If so that sounds amazing!

If I may prod a bit, why not take a salary in your situation? Why work for free, especially when it's highly valued not only by others, but to you as well, since you know what you're giving, and work hard to maintain a high level of quality?

I do work for nonprofits. These are folks that can't afford even crappy devs.

TBH, I get kind of a "screw you" kick from doing this. I was willing to work for quite a bit lower wages than even kids right out of school (if the work interested me), as I had my retirement set, and I would have settled for having the bills paid. I would have been absolutely ideal for startups.

But every company that I applied to, was more interested in insulting me, and ignoring my portfolio, than in taking me seriously.

Much respect. It's def inspiring and a very different way to just view the world, and to do work that matters to you.

Warms my heart! haha. Old people rock!

Not all of us. I do understand some of the animosity, but it is very self-destructive; especially when I see some of these Jurassic-scale crash-and-burn disasters that were entirely avoidable, if only one single person in authority had been out of school for more than ten years.

I also have participated in a Service organization (nonprofit) for most of my life, and a lot of the work that I do is based around the community it Serves.

But I was just talking to a friend of mine, whose father suffered a stroke, and we'll probably work on an iOS app that will be designed to help with some of his rehab.

I like to help people that help people.

Just to level the playing field, I've participated in orgs with "younger" leadership and have been burned, and also made my errors from my own arrogance/ lack of experience. The "good" that came out of that was perhaps a deeper appreciation for older folks (again I mistook one of your previous comments as that you were volunteering to help older folks – my mistake).

My own dad also still works, despite being way over retirement age, and he helps those older than him as well. I got nothing but respect for those who wanna serve those that society often overlooks out of callousness and overall lack of heart, so to speak.

Either way, really appreciate you sharing your insights/ experiences.

I have a pretty heavy-duty résumé. I've been shipping (not just "writing") software for over thirty-five years, and have a fairly big portfolio (that really only covers the last ten years of my work, and just the open-source portion of it). I've written APIs that have lasted 25 years. I do good work, and can prove it.

They would contact me, breathless and excited by my CV, then ghost me, as soon as they figured out that I was over 40.

I guess that math isn't a big requirement to be a recruiter. The industry must be awash in 30-year-olds with 35 years of experience.

These days, I just make it clear that I'm older, and they stopped bothering me.

They may be brilliant, driven, creative, hardworking people, but they Just. Don't. Have. Scars.

They never really had the chance to run face-first into reality, while still in a position where the stakes are low, and there's more experienced folks around, to help them get back on their feet.

Their first mistakes are disasters, because they have it all on the line.

In the past, the older folks had the money and power, but were often locked up by caution, and lack of creativity.

The younger folks had the energy and creativity, but not the sense of mortality. They needed the money and power from the older folks, and the older folks needed that creativity, and, for lack of a better word, recklessness, that could drive their investments forward, so they had to work together.

These days, it's pure recklessness. The first forays into shipping are "bet the company," so failure is an E.L.E.