed in under a year.

I had a 37 year career at a company that used to be a well recognized brand. I was in the Research Laboratories in an Analytical Sciences division. During that time we had many layoffs as the company's financial position eroded. The key to success in that environment was to be a lifelong learner, a team player, and developing skills that permitted you to generate results that proved your worth.

During downsizings, as groups got smaller, managers were let go along with workers. Survivors needed learn to mourn the loss of your colleagues who were downsized, and then pick up the important work they left behind. To survive, one needed a positive attitude. Keeping one takes work under difficult circumstances. I always viewed the task as taking lemons and making lemonade.

None of us liked this. This strategy worked for me until they finally cut 70% of the Research Labs staff, including most of my clients and many of my fellow analysts. The best an employee can do is to work with your family to design a budget that lets you live below your means, build an emergency fund with at least six month's living expenses, and to save as much as you can each month in a retirement plan. None of these tasks are easy. Few people actually do this because it requires you to say "no" to many of your desires. Those who do find it easier to cope when the shoe finally drops on you...

Aside from ~UncleOxidant's really good reply -- to save as much as possible with a goal towards being financially independent by 50 -- there are a couple of other options which anecdotally seem to have worked well for a lot of people:

You can become an expert in a niche subject. The tricky part here is that it has to be a niche subject that pays well, with a lot of demand but not so much demand that newcomers are tempted to do the work to also become an expert in it. One example of this, that most on HN would like to pretend doesn't exist, is COBOL. COBOL programmers can command some pretty nice rates now, because nobody wants to work with COBOL but it still powers a lot of the world.

It's also a great time to start your own business. Maybe your kids are out of the house, hopefully you've become a seasoned industry veteran, you've seen other people make mistakes and you've gathered together a nice bit of savings and some excellent credit. Why not put those resources and that experience to use and start your own business? See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18212409

I'd echo what others are saying here: learn to live cheap, cultivate your professional network, learn to be a team player.

Amplifying: Don't have kids unless you really want them--they're very expensive. Don't get married unless you really want to--being (and then likely not being) married is very expensive. Avoid those and a drug habit, and you don't need a lot of money.

I didn't realize how important networking is when I was young. It really is "who you know and not what you know". And to the degree that it's the latter, it's how well you interview, not what you know that actually matters. It's rarely possible to evaluate someone's skills or how they'll do in a company until you've had them on-board for a year or two.

I was much more idealistic when I was young, and often stood on principal. That was a mistake. If management wants to drive their train over a cliff, offer to sell popcorn. Or write a crash analysis tool that will look good on your resume. But smile the whole time, and keep your resume polished. You're playing for your team, not your employer's.

Yea going into management is the best bet. Its a "controversial" topic on HN because large swathes of ppl here here believe #IC4Lyfe is a good career move. Its not.

I agree that IC for life is not a good career move, but it's not the wanna-be IC's fault.

It's the industry.

I work with this guy, he's about 60. I think he has a degree in Physics from Oxford, but he has a Texas accent. He's kind of a nomad type of guy, bounces from job to job. Got hired into the AWS "Cloud Team" shop on a project I work on. Doesn't have any AWS certifications. As far as I know, barely touched AWS and never touched Python, CloudFormation, or Jenkins before this job (but he knows just about every *ix flavor there is). Basically a lifelong Linux Sysadmin. I have no idea how he got the job.

Within a month he was writing his own CloudFormation, Lambdas, and Jenkinsfiles. He almost immediately intuited the whole "Zip up the Python and all its dependencies, throw on S3, use CFT to deploy the Lambda using that Zip file" method of deploying lambdas. Note this is with multiple accounts so you need to get the whole IAM delegation between accounts stuff. He's a natural.

I'm in awe of this guy.

I truly believe that HN is full of people than can be like this. The problem is that most hiring managers do not.

I think it's important to let people know that there are fewer managers than workers. (At least, if a company is doing things correctly there are fewer management positions.) This means that not everyone will be able to make this transition even if you have the appropriate skills and disposition. Furthermore, if you look around a lot of tech companies, you'll notice that most of the managerial staff is <45 as well. So keep that in mind.

Basically, don't bank everything on going into management. Be financially responsible. Live beneath your means. Explore other pass times and activities that you may have an interest in pursuing in the future. The worst thing you can do is arrive at 40 or 45 with a Plan A that may not work out and no Plan B or C.

Until companies have 3 managers and 2 normal employees.

I'm mid 50s, I keep learning. If you are a programmer who can't find work, well first let me say that would be horrible. It's unacceptable, it should never happen, yet reports keep happening. I haven't seen it in my career, I'm sure I'm fortunate in many ways.

