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A comment on Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become a software engineer?.

Re:Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become ... by techhackblob on Thursday April 10, 2014 @10:31AM (#7566377)
Where is he located? If it's the USA, especially Silicon Valley, then it's too late as he's too old. From what I read and comments from likes of Mark Zuckerberg the illegal practice of age discrimination is rampant. If he's willing to learn .NET and move to Ireland then all is well as once he gets good experience older developers with technical ability are in big demand. As a 43 yr old .NET programmer said to me the other day (as we watched Ireland beat France in the Rugby) "We are the most employable people in this pub and I've never been in more demand in my life".
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Re:Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become ... by lpsz on Thursday April 10, 2014 @10:35AM (#7566419)
I don't have the power to downvote, but I sure hope you're joking. To the OP, no, your friend is not too old. I would ask him to focus on learning the fundamentals (e.g. how to use a hash table, sorting, and so on.), and also write a couple of projects and put them on GitHub to gain hands-on experience.
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Re:Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become ... by techhackblob on Thursday April 10, 2014 @10:53AM (#7566632)
don't shoot the messenger. The US media over the last few months has been full of this kind of stuff

http://www.businessinsider.com/software-developers-fear-age-...

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Re:Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become ... by potatolicious on Thursday April 10, 2014 @11:12AM (#7566831)
Ageism in the Valley is real, but you're vastly overstating the case. A person in their late 20s is, by a very wide margin, not considered too old - in the Valley or beyond.
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Re:Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become ... by joshvm on Thursday April 10, 2014 @11:25AM (#7566938)
Given that several start-ups have come out of PhD projects, in the US at least that puts you into late twenties territory. In the UK most PhDs are ~25 if they started as early as possible.
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Re:Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become ... by ufmace on Thursday April 10, 2014 @11:58AM (#7567287)
I'm not buying it - I transitioned to full-time developer older than he is. Maybe he won't get a job at the hippest companies in Silicon Valley, but by my experience (currently doing .NET in Houston) there is a tremendous demand for programming skill in all of the un-sexy industries out there. I get like 3-4 Linkedin inquiries for positions here every time I update my profile, and I'm set as not looking. If you can get stuff done, and articulate your ability to get stuff done, then you'll be able to find jobs easily.
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Re:Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become ... by busterarm on Thursday April 10, 2014 @10:35AM (#7566416)
How much demand is there for programmers with less experience from abroad? I could suck it up and learn .NET because moving to Ireland would be great.
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Re:Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become ... by techhackblob on Thursday April 10, 2014 @10:49AM (#7566580)
300+ .NET jobs today on irishjobs.ie http://www.irishjobs.ie/ShowResults.aspx?Keywords=.Net+Devel...
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Re:Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become ... by techhackblob on Thursday April 10, 2014 @10:57AM (#7566666)
My pal has great tech experience and domain knowledge (major global gambling firm based in Dublin) built up over the years. He's contracting and on 800 euro a day at least - naturally I didn't ask him exactly what he's earning.
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Re:Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become ... by artmageddon on Thursday April 10, 2014 @03:53PM (#7569245)
Thanks for posting the link - I live in the US but have been sort of considering a move abroad. This makes it seem more favorable :)
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Re:Ask HN: any advice for someone changing career to become ... by busterarm on Thursday April 10, 2014 @10:51AM (#7566602)
You rock. Thanks!
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