
Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs? - anonOver60
I&#x27;m curious - what are engineering managers seeing on my resume that makes them apparently routinely reject my resume?  My summary: 35 years in Silicon Valley; 3 STEM undergrad degrees, MS in AI from Stanford, PhD in AI from a top-10 program; ICPC champion; always considered to be an elite programmer; very current knowledge; constant employment; wide variety of skills; management experience with small teams; very stable life; no vices; very healthy and energetic; I get along with everyone and like working in teams.<p>I&#x27;ve been applying for everything from senior engineer to VP of engineering. Ever since I turned 60 last year, I&#x27;m getting no hits on my resume.  And yes, I still code (the first and most common question I get) and I still love it.  If you were hiring, can you tell me why you might not even do a phone interview?  I need to know what (mis)perceptions I apparently need to overcome.<p>Thanks!
======
joewee
Speaking from experience you need two resumes (I’m much younger, but with a
long career). One that’s management focused and one that’s developer focused.
Use the appropriate resume for the role you are applying for. Even though I’m
a hands on engineer people didn’t want to consider me for roles because I had
management experience and they thought the engineering role would be too
boring, and vice versa. Reduce your resume to your experience from the last 10
years. They don’t need to see your first job. Don’t put dates next to your
degrees. Don’t say “35 years of experience.” You have to accept that there is
age discrimination but there is also manager discrimination and developer
discrimination and all sorts of biases, you need to use that to your advantage
by crafting resumes with different narratives, highlighting different
strengths, dependent on the role.

~~~
poulsbohemian
So if you've been in and out of management and technical roles (like myself),
how do you make those gaps between two resumes not look like gaps? Or, do you
simply address it in interviews when asked?

~~~
RangerScience
He said not to put dates on degrees, but could you also not put dates on jobs,
just durations?

~~~
joewee
You need dates on jobs because they want to identify gaps in employment. The
only exception would be if you are a contractor and all of the engagements
were under your company. You would list the start and end of your consulting
practice in that case.

~~~
gargarplex
I've screened thousands of resumes and I've never searched for gaps in
employment. Some companies may do this but I haven't witnessed it. The things
I search for all things obviously within a person's control: consistent
formatting, sane file format & filename, and flawless grammar.

~~~
datavirtue
I want to see if someone had five jobs over the last five years. Clear sign of
a shit developer.

~~~
thatcat
It's not really a clear sign of anything. Many other things could cause that,
such as a desire to learn new things often or changing jobs to increase pay
after gaining experience. Technical work can be interesting and exciting at
first, but become tiresome after a year of repeating the same shit.

~~~
UncleMeat
And that's likely not somebody that I want to hire. Hiring and oboarding is
incredibly expensive. If you are going to get bored in a year and move on I'd
much rather hire somebody else.

------
mchannon
One theory: The Bay Area has become seriously ageist.

Many people have a hard time accepting working for someone a generation
younger than them, and especially hiring a subordinate a generation older than
them. The people reviewing your resume and interviewing you won't say it
(they're not allowed to by law) but they'll definitely be thinking it, and it
ends up being a huge waste of your time.

I genuinely think it's a locale thing. I've found work outside the area to be
as high-paying and fulfilling, but without the casting couch feel to the
interviewing process. In particular, look to large, legacy established
companies trying to stay relevant. Many of them recognize the value of
experience and pay accordingly.

~~~
klaw123
There are companies that take this the other way. Companies where everyone is
over 40 and has kids. And stability of the prod systems is highly prized.
Nobody wants hackathons , we all leave at 5:30pm each day. These companies
exist in Bay Area.

~~~
joewee
Care to list a few for those who might be looking for something like that?

~~~
heddingcal
I work at SAP. I'd say we're pretty neutral on age - I work with people 20
years younger to 2 years older than me.

I think I've put in maybe two 40+ hour weeks in the past 5 years. I manage
several devs and I hate dashing the younger (or ambitious) ones' dreams of
resume driven development. My team handles a legacy system that neither
crashes frequently nor needs extensive refactoring. "Sorry, cutting up and
containerizing the system and using Kubernetes to deploy isn't worth the
headache."

I know I'll keep getting promoted (and so will my reports) if I make sure my
manager doesn't get calls from his manager asking why there are service
outages.

Things move very slowly on purpose. It's better to miss delivery dates than to
get bad press or run afoul of laws (which begets bad press).

~~~
arandr0x
What do you recommend to the younger or ambitious devs who want to grow in
their career -- do you send them to training or let them have a side project
of some kind so that they still have a somewhat valuable resume, or is it more
a question of trying not to get junior devs (who need the resume building
badly) in the first place?

I'm curious because I work at a big company but not in a maintenance or
operational role so I'm not sure what an "ideal" resume or career track looks
like for such people.

------
docker_up
Anything more than 10 years old on your resume is worthless. Yes, you may have
3 STEM undergrad degrees, but no one cares because it's not relevant anymore.

What modern technologies have you recently worked with? What does your resume
show, 20 years at the same company, or do you have experience at well-known,
"prestigous" companies like FANG? Are you pigeon-holed into a specific area,
or are you a generic, back-end or front-end expert that has worked in relevant
and useful technologies for 2018?

Also, with 35 years of experience in Silicon Valley, don't you have a network
of former coworkers that you can contact for references or jobs?

I'm 50 years old, and I've had no problems getting jobs and recruiters from
FANG won't stop contacting me even now. Sure, things might change over the
next few years, but I also have a rolodex (old man's terminology) of former
coworkers that I routinely have lunch with still and can ask for jobs, etc.
I'm sure things will change, but I'm also doing my best to ensure that I can
retire in the next 10 years as well.

~~~
newtothebay
As a young professional who's realized the importance of maintaining a
network, I'd love to learn how you stay in touch with your former co-workers.

Do you reach out for weekend lunch dates just to chat? Are people open to that
(given work, hobbies, kids, etc.)? I'm having a hard time coming with
"excuses" and serendipity to stay in touch with people I'm no longer working
with.

~~~
vanadium
I have a personal Slack instance of all the people I've worked with and/or
managed--and have earned my trust--over the past 7-8 years. We're close-knit
and look out for one another in the Chicago market. We've landed each other
new gigs, swarmed to help when someone's in need, etc.

That and we're always bouncing news, advice, and helping one another in said
Slack instance. Safety in numbers.

~~~
pattle
I wish I had this

------
Townley
I wonder if this is less a problem with your skills not keeping up with the
industry, and more with your job search practices not keeping up.

I recently helped a friend through a job search, and was shocked by how much
the process has changed in the past 3-4 years. Recruiters are inundated with
thousands of resumes. So traditional job application practices ("Write a cover
letter and email in the resume") or semi-recent practices ("Cast a wide net on
Monster, Indeed, LinkedIn...) perhaps no longer have the rate of return that
you're expecting.

I read through the book, "What Color is your Parachute: 2018 Edition" to
better help my friend, and the book offers full sections on how to do better
than just "putting your resume out there." Working personal connections,
announcing employment intentions during coding meetups, writing specific
emails to companies you respect (independent from whether they're currently
hiring for your position) or getting even more creative with getting your info
out there... all of the above are practices that might not have been necessary
during your last search (they certainly weren't during mine).