I'm guessing that for people this happens to, it's a combination of being in a place with not many tech jobs and also not keeping up with technology. Can you do cloud tech (aws, google cloud, azure?), c++, java, js, protobuffers? None of these technologies were invented when I got my BS in CS many many years ago and I've been learning continuously. Sure there were similar things or building blocks toward this kind of stuff. My last job search was a couple of years ago, I had 3 offers and stopped interviewing and I'm not unusual in my experience (going back to the above comment about negative employment in software engineering). I'm in the Seattle area. At the company I joined a few months ago half our small team of engineers are 45+. We just hired someone past 60 as a dev.

If you find yourself in this situation, all these technologies are available to try for free on the internet, you can teach yourself. Companies that won't hire older people are just stupid, on top of being illegal.

Build and cultivate your professional network. The more senior you are (in position and age), the more you're hired via connections rather than resume.

Government and DoD contractors usually run older than commercial companies- you won't get close to SV level compensation, but it can be a good way to move to a lower cost-of-living area.

Assuming you're in software -- study machine learning! It's going to be hot for a long time.

Exactly. Mid-50-something here. Currently looking for work in this "negative unemployment" environment. It's going to take a while, I think, just like it did last time I was out of work 3 years ago (took 9 months to find another gig then, though I have to admit I can afford to by picky).

> Technologists live in a world of negative unemployment

I would amend that to say:

"Many technologists live in a world of frequently negative unemployment"

That won't last forever. I know Mozilla and Digital Ocean just had layoffs.

... and there are many many HR departments going on a hunt for these people that got laid off

Is any tech worker seriously that desirable still that they are being hounded immediately after getting fired? I entered college in 2004 and transferred out of software engineering, feeling that developer/engineer jobs would quickly become the auto mechanic of the 21st century and wages at the grunt level would fall in line. I also didn't feel fulfilled with sitting at a computer all day. Fast forward to now, and while I work as a Civil Engineer I still find myself sitting at a computer all day regardless. While the pay is completely reasonable, I probably would be just as happy with my day-to-day working on software, while making more money from how things are looking.

I grew up on IRC and building SMALL scripts starting in 5th or 6th grade for software of the day such as Palace, customizing small bits of code to rename items in the dreamcast version of Phantasy Star Online, etc. When I took the 1st year of software engineering classes at Cal Poly Software Engineering could code perfectly serviceable and had As/Bs.

What would be the best way for me to dip my toe back in and see the type of work I'd be doing working in tech in 2020? Is there a way to bring my skills up to the current day through free or paid remote coursework, and are there ways to get small freelance work I could use to build my resume? Are there any good blogs following someone who has taken a similar path?

Yes- layoffs typically happen for bigger reasons than just performance. It is a bit of a red flag, I mean clearly you were not the most critical person the company could not do without, but its happened to me and it has not been an issue. In a struggling company, layoffs can happen for many reasons including- being too junior, being too senior (costing too much), working on a feature/product that is getting killed- its a lot easier to just cut everyone on that project then to start cherry picking them and moving them, disagreeing with the strategy, and sometimes there is just a mandate to cut 20% and your team could all be great people and its just a tough decision to make...

Dipping back in? Just code. Take some free classes on webdev, contribute to open source, build a portfolio of projects you can show off, you will get your foot in the door somewhere that might be a little crappy, but after a year or two it should be much easier for you to at least get a shot at a FAANG or a much better company.

Great! I have a number of friends I still talk with once in a blue moon at FAANG, though socially rather than about work. I'll start talking to them to see what direction they see their companies/divisions moving and what skills they could use.

And completely agreed about so many reasons to be laid off. My wife was forced out of a position at a very successful company not because of experience but because one single SVP was threatened by her. So many colleages were stunned to hear she left, but she ended up somewhere much more appreciative of her skills and experience.

I'm not claiming any personal credit for this per se. While I've made some good decisions, the vast majority of my good professional position over the past few decades has been luck.

> Is any tech worker seriously that desirable still that they are being hounded immediately after getting fired?

In the 25+ years people have been paying me to do what I do, I've been able to find a new position quite rapidly, once I decided to move on.

In fact, it's gotten easier over time. The last time I switched jobs, away from a startup that in my judgement didn't have good prospects, in six weeks, I had five competing offers, two from 'FAANG' companies.

I'm not some kind of 'rock star': far from it. I usually work more slowly than most of my peers.

Having said all that, I know that nothing last forever, and the blind fortune that brought me a specific set of skills and personality traits will move on.

> Is any tech worker seriously that desirable still that they are being hounded immediately after getting fired?

I get hounded constantly now, and I don't even do anything that interesting. Having a LinkedIn account and accepting connection requests from recruiters is a good first step.

