Ask HN: How do you market yourself at your mid-30's? - stephen82
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stephen82
Hello folks,

I have a weird situation and if you don't mind, I would like to ask for your
advice.

I'm having hard time getting hired, both onsite and remotely.

To be honest with you, I really suck at marketing myself.

I'm a Computer Scientist and I had worked in IT for 11 years and currently I'm
unemployed for 3.

So far I have been in Tech Support my whole career life with an exception of 2
years as Web Developer.

Every time I would attempt to start as a developer, I would get either
rejected or labeled as overqualified.

One possible interpretation could be my age; I'm 36 years old.

What confuses me the most is that when I interview for an opened position,
they would let know that I'm a senior developer on a personal level.

To answer your possible question as of why they would reply in this way, let
me tell you what (I think) I know and what I like doing during my free time:

Others enjoy solving crossword puzzles and sudoku, playing MMORPG games, and
go out for a beer; I love playing with programming languages, libraries, and
frameworks.

What languages do I like fooling around?

    
    
      * shell scripting - automations, automations, automations!
      * C - One day I will acquire Fabrice Bellard's 1 millionth of expertise and start doing incredible things like him. I'm looking at you Tiny C Compiler!
      * C++ - I can't wait to see modules in actual use with C++ in combination with Concepts. It's a hard language to fully understand, but it worths the effort.
      * PHP - For WordPress, its fork [ClassicPress], and Laravel. I did not like Laravel for some reason; it's alright though, but I prefer Django and Flask.
      * Python - Cython language, Django, Flask, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, web scraping...so many things to list here that I find interesting!
      * Perl - don't ask me why, but I LOVE this language's syntax. I don't use it that much though, but one day I will build a project to keep my head spinning.
      * Nim - If you like Python's elegance, LISP's macros, and C's performance...well, there you have it!
      * Lua - I haven't played a lot with this language, but it's so easy to use. I keep my eyes on Titan and Pallene programming languages which are AOT compiled sister languages to Lua.
      * Ocaml - I want to learn a functional programming language to keep my head active. I plan to play with Haskell too for the sake of mental "physique".
    

There are so many things to list here that I'm really interested in.

What I lack is specialization and I'm doing my best to remedy this.

I can't stay unemployed forever and be forced to depend on my family at this
age.

Can anyone help me figure out ways to stand on my feet?

Cheers.

~~~
rjplatte
Go BS your way into a Wordpress job, and find side gigs. Alternatively, rely
on your family for a bit longer, and build a product. You have the knowledge
necessary, so get in gear, do what you have to, and kick some ass.

~~~
breakpointalpha
He should honestly start a job board just for 35+ year olds looking for tech
work...