Maybe I'm underestimating the massive extent of blatant ageism in the software
industry, but I'm quite surprised that someone with your skill set can't yell
from a crowded street corner and have six recruiters materialize. That leads
me to think it's not a matter of what you're offering, but rather how you're
selling.

~~~
pydeveloper22
Hello,

I read this post of yours on job searching of those over 60 and found it quite
interesting and helpful when it comes to finding creative ways to establish
connections to possibly stand out in a job search.

Now I'm nowhere near 60 and around half that age but trying to take a cue from
your post I see that you work for Atlantic Media. Don't know if that still
holds up but I saw job their job board recently that there's an opening
available at Atlantic Media for a Backend Python Web developer.

I'm a guy who enjoy using and working with Python as far as learning purposes
go. And after quickly reading your post here I figured to reach out and try a
somewhat different approach than the old cover letter and resume email method
and contact you if you may have any info to this current opening at your
company?

So with that said, here I am..and I wanted to inquire to find out if this
opening is still available? If so, do you have a contact to learn more about
this position and the things you require in regards to the nature of the job?
My apologies in advance that this may not be the response to your post that
you were looking for but I figured why not take some ideas from your post and
apply it..hehe..

Any help in this matter will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

\--K

~~~
pydeveloper22
Also, townley please feel free to contact me at pydeveloper22@gmail.com

Thanks

------
echelon
I'm in Atlanta, and I work for a SF-based tech company. Most of my coworkers
are in their 40's and 50's, and a few are 60. In Atlanta nobody cares about
age or background. We also have way more diversity by almost every measure -
when I fly out to SF, people look and act the same way.

I don't bat an eye when I interview someone older than me. I expect that I'll
probably learn a thing or two.

Message me. If you've got that kind of experience, I can get you an interview.

~~~
sathomasga
In Atlanta as well and, at 56-years-old, happily working remotely for a SF-
based company. Somehow I feel that remote work places less emphasis on age.
(Also, working remotely effectively is possibly something that takes
experience, as, e.g. there are less opportunities to get mentored, etc.)
Perhaps OP can focus more on remote work.

------
honkycat
I feel like Google / Amazon / IBM / any of the larger companies would love to
have you on board. Maybe look bigger instead of going for start-ups which are
often run by children.

Anymore people like hiring young inexperienced devs they can abuse and pay
poorly. And then they wonder why we have to take months and months to pay off
technical debt...

Hiring managers and inexperienced management think anybody can learn to code
so they just hire who they think is cool. It's a bad trend. So tired of
working with people who are fresh out of code bootcamp and are basically
useless.

I've posted about this before so I'll repeat myself:

> More than anything have learned that education and training are hugely
> important and hiring to train leads to mediocre staff who think their two
> years of development work stack up to your 4 years of college and 6 years of
> professional experience.

> They take forever to start writing productive code, if they ever bother
> leaning at all.

> I will never hire someone without a degree or equivalent experience again.
> Even for Jr. roles

~~~
anonOver60
I've applied to Apple several times over the last 10 years for jobs requiring
some very specific and rare skills that I have. They have never responded.

I've gone through the interview process at Google twice and was "close but
rejected".

~~~
solipsism
Twice is nothing. Seriously.

~~~
honkycat
This was my understanding as well

------
gambler
_> If you were hiring, can you tell me why you might not even do a phone
interview?_

Ph.D. in AI will probably scare off anyone who has a typical business app
development or integration job. It's just hard to imagine someone with this
level of education grinding out bugs in garbage legacy code, or calling
vendors to ask why their SOAP web service doesn't work according to
documentation.

Now, whether you would even care for such a job is another question. Some of
them are quite challenging and require excellent system thinking skills, but
there is zero glory in delivering the final product.

I'm not familiar with the specific of Bay Area job market, though.

~~~
randcraw
Another challenge might be how much AI has changed in the past 35 years. In
1983, AI meant expert systems, small neural nets, phrase-structured NLP,
symbolic reasoning, and a lot of custom models that embedded knowledge into
heuristic-driven unstructured functions, like Minsky's Society of Mind.

The challenge now may be how to present your skills in ways that convinces
others that they're up-to-date or relevant. I can definitely see why many
employers might be wary of a PhD with a 35 year old history working in R&D who
might have drifted away from the cutting edge (i.e. published research).

Obviously if you can emphasize relevant domain expertise (a major advantage of
being experienced), you may be able to turn your liability into an asset. I
know military and intel contractors value domain experience much more than do
startups. Sell yourself as a principal scientist with "the right stuff". Large
corporations buy into that.

------
grmarcil
With 35 years experience, I expect that you have a pretty wide professional
network - consider whether you're using those connections to get warm
introductions and pointed to good-fit jobs to the greatest degree possible.

My apologies if this is stating the obvious, but if your applications are
starting with just a resume, you're already at a disadvantage at any age. And
I suppose that effect only increases with years of experience and seniority of
positions applied to.

~~~
88e282102ae2e5b
Also, consider this from the manager's perspective. They have to ask
themselves: if this person has 35 years of experience, they must have a
substantial network, so why _aren 't_ they just tapping that resource? Not a
single person from this applicant's past wants to give them an interview?

~~~
lj3
Do you know many developers who hang out with management? Most of the
engineers I've worked with over my career have not transitioned into
management and have no sway as far as the interview process goes.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
A company where "I worked with this person in the past and they were good"
coming from a run-of-the-mill employee isn't enough to get someone an
_interview_ is a company with stupid recruiting practices.

Finding good candidates is expensive and time-consuming. If someone is serving
up qualified leads to you on a silver platter, you take them.

Referrals from existing employees are the single highest quality source of
candidates for most companies. Many companies even incentivize employees to
refer candidates by giving them bonuses if they refer someone who ends up
being hired.

------
ajaalto
Use this as your application, don't write anything else:

My summary: 35 years in Silicon Valley; 3 STEM undergrad degrees, MS in AI
from Stanford, PhD in AI from a top-10 program; ICPC champion; always
considered to be an elite programmer; very current knowledge; constant
employment; wide variety of skills; management experience with small teams;
very stable life; no vices; very healthy and energetic; I get along with
everyone and like working in teams.

~~~
seattle_spring
So a few impressive but outdated credentials alongside a dozen completely
subjective opinions.

------
duxup
Heck I'm only over 40.

I did a handful of interviews at places where folks who I went to school with
also interviewed.

I got a lot of "culture" questions. My younger classmates, did not hear the
world "culture" in their interviews, ever.

It's hard not to be pessimistic and assume "culture" was about age...

~~~
nnash
Try being a minority, and consistently get rejected because you aren't a good
"culture fit" on an all white team.

edit: I didn't mean to sound like I was trivializing your experience. The
"culture fit" is really nasty and sucks for everyone who isn't "the norm".