Can you explain your insight on why you thought programming would be an unattractive field to work in in 2004, where wages would become much less, like they are for auto mechanics? Since the 1980s at least software has been probably the leading factor in increasing business performance, efficiency, and automation. I guess in 2000 there was the dot com implosion but after that there were always lots more demand than there were devs, there's really been a shortage of devs my professional life over 25 years except maybe 2001 and 2008. I used to worry that there would be an infinite series of much cheaper software engineers worldwide, taking my job for less page. I think there is enough work for all the tech workers in the world, plus many things are easier with local engineers, like product discussions and evaluation of quality. But there are great engineers all over the world, of course. Maybe we've had better university training in the us but I don't see that anymore, the people I work with from india and china are first rate.

Just write some code, some toy problems, find something that is fun and go from there. And yes, software engineers face constant recruitment, daily recruiter spam on linked in. It's been a crazy hiring environment for 10 years, even worse. Everyone you try to hire has a job already (that's where the negative comes in), college students often get jobs offers their junior year.

I wanted to be a software engineer throughout junior high and high school until I saw the dot com bubble burst. My naive 18 year old brain thought even if things look good for a few years, its just going to happen again. The year I graduated in 2008 again was a terrible time to enter the workforce, so I entered a field that needs to exist in some capacity irrespective of economy (municipal engineering). I haven't looked back much before now, but as my job went from a balance of field and office to primarily office, and I enjoy the mental exercise of coding more than I enjoy what office civil has become.

That makes sense. It's never too late! Getting back into it and then getting that first job will be the challenges. After that you'll have a programming resume and it will make it easier and easier.

> while I work as a Civil Engineer

Not answering your question, but just sharing some anecdote. A good friend of mine is a (unhappy) Civil Engineer and became passionate about programming. It's a hobby that he discovered later in his life. I can tell he's actually quite good (even though he lacks some fundamentals but he could learn fast). Unfortunately, I don't think he would be given a chance in company (here in France). My feeling is that the system is rather rigid, and there are some expectations for a junior developer job (a degree in the field, being less than 30). An option he could take and I think would work, is to take a one year CS program designed for people with different background. Some universities offer this type of program and it seems to work. Actually, I used to teach in such a program and the students were a joy to work with.

Thanks! Yeah its just an idea I'd like to look into at this point. As I said in my post I grew up natively thinking like a programmer surrounded by a bunch of hackers in university on IRC when I was still in grade school, but I never did any structured programming learning and when I got to college it just didn't feel like a realistic path to a career-long job, as to me coding was familiar enough that it felt anyone could (and would) learn it in the future, and there were only so many jobs to go around. Facebook was built with a handful of people, who would have thought in their wildest dreams a social media website would need more than 40,000 employees? I have no idea how many of them are engineers, but probably way more than I would have expected.

Take a software class at a community college. I had my eye on recruiting interns and new devs at the local community college and I went to the career fare and they said the entire graduating group had already been hired, mostly by microsoft. It's a crazy world with so much demand.

Are you suggesting a local community college only (Santa Rosa Junior College for me) or do remote courses work too? What class specifically should I be taking?

The first year curriculum at Cal Poly was Java at the time, and while cumbersome I did well enough, so I don't exactly need an intro to computer science course. I'd like to jump in to something for people with about a year's experience working with whatever languages are in demand right now. I know I need to learn to learn programming again and I'd be learning all my career if I make the switch down the road, but I'd still like to do it with a language that could get me some freelance work to start building a resume with.

I think remote isn't nearly as good as local. Locally you can get connected to companies that are sniffing around the college. Do they have a cs curriculum, I'd go through it step by step. You've probably not had much past "just programming". There's theory of computation, algorithm analysis - being able to do O(n) type calculations on algorithms (to compare choices) it a key interview ability, and it's useful in your job but crucial for 'real' software interviews.

In software engineering, there's using the tools (git, make, c++, dev environment - these days microsoft visual studio code is a free and commonly used dev tools that work s on linux and windows) and coding. But you will eventually need to get past it. Don't approach this as "oh my god, this will take years". Instead start with some programming classes, java or c++ or js or python, and look toward getting to those other classes eventually (theory of computation and algorithm analysis).

Good luck, you can do it.

I feel like in the dot-com crash it was technologists who got hit the worst. Most other industries were unscathed, or very little scathed for a short time. But in tech it was like winter for about 3 years.

Yeah it was brutal I managed to scrape by doing short term contracts but it was some deep poverty and on top of it my options in Yahoo were upside down so I had not only poverty but a relentless IRS pursuing me for whatever they could for 10 years after dot bomb.