Programmers are 40 years old, should they retire I am a senior programmer who has just celebrated my 40th birthday, but I have lost my job. I have interviewed several companies this year but have not received an offer. Does no one hire programmers over the age of 40? 40 year old programmers have to retire? |
People over age 40 have a secret superpower. It's called "attention span"
Find out what industries and dev stacks are prevalent in your area. Work the meet-ups: show up, knock back a few beers, ask questions, find out who's doing what. Consider getting up to speed on an alternate dev stack, if need be.
Another secret: 80% of hires are done end-run around HR. If they want you, they'll pull you through whatever process HR throws at them.
Anecdotally, I haven't seen a lot of 40+ engineers in Silicon Valley, but here in San Diego I've never met a Qualcomm engineer under 40. Maybe geography has something to do with it.
40-year old VBA developer? That's a tough one.
40-year old C++ developer who loves learning? Don't give up hope and maybe look at Rust.
The future for 40-year old developers is to recognise that job certainty has gone, but opportunity is still there as long as you work hard.
I genuinely think a lot of companies are going to realise in the next 18 months that ai generated code wasn't the silver bullet they thought.
Find your unique selling points and try to get them across (as well as making sure you cover the other areas that all programmers will have in common). Also make sure to tailor your responses to the companies/posts your applying to/for.
Many of us face changes in our 40s and we think that 'My life is over at 40. How ever will I start again?'.
Quite often those changes are for the best. You may meet the love of your life when you finally part from your first wife. You may find the best programming company in the world when you finally leave that first dead-end job.
It all depends on your point of view: run away or look ahead?
By the way I'm just 2 years off 80. I still enjoy programming. But now I program for myself, not a boss.
This is the best state, I hope to earn enough money before the age of 55 and have the same state as you
Like geographically?
What's your the range of TC you're willing to accept?
Stop putting stock into the idea that specific ages mean anything. It's a direct result of capitalist manipulation trying to subconsciously trick you into buying things.