~~~
tootahe45
My experience in tech is that companies will go above and beyond to hire
minorities including women, big companies will sometimes lower requirements to
get more of these candidates in. You have to be wary though particularly with
startups who talk a lot about culture, usually it translates to 'you should be
working on our product in your spare time'.

~~~
nnash
I don't know if I can say I've ever seen affirmative action work in my favor.

------
dep_b
Well US companies don't ask for details that could give away your age. I mean
removing the date of your graduation and only including the last 10
("relevant") years of your experience is not a crime in any sense. I don't
feel my age is as much a problem as raising my rates. That definitely makes
things a bit more challenging.

I have two experiences in the last year that were a bit strange. One was a guy
that kind of already hired me and casually asked my age to never reply again
after I disclosed it. OK. The other one was a company that had two early
twenties co-founders I worked for remotely for more than half a year and were
genuinely surprised about my age when I stepped in their offices for the first
time. Still working for them though.

In Europe a lot of companies (I think it happened with a German and a Swiss
company) straight ask for your age, which somewhat shocked me when seeing it
for the first time after mostly dealing with US companies.

On the other hand some US companies asked me if my "race"* is "Latino"
whatever the hell that means. Sometimes I feel like it I guess? Depends on the
music? Me and most of the other people I see in my country look pretty
caucasian to me though. Must even be more confusing to black people from
Latin-American countries. Do I get a double race bonus or should I pick the
one that gives me most benefits? If so which one?

* they asked it in a very PC way and made it an optional field

~~~
yellowapple
"Must even be more confusing to black people from Latin-American countries. Do
I get a double race bonus or should I pick the one that gives me most
benefits? If so which one?"

Most US-based forms along these lines ask the Latino question separately from
the general race question. "Latino" not fitting cleanly into any particular
racial group is specifically why it's a separate question.

So if you're simultaneously black and of Latin-American origin, you'd answer
both questions accordingly ("black" for race, and "yes" for whether or not you
identify as having a Latin-American ethnic background).

~~~
dep_b
Nope, black and latino were in the same group.

------
fecak
I'm a professional resume writer and job search strategy consultant (20 years
of tech recruiting experience), and I'd be open to taking a look to see what
the issue might be (see my profile for contact info). It might not even be the
resume, but instead your approach to how you're applying. If you're just
sending resumes through Indeed and hoping for responses, you're doing it
wrong.

The age thing may be an issue of course. If it's abundantly obvious from your
resume that you are 60 or older, a reader may make assumptions about you that
aren't true. Once a client reaches 40 I typically start to at least address
the possibility of ageism and options to mitigate the risk if they are
interested.

There are even some simple things such as resume formatting that could be at
play. For examples, resumes with tables and images can be more difficult for
ATS systems to parse.

Dozens of possibilities. I'm happy to take a look if you'd like.

~~~
TomVDB
I assume that you've worked with 60 yo customers in the past.

What's your experience with placing them?

~~~
fecak
I’ve had a few, but I don’t always hear how they did after we work together so
I couldn’t provide a metric.

------
infecto
Serious question. Is ageism a huge deal? I am not arguing it does not exist
but I think about what I have seen in the interviews I have done. We all have
biases and I will never be completely unbiased but I try to at least be aware.
I sometimes feel that ageism is actually the filter. I notice people I have
worked with they at some point stop caring and they kind of give up. They
don't stay relevant with whats happening in the industry.

Some of the issues I have seen that can be construed as ageism I will list.

* Candidates lack of awareness. They have a 2-5 page resume. I see the resume and I wonder how unaware they are. Yes, resumes do not matter but when I get 3 pages filled with large paragraphs I worry the candidate lacks awareness. So far its been a good indicator. * Candidates who belittle me during the interview process. * Candidates who have not kept up with technology. No I don't expect you to know the latest framework but understanding patterns that have emerged in the past 5 years seem relevant. I dislike the latest and greatest technology but its important to understand the general trends. * Candidates that generally who have had zero prep for the interview process expecting the resume/experience to tell all. Yes, algorithms are not the best determining factor but it's at least a minor indicator. When we work through a problem does the other person just give up?

Let me state again that I believe it exists but I sometimes have a hard time
separating true ageism and just a clear distinction between people who have
stayed relevant and not relevant.

~~~
mattlondon
With respect I think that those characteristics could equally apply to anyone
- old, young or somewhere in the middle. I wouldn't say any of those are
specific to people approaching their retirement age.

For example I interviewed someone in their early 20s a little while ago who
knew Angular 1 inside-out and to the absolute finest detail, but that is
obsolete now that we're on Angular 6/React etc - they had never used modern
Angular, Typescript or React... just good old Angular1 + JS. Did they stay
relevant? nope. Are they old? nope. The benefit of the doubt for the early-20s
person could be to just assume they don't know Angular6+TS because they were
working on legacy code and didn't get the chance, but should I treat the
early-20s person any different from a 60s person all other things being equal?
nope. I am sure they could both pick up the new skills just as easily.

I know a lot of retired people socially (parents/friends of friends, neighbors
etc - alas not that many from work) who are still 100% as sharp as a tack -
quick-witted, intelligent, energetic etc. It would be unfair to use their age
as a filter based on assumptions of how they would perform in an interview
based on how other _entirely different_ individuals have behaved in previous
interviews.

~~~
rightbyte
Obsolete? Is this sarcasm? Angular 1 vs 6? Like, how can the burden of getting
up to speed in a later version of the same framework even compare to that of
getting your head into all legacy company code and how the coffe machine at
the office is refilled?

"Oh, .Net 3.5 you say? We do 4.0 here. We call you back."

Coding has barely changed since the 60s. The screens are bigger.

It's the programs that have evolved not the programmers really.

~~~
mattlondon
My point I was trying to make was that not staying relevant in tech is not
unique to "old" people.

The early 20s person who went deep with angular 1 may not have "kept
relevant", but that is no reason to outright reject them (or someone 30-40
years their senior) on its own. I am sure they (and "old" people) would easily
be able to get up to speed.

As you said, programming has largely remained unchanged at a fundamental
level.

~~~
rightbyte
Fair enought.

On another note I believe one fundamental reason some employers prefer younger
employees is that they are easier to push around.

------
ChuckMcM
Feel free to contact me (email is in my profile) if you have specific
questions.

A couple of things stand out;

1) Your resume has the potential of being very intimidating to someone,
sometimes less is more. Trim it to just what they hiring manager cares about.

2) You said "Everything from senior engineer to VP of engineering" have you
applied to "just engineering" roles?

I ask because both senior engineering and VP roles typically have a very high
level of "hiring risk" associated with them. Specifically, if you are
interviewing at places outside the network of people who know your work,
whether or not your idea of how to fill a senior role is the same as the
company where you are interviewing its a very real question. It can cause a
tremendous amount of churn in an organization to hire someone in at a senior
level who ends up not getting along with the rest of the team or company.

As a result you may find it easier to work initially at a lower level and then
negotiate a raise/promotion rather than jumping in high. Everyone's situation
is always a bit different.

------
kareemsabri
I think a lot of startups are, frankly, ageist. They worry about "culture fit"
from an older guy. There's a lot of twenty-something running around. They may
also worry you don't want to put in the late nights and long hours they want
due to perhaps family obligations, or that you may want more than they can
afford to pay.

If you're still on the market, we're hiring, and not ageist. I'm the CTO, 34.

~~~
iamdave
_They may also worry you don 't want to put in the late nights and long hours
they want due to perhaps family obligations_

Unless there's something broken, a system down, or a critical issue that needs
to be fixed yesterday, I got news for you: I ain't staying late either.

I'm 32 with a dog and a highly opinionated cat. Hire me, or don't. Plenty of
other companies out there that respect work life balance and don't insist on
the awful notion of "well you don't have anyone waiting on you to get home
anyway, why do you care?" (of course I'm deliberately phrasing that awfully,
but let's be honest with ourselves here).

~~~
knightofmars
>Unless there's something broken, a system down, or a critical issue that
needs to be fixed yesterday, I got news for you: I ain't staying late either.

This times 1000. The concept that any company "deserves" more than 8 hours of
5 days (or more) is (in my opinion) disgusting.

~~~
datavirtue
I can work 4 hours in the morning...very productive. I come back from lunch
and work 2 more--usually dealing with politics and mentoring. Done.

------
austincheney
Abandon the Bay Area.

It seems to me that ethnocentricity is rampant in the bay as a sub cultural
norm. For example the Bay Area is big on tolerance, but if you choose to voice
political concerns that challenges the area’s popularity you will be silently
shunned and ignored which counter-intuitively is intolerance. As a solid
example review the firing of Brendan Eich from Mozilla. This kind of self-
satisfying inward-facing deceptiveness allows any manner of isolating
justification, such as ageism. In other areas wisdom and experience are
rewarded commodities.

The Bay Area is also stupid expensive. You will make less money elsewhere but
be instantly more wealthy. I would need to multiply my salary x3 to live the
same in the Bay Area with a House half the size.

~~~
antisthenes
From everything I've seen, heard, and read on HN, the Bay Area isn't really
big on tolerance.

It's big on virtue signaling specific kinds of tolerance towards certain
groups, but that's about where it ends. Apparently people past middle age
aren't one of those groups.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but those are my observations as a 3rd party - I
have no skin in the game.

~~~
gaius
_Apparently people past middle age aren 't one of those groups._

If Zuck had said whites or Asians or men “are just smarter” he would have been
flayed alive, but he was (is?) brazenly ageist and not a murmur. That’s Silly
Valley in a nutshell.

~~~
datavirtue
Don't worry...he will be old soon.

~~~
gaius
Laughing into his billions while his age cohort struggles thanks to people
like him.

------
uptown
Is there any possibility you can use the connections you've made over your
career to get past the initial screening? At all stages in my career, I've
found that personal references do more than almost anything else when trying
to get hired. Consider sending an email out to people you used to work with if
you can find a way to reach them. There's a good chance many of them have
moved to new companies, and a possibility some of those companies may have
openings that a former colleague could recommend you as suitable to fill.

------
vincentmarle
You need to focus your USP (unique selling proposition) and gear it towards
the position you’re applying for, and yes this may mean you need multiple
resumes (as a forcing function, try sticking to 1 page).

When I interview you I don’t really care about the hundreds of things you can
do or have done, I only care about the one thing I’m interviewing you for. The
oldest person in my team is close to 60 years old and works as a developer
next to 20-30 something year olds (doesn’t do any management or VP-ing or
whatever on the side). You need to be OK with that and the fact that your boss
may be 20-30 years younger than you.

All I remember from his interview is that he had more than 10 years of
specific development experience for the job he was applying for. That’s
impressive and not something that a younger developer can easily beat you too.

------
insvwallhitsyou
Can relate to most of that. After passing on-site day and hiring committee at
a FAANG, was nixed at the executive level for "career trajectory" issues. In
other words, "too old". Another place opined "skills rusty" after I pulled a
recursive-descent parser off the top of my head in five minutes.

One of the problems with rich companies is that they can afford to have
nonsense hiring policies. There's no real pressure to do right by candidates,
so why bother?

I ultimately stumbled across a solution of sorts, which was to find a money-
poor, non-SV organization with serious tech problems to solve. They're f___ing
lucky to have me, they know it, and I'm treated accordingly. Very gratifying.

------
mfer
A few thoughts...

1\. A resume isn't a CV. It's more like a sales brochure to sell yourself.
Have resumes tailored for different things that show how having you will help
them.

2\. Age discrimination is a problem. Even though it's illegal and not useful.
But, companies would rather spend on lawyers to work around their illegal
antics and are not focused on useful (see the open office craze). If they hack
around being useful or legal it's ok to hack around their processes.

3\. Try looking for something outside of the valley or the companies that want
to be like that. There are tech jobs all over and remote gigs for some of
them. Look for sane companies where they are at.

------
mattlondon
Personally if I were in your situation I'd remove all "old" dates and just put
the last say 4-6 years of experience on the resume and leave the rest off so
you've just got a few years of experience just like someone with 4-6 years
experience would have (it is probably also the most relevant). If you've been
at the same company all that time, break it down by major projects. Also
hopefully this is obvious but dont put your birthday, gender, photo, "married
with 3 kids and 2 dogs" etc etc on their.

My thinking is, if there is no indication of your age ("35 years of
experience", graduation dates in the 70s/80s etc), then there is less scope
for unconscious bias (or just overt ageism) to creep in since there are less
clues. Same with adding potentially "irrelevant" experience from older jobs -
less clues for people to jump to assumptions about (both tech/industry, as
well as just the age thing again)

Once you've got your resume through the bias-blockers you can then wow them
with your energy and enthusiasm when you get a chance to talk to them on the
phone, then wow them again when you bounce into their office and blow them
away with the interview. If you do really well in the interviews, you've given
them some really solid evidence of your awesomeness that they've seen with
their own eyes that will be hard to ignore, even if they think (consciously or
otherwise) that you are old.

Resumes are so easy to pass on when you've got a stack of them to work through
(so impersonal and instantly forgettable), but interviews are "real" events
with real memories and real personal interactions that - I find - helps
override assumptions and unconscious biases.

Good luck!

~~~
gaius
_Personally if I were in your situation I 'd remove all "old" dates and just
put the last say 4-6 years of experience on the resume and leave the rest off
so you've just got a few years of experience_

Doesn't that strike you as a little weird tho'? I mean experience is one of
those things that the more, the better right? If you could choose a surgeon or
a lawyer with more or less experience, which would you prefer?

------
mmmBacon
I’d say the biggest obstacle is that a requisition for someone at your level
is just really hard to get. It’s hard to convince people that we need an
expensive gray beard. Without a requisition at your level some companies have
a policy that they won’t talk to you because they don’t want to leave you with
a bad experience (sounds like bs but this is true).

The view isn’t entirely just financial. People at your level challenge things
and in particular challenge leaders. That’s because you should be a leader at
this point, either by title or by influence. Someone like you can come in and
disrupt the power dynamic, particularly if the leadership is weak (often
true), and the leadership wants nothing more than to preserve itself and make
its life easy.

Another piece is the more senior you are, the more the soft skills come into
it and how well you’ll fit into the team. I’m not talking about skinny jeans
here but rather whether your values align.

If you are trying to get VP of Engineering jobs, I’d say that few would
believe that you’ll be satisfied just coming in and grinding out walls code to
a spec that someone else wrote.

~~~
zwieback
Good observations. I'm currently employed in my 50s and starting to worry
about my chances should I have to take them.

I'm often challenging my leaders because I believe they work for me, e.g.
their job is to make my life easy. I usually get away with it simply because
I've been here long enough to know how projects usually unfold.

As our workforce gets younger and younger (we don't generally hire graybeards
either) I start wondering how I fit in - I don't want to ever become a manager
so I guess I have to fake it with the skinny jeans!

------
encoderer
Find a company you want to work for. Pay for linked in premium. Find engineers
there with common ground, reach out, ask for coffee.

Tech companies all have lucrative referral systems so you really can network
your way in through a person on the team.

This is the way to get a good job in SFBA. There is a good chance you are not
even passing a recruiting screen.

~~~
sanderjd
I think temporarily paying for LinkedIn premium is an undervalued tool when
actively looking for work.

~~~
emit_time
Assume you make >$200 a day (~$70k). Assuming linkenin premium helps you get a
job one day sooner, it's worth it.

------
vertol
My team would like to take a look at your resume. Shoot me an email with your
resume (and linkedin profile link if you have one) at vertol.next@gmail.com.

~~~
anonOver60
I'm sorry - my brain says "recruiter" when I read your message for some
reason. I'm not sure what it is pattern matching on. If you can assure me that
you're not a recruiter I'd be happy to send you my resume, although a little
more information about what your company does would be helpful.

~~~
kjsingh
have u tried amazon?

------
anovikov
Do some high-value per hour consulting and forget of full time jobs, they
aren't for guys with your level of experience, who could leverage your skills
and pay you appropriate money without putting off other employees? Do
consulting and charge $300 per hour.

~~~
mrdependable
I second this. I know a couple people in their 70s who do nothing but
consulting. They make great money and mostly work directly with the founders
of companies who have ideas about big projects they want their business to
undertake and need guidance.

------
d4n0ct
Not in HR myself, but maybe they are looking for candidates that would stay
with the company for a longer time. It may also be easier to persuade/manage
younger minds or groom them for leadership positions.

Why are you job hopping, if you don't mind me asking?

~~~
anonOver60
My whole team was laid off two years ago. Last year I did a startup that
unfortunately folded when my business partner had a major family tragedy. This
year I've been contracting and looking for work. I ran the numbers and I can't
retire yet. I'm looking to work another 8-9 years.

~~~
blihp
If you're not doing it already, I'd highly suggest using every free moment you
have during your contract work to network with the client, any other
contractors, sales reps, account managers etc. you encounter there. i.e. don't
just spend your days heads-down doing the work: get to know everyone you can,
and more importantly get them to know you, while you're there. And don't be
too busy to take the occasional coffee/water cooler break or group lunch. You
can get a surprising number of leads this way.

------
01100011
Look for an engineering services firm and work as a subcontractor. We're
currently employing several guys who are 60 (+/-5). Also... sorry... but try
the defense industry. They have insanely low standards.

~~~
anonOver60
OP: Not sure why you are down-voted. The HackerNews Community seems to dislike
telling the truth if it is surrounded by even a hint of negativity.

Can you be more specific about what you mean by "engineering services firm"?

~~~
insvwallhitsyou
I think the downvotes are for suggesting the defense industry.

"We won't hire you because you're old, but don't you dare go to those guys who
will, because we hate them." lol

------
tabtab
Try contracts instead. Agism seems to affect that less.

~~~
darreld
I second this. I'm over 60 and looking to change jobs. I've been looking at
1099 contract work since I don't need health insurance benefits (get them
through wife's work).

------
techcode
Reading through your comments/replies (e.g.: "knack for listening to
customer", "generalist", "can setup machines"...etc) make me think I'll be in
your shoes once I reach your age... Hence I have to ask - any advice you would
give to younger self?

Should I focus on having some/one/few "unique selling propositions" \-
something I can say I'm expert in? And what would those be?

Anyway back to trying to give you (and other younger folks) some answers.

I've been interviewing candidates for a while. From technical phone
interviews, over F2F, and now mostly so called Fit interviews.

And first time I interviewed someone with CS PhD that they have since around
the time I was born - I was happy to be paired with another older colleague.

Not that I was scared/intimidated or felt inadequate. I was really worried
about candidate getting impression we're a bunch of "teenagers" ;)

So actually on that point I've got nothing for anonOver60 - other than saying
to others that instead of being intimidated, you should just be yourself and
there is nothing to worry about.

If the candidate is good - being more experienced they'll know how to handle
situation in a way that won't make you feel like 2nd class compared to them.

I second the idea of different/customized CV for different roles/positions. In
fact each place/position you apply for should be it's own tuned/customized
veraion of generic CV..

~~~
anonOver60
The advice I've given to younger generalists like me is to force yourself to
become an expert on something. That's what people are used to seeing when they
are hiring. Pick something long-lasting like databases or search or machine
learning.

------
mojomark
Your resume sounds interesting to me. If you're willing to relocate to DC
(although there could be some west coast or consultant type roles), we are
looking for folks with your type of background to enhance our AI capabilities.
At the level you describe, we're looking for active/direct leadership.

I'm an engineer myself, not a recruiter, but if you want to post an email,
I'll take your resume and share it with the right people.

~~~
anonOver60
I do like the DC area but we have kids living in the Bay Area and my wife
doesn't want to move away from them. If there is some way to work with you
with that constraint I'd be interested.

------
g051051
> 3 STEM undergrad degrees, MS in AI from Stanford, PhD in AI from a top-10
> program

I think that flags you as vastly overqualified for most jobs you're applying
for.

------
jlrubin
I think a part of it is that resumes are more or less dead for a lot of roles;
you need a referral from someone (don't even have to know them) in the team to
land the job. It seems that having a jobs listing is similar to having to put
newsprint ads for two consecutive sundays to get an H1B through.

That said, drop me a line (email in my bio) with your resume, happy to forward
I know a few places that might be interested!

------
balousek
Send me your resume, we're hiring in SF and PA. robert.balousek+hn@carta.com

------
slouchyMouse
Bear in mind, that there are also some people who are 30 who are not getting
jobs.

You list all your accomplishments (35 years, 3 degrees, etc)... what do you
say on your resume or your cover letter that indicates you are also hungry to
learn? to explore? to be humble? to be part of a team?

And I wonder at 35 years, why are you not leading a team and mentoring others?
Why are you still on the lower tiers?

Lastly, there are many job situations, which let's just say, the employer /
managers are not even ambitious. They just want somebody in the chair. They
have a budget to maintain, or they are in transition. or they have billable
hours to meet. They just need a warm body. Forgive me, but at a minimum, I
find it hard to accept that someone who is really job hunting hasn't at least
found one of these.

Also, what are you requesting for salary? Do you do the coding challenges? Do
you call them back promptly? When you are on a phone interview do you talk
over them, or listen and answer succinctly? There are many, many factors
beyond the mere resume to consider as well.

~~~
eagsalazar2
You make some good points (I agree about people refusing to do coding
interviews) but I think your comments don't really fit the situation this guy
is describing. I know many of the devs at my company get hit up proactively by
recruiters multiple times per week! They aren't looking at all and have 1/4
the experience this guy has. Also regarding the phone screen, he isn't even
getting to that point.

------
wins32767
As a hiring manager, we've found that there isn't a ton of good quality
resumes that come in via applications; referrals then recruiters are the best
sources of high quality candidates for us.

You may be getting circular filed because you're direct applying. Try reaching
out to someone you know at the company or talk to a recruiter and your
response rate will go up quite a bit.

------
rrggrr
Late 40's and above... the reality isn't pretty in tech. I'm pretty sure I've
missed out on two positions because age. On the one hand, we need to protected
classes to prevent discrimination. On the other hand, bad faith discrimination
claims have made older hires high risk. On balance... I am wondering if these
laws are doing more harm than good.

------
prisionif
Why aren't you running your own business, maybe as a consultant? You shouldn't
be selling your services but your knowledge.

~~~
anonOver60
Actually, I would appreciate some advice on this. I truly don't know what
services to sell. I can set up machines, design databases, write graph
algorithms, train machine learning models, design web services, etc. But I'm
not a "leading expert" on any of those things. I'm a generalist and usually
have an answer for any problem I run into simply because I've run into it
before. How do I market myself as a general problem solver?

~~~
darreld
I'm in the exact same boat and would love to hear some ideas.

~~~
anonOver60
There should be a market for people like us. My personal network is not large
enough to build a practice around. Have you had any ideas on this?

------
emmanueloga_
Tangentially related, the other day I learned that Carl Sassenrath [1], 60+,
according to wikipedia [2], has been working in Roku for the last 10 years.
Maybe it is a good company to get in touch with?

Also, I don't have hard numbers or anything but I've worked or meet people in
Google and YouTube that are north of 50. There's even a nickname for them [3]
... I guess depending on your personality you can take the nickname the good
or the bad way. I wanna think, good :-)

1: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-
sassenrath-02699b84/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-sassenrath-02699b84/)

2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sassenrath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sassenrath)

3:
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Greygler#English](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Greygler#English)

------
AlexanderNull
Very current knowledge is one of the main things I look for when evaluating a
potential hire. It not only hints at an ability to learn, but also at a
passion for the industry. I think that's where a lot of ageism comes in to
play. I personally worked at two enterprise dev shops where the older
engineers didn't give a hoot past what they had learned years ago and managed
to stay writing ever since. Their code might potentially have been more stable
but it also was slower, had a hell of a lot of unnecessary boilerplate, was a
pain to navigate, and couldn't actually do much anything impressive because it
was working with such a minimal toolset.

I'd say focus as much as you can with your resume on highlighting those
current library/framework/patterns that you're passionate about. Those are
often times the things that recruiters will look for as well (in addition to
the basics).

~~~
codingdave
> it also was slower, had a hell of a lot of unnecessary boilerplate, was a
> pain to navigate, and couldn't actually do much anything impressive because
> it was working with such a minimal toolset.

Funny, that is the same impression I get from younger coders' work who haven't
been around much, only know one narrow stack, and start from the boilerplate
that you can get from various CLIs.

Maybe age has nothing to do with it and there is simply a variety in skill
level no matter how long you have been doing this?

------
poulsbohemian
With those credentials, you should be able to get any job you want. Thinking
out loud here, I'm wondering if you are truly over-qualified for some of the
positions. Or, are they worried about being able to keep you or afford you.
That's not entirely agism, though it can appear that way on the surface.

------
lingan
If you're not even getting to the phone interview, it might be ageism and/or
your resume isn't written for the role you're applying to.

I'm a hiring manager and all too often I get resumes from people that think
listing more is better. 5, 6, 7 page resumes are exhausting to read. Write for
your audience. Know the company you're applying to. Know the role you're
applying for. Write addressing those points. Take it from the perspective of
the reader. I have 20 resumes on my desk, I need yours to stand out.

As for the ageism, take out dates. Don't need to know what year you got your
degree. Don't need to know past 10 years.

That should get you on the same level as everyone else for the phone
interview. After that, it's a different story.

------
ilikehurdles
Are you putting most recent projects/employers/accomplishments/awards front-
and-center? With dates?

Maybe the education section reveals your age and pre-biases hiring managers.
Put it nearer to the end so they see most recent work first.

Do you have many short stints or other classic red flags?

Also not a hiring manager.

------
diegoperini
May sound entirely unrelated but I'm really curious. What kind of job (which
area of expertise) do you think would satisfy you most? Excuse my ageism but I
think I would be intimidated if I interviewed you as a hiring manager. That
could cloud my judgement in the end.

~~~
anonOver60
VP of Engineering at a startup is probably the best fit. Managing small (< 10)
software teams is probably next. Anything with lots of novel and/or
interesting problems is next. I also seem to have a knack for listening to
customers and figuring out what they really need and want.

------
mixmastamyk
Others have hit the main reasons. One additional I'd guess is that you have
"too much" on your resume making it hard to follow.

Start with a one-pager with a medium-size font and plenty of whitespace.
Expand to two pages if you are still getting no hits.

------
cadow
Or they might be thinking that you will retire soon or not fluid enough in
thinking.

Or demand too much pay.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I suspect that it's pay more than ageism.

As you get older, it gets harder to get jobs - not impossible, just harder. It
takes longer.

Why does it take longer? We're outside the knowledge of most hiring managers.
They're thinking of "junior" as 0-2 years experience, and "senior" as 5-7.
Where does 35 years fit on their spectrum? They don't even have a category for
it. (You may be looking for jobs with the title "Principal software engineer"
rather than "senior software engineer"). Those jobs are ones where your
experience gets recognized as worth more money.

But most jobs see you as just an older, more expensive senior engineer. And if
they can get a senior engineer for half your money, why would they want you?
(Yes, I know. You're worth more. You can deliver actual results faster than
those people. You can avoid mistakes those people will make. I know that. Your
average hiring manager who's looking for a senior software engineer _doesn 't_
know that.)

For the record, I'm 56.

------
jbms
I (UK, aged 27 at the time) hired a contractor who was aged 73. We needed
someone with a variety of experience to help us through a particular need, and
a recruiter found him for us.

He was brilliant: He knew a lot, did a lot, and still wanted to learn. He kept
his skills up-to-date trying out a new technology every year for personal
projects. Having contracted for years he'd been in lots of companies and that
also gave a lot of variety of skills and experience.

Edit: He worked 4 months for us, and we'd have kept him longer but he had
plans to travel around Europe in his caravan for the summer.

------
rpoconn1
If you are applying at startups it may just come down to money, and the fact
that startups are a ton of 20 somethings trying to get that sweet IPO /
acquisition release.

How does your Linkedin profile look, in terms of libraries? Many recruiters /
managers look at libs / tech FIRST, which is kinda backwards. Do you have the
latest tensorflow or [insert cool new thing] on the resume?

If your resume is really what you posted - any outside recruiter can help you
getting interviews. They may give you lackluster opportunities at first, but
that's part of the process (think of it like dating, but for jobs).

------
banner2018
You need a H1-B , no pun, most manager s are so addicted working with H1 or
contract ors they humanely don't have the caliber to work with regular folks.
I am on a job as FTE, kept out of meetings and information emails for 17
months and accused of not impressing others. When I went around my Mgr, found
out my Mgr had explicitly taken my name off the list of people to be informed.
Probably you are fortunate not to be in a crazy job. Beauty in the eyes of a
beholder... So someone not threatened by your knowledge will hire you.

Stay strong.

------
supERbro
Also, consider the language especially non-technical jargon you use on your
resume. I suspect many companies are screening their resumes using ML and
likely their "ideal" candidate uses non technical language like, "I crushed my
project goals, or I dominated the blah blah..." You get the idea, every new-
gen of business updates their non-technical (and technical) keywords. Try to
figure out how these people are talking and try a few submissions with those
empty lame-brained phrases these people use.

------
ummonk
That is weird. In general, what I’ve observed with a sizable fraction of older
candidates is that a lot tend to be architecture types with weak coding
skills. That would be the stereotype I would expect to be going against an
experienced engineer, but I'd think that having ICPC champion on your resume
would protect against that.

If you email me (email is on my profile) I can provide you referrals
(including to my current employer) and information about resume-blind services
that I’ve used in the past which might be helpful.

------
symmitchry
From a technical point of view, I keep a "master" resume with every job I've
ever had. Then I do what top comment recommends, which is break out the parts
I want for whatever roles I happen to be applying for.

I also agree that applying for dev roles when you have manager experience is
really going to raise questions. I was only a manager for one brief stint and
I still had to reassure every single interviewer that "yes, I was interested
in a purely technical role".

Age: very late 30s

------
InclinedPlane
I was advised years ago to try to make it harder to determine age on my resume
(I'm just over 40).

Some techniques that are helpful for this:

\- only list the last 10 years of work experience (add a comment about making
available prior work experience on request if you like)

\- pull any other skills or experience into a specific skills/experience
section

\- don't list the dates for your degrees/graduations

If you survive the resume cull then you're much more likely to survive in
person interviews unless the place is horribly ageist.

------
rb808
I wonder if its ethical to change some of the dates. Eg if you graduated in
1980 it makes it obvious how old you are. If you leave dates blank it kinda
doesn't make much difference, but if you said you graduated in 2000 it would
mean you get an interview at least.

Edit - I get it the issue will come up at some stage. But explaining why you
changed the dates later in the process is better than not getting an
interview.

~~~
wild_preference
Well, surely it's better to leave your integrity up in the air than lie and
leave no doubt.

~~~
rb808
If you have an interview and they complain about the date on the resume, I'd
think your integrity would be better than the company's.

------
jetcata
I want to say that people might feel intimidated by your resume. Maybe try
excluding all but the most relevant degree and heavily tailoring the rest.

~~~
anonOver60
I have run into this in the past. Usually a Technical Lead or Director of
Engineering is grumpy, gives me a very perfunctory 5-minute interview, has
clearly already made up their mind. It was just a waste of time for me and
their company.

~~~
jetcata
Yeah, I interviewed someone over 60 a few months ago and myself and the other
engineers who interviewed were all intimidated. It was fine once we were in
the interview room but reading the resume scared everyone a little.

------
jonbronson
Are you tailoring your resume specifically to the jobs you're applying for?
This can be a big issue for people who have a long broad history of
experience. The more experience you have, the smaller percentage of it will
appear 'immediately relevant' to the job at hand. This isn't actually true of
course, but it's a recruiter bias.

------
vicaya
Hey OP, are you still looking? My company (a well funded AI startup with SV
office) is definitely looking for eng roles from senior IC to VPE. PM if
you're serious (email in profile). I can at least give you specific feedback
on your resume.

------
pmarreck
There may be ageism but I hate to admit appearance also matters to some
degree, in case that may be a factor.

Also, a lot of what people call "ageism" should more rightfully be called
"culturalism" IMHO, and it's harder to fault people for simply getting less
along with someone much older (on the other hand, I've had MANY older friends)

------
DrNuke
Legal matters aside, interaction is a basic human process that often comes
very awkward in over excited, under pressure, small environments if someone
too different from the resident crop is around. Other than that, people just
won't try. You might act as a consultant and sell your time, instead? Good
luck and keep going!

------
d4n0ct
Hopefully you find some of these comments instructive. Let us know how things
go from here, and best of luck to you.

~~~
anonOver60
These are all very helpful. My next resume is going to be much shorter...

------
fooblat
If you are in a position to relocate, I would consider looking in cities like
Berlin, London, Amsterdam, and Dublin. The job market for software engineers
in Europe is really hot and most companies will pay for relocation of senior
engineers. Additionally, age and experience are valued.

------
eagsalazar2
There are a few things that might be going on here. I have done a lot of dev
hiring over the last 10 years in the Bay Area and this is what I've seen:

1\. Ageism is very real in the bay area. People see a huge list of experience
going back to 1985 and graduation dates in that range and they filter you. It
is terrible but true. If you are sending a 5 page resume of experience to win
them over, try including only your best and most relevant work from the last
10 years and omit graduation dates, etc. See how that works to at least get to
the first interview.

2\. In addition to the conscious ageism, there is a lot of unconscious stuff
people do that also excludes older devs. Even if someone doesn't include
dates, I can tell almost immediately they are from another engineering culture
(either physical or temporal aliens). There are a lot of little cues that
people might interpret as you not being "a good fit", "old school", or
"enterprise-y". If you are friends with any hip 30-35 year old devs, have them
review for cues like that and squash them. Quite possibly you'll also find
there are real holes in your resume or way you are presenting yourself.

3\. On that note, have that same hip dev friend cross reference his version of
what tech is hot with your expertise. You might be a great dev in 100 ways but
your attachment to php (haha, jk php lovers!) will peg you as "old school". If
you really don't have experience in any of that hot tech, "I can pick stuff
up" only goes so far especially if people are already wondering because of
your age. Build something real (!"I did a tutorial or toy app and it seems
cool") using one of those hot tools and put it on your resume.

Everything above applies to LinkedIn or Github profiles too, not just your
resume since people will immediately check those also. Of course, when you get
to a first interview, you might still get filtered but at least you'll have a
shot.

I know it is pretty callous to just try and work around ageism as I'm
recommending but sadly I think this is the hurdle older devs need to tackle to
get to the first interview. I see older guys not finding work _all the time_.

To be clear, this perspective isn't coming from someone in their 20s. I'm 45
and am already seeing these harsh realities. I feel like I get to see both
sides of it since I own my own company and I've been immersed in the 25-35
year old hipster dev culture all along which helps me to stay very current in
lingo, trends, appeal. Because we see it all the time, we're very careful to
avoid this ageism trap in our hiring by moving people forward using very well
defined criteria, not subjective "I got a good feeling about him" type
heuristics that might lead us to filter really great devs because of our
unconscious biases.

~~~
tracker1
In addition to what the parent suggests (great ideas, and similar to
suggestions I was going to make)...

If you're in a _hot /young_ market like the Bay Area, then it may be worth
considering moving to a secondary market. I'm in Phoenix, and know that spots
in Texas, Atlanta and other areas are similar in that there's more line of
business software development that has a lot of people that re a bit older.
Right now, I think the average developer age where I am is 40yo. Of course
there are other aspects to consider in terms of a move, but it's worth
thinking about.

And to double down on what the parent suggested... limit your resume to the
last 10 years or so with career highlights, and nuke the education section.
For the most part, nobody cares once you're in a field more than a few years.

Good luck.

~~~
eagsalazar2
If the guy has a PhD in AI that's a serious credential to just nuke. I like
omitting dates as a happy medium.

------
pmoriarty
Have you tried trimming your resume so that only some of your most recent work
experience is on it?

You could also try removing school graduation dates or any other hints of your
age.

If after all that you're still not getting interviews, then the fault can't be
with how old you are.

------
jgrahamc
I can only speak for Cloudflare but we have a very wide range of ages and age
is not an issue.

------
deanmoriarty
I know this is OT, but pardon the curiosity: are you looking for work because
you have to work, or because you want to work? I assume with your impressive
credentials you had a very lucrative career so far, and could more than
comfortably retire?

------
botswana99
Please come work with us. We have people from 63 to 23 in engineering roles.
Age, like sex, nationality, height, weight, shoe size, sexuality orientation,
and favorite ice cream has no bearing on whether you can do good work.

------
tinkerteller
C/C++ is one of the domain were 60+ year old can shine - if you had been
writing code in it regularly. These are the languages that are hard and
requires years of experience and bit of history of evolution.

------
emmelaich
Don't tell them your age -- or even hint at it.

It's illegal to discriminate on age in CA but if they can infer it they'll
find some way to exclude you.

Do interviews by phone / teleconferencing if possible.

------
mark_l_watson
I am 67 and I have always been able to get very good consulting gigs. I took a
full time job a year ago and had to accept a manager role. Your background
sounds very impressive, keep trying!

------
dgzl
Maybe it's the stigma of your resume? Could try knocking off some things.
Maybe they want someone with a youthful spirit, to match other coworkers?
Could try joining coworker antics?

------
zwieback
Have you tried using a headhunter or is that totally unrealistic nowadays?
Sounds like there should be a good fit for you in lots of places if you can
circumvent the usual hiring process.

------
dostres
I imagine you're making the Engineers mistake of pitching your credentials.
Think of the hiring from the their perspective. A 25 yo recent Stanford Grad
with no idea what they're doing with crippling insecurity. If they actually
hired someone with experience then they might be outed as 'not the smartest
guy everyone has ever met' and that would be devastating to their self image.

In order to send a signal that you're a safe hire that won't undermine them,
either intentionally or accidentally, you'll need to show that you're a team
player who will go along with their ideas no matter how obviously stupid they
are. Crossfit is perfect for this.

~~~
Pfhreak
Is this an attempt at humor?

------
zhobbs
Consider hiring a resume writer. The guy I hired was older, and had some very
specific techniques to combat ageism (I'm still pretty young, but was good to
learn about them).

~~~
amorphous
Can you give a recommendation?

------
codewritinfool
Interested in moving to St. Louis? I'd like to talk to you.

~~~
anonOver60
OP. I'm originally from the midwest but we'd like to stay in California for
now. I'll keep you in mind, though.

~~~
souprock
Well, there is your problem. This is the "why you might not even do a phone
interview" issue. Off to the reject pile you go.

Put yourself in our shoes, and see how similar the frustration is: Why are you
rejecting us? We hire people older than you, we have interesting work, the
finances probably work out better... but you reject us.

If at some point you decide to evacuate California, we'll still be around:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17912861](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17912861)

~~~
anonOver60
The main reason is we have 4 kids living in the Bay Area and my wife doesn't
want to move away from them.

~~~
souprock
Fine, take them with you. Can they code too?

~~~
raarts
His kids are probably adults by now and the reasons his wife won't move away
is because of grandkids that are already there or expected soon.

------
justin_vanw
You have been in the industry for around 40 years and you have no personal
network you can call on for referrals? You are obviously leaving out critical
parts of your story.

~~~
anonOver60
Well, I'm not very social. My personal network exists but most of them have
been at the same job for 10 years or longer. A few are at FANG-CxO level where
I'm not sure they'd be helpful.

------
commandlinefan
> 3 STEM undergraduate degrees

I'm honestly just curious... how does that happen? Most people just stick with
the one - did you do some career changing early on?

~~~
anonOver60
I started out in Math, realized I liked to build things, switched to EE, and
took all the CS courses I could for fun. When I was done I had enough credits
to get all three degrees.

------
dba7dba
I've heard similar story from a non coding engineer. He's not that old but
getting no responses. Apparently his current pay is too high.

------
mancerayder
What do you folks think about consulting as a 'late career' choice? Is age
discrimination as much a factor?

------
espeed
No hits??? Or no callbacks after first contact?

Send me your resume, and I'll take a look (email in profile).

------
taytus
We are not hiring right now but I would love to have someone like you on our
team!

------
virmundi
Out of curiosity, are you liking outside of California?

------
Immortalin
What's your email?

------
master_yoda_1
Do you do leetcode ;)

------
InTheArena
DM me your resume ;-)

------
crimsonalucard
Why this isn't a bigger issue than sex discrimination boggles my mind.

------
qubax
> I've been applying for everything from senior engineer to VP of engineering.
> Ever since I turned 60 last year, I'm getting no hits on my resume.

For senior engineer, the sweet spot is around 10 years of experience ( like
early 30s ). Too young or too old or too little experience or too much
experience, you're resume is going in the trash can ( or more likely just
filtered by software ).

Your degrees and ICPC champion are not important for a senior engineer
position. Nobody really looks at it. Domain knowledge and experience with
tools ( current ) is more important.

For VP, I suspect you have better shot getting a position through your network
rather than sending resumes. Ask people you worked with if they are looking
for a VP and then try that route.

Think of it from a prospective employer, why would they want to hire you when
you are going to be hitting retirement age? I don't think you'll get much
success by just sending resumes.

> If you were hiring, can you tell me why you might not even do a phone
> interview? I need to know what (mis)perceptions I apparently need to
> overcome.

Everywhere I've worked, we've never hired any developer in the 60s. To be
honest, we've never hired anyone over 30 through resumes. The people we hired
through resumes are college grads or devs in their 20s. The people who were
over 30 either started in the company in their 20s or got the job through word
of mouth. Don't underestimate how much a good reference from a current
employee matters to a hire manager.

Also, the tech/engineering sector is going through a "cultural" or "diversity"
change. The execs/HR are encouraging managers to take in younger, female and
minority workers and of course promote them. There is a push for a less white
( or asian male ) workforce and a more diverse and representative workforce.
So if you are an older white or asian male, you are really facing headwinds.

I think your best bet is to ask your friends and co-workers.

~~~
insvwallhitsyou
> push for a less white (or asian male) workforce

I hadn't thought about it, but this might be an alternative explanation for
the apparent ageism in hiring. Assuming that most "old" candidates are
white/asian males, which is probably true, and assuming a bias against
white/asian males, also probably true, you could end up with apparent ageism
even though no one actually cares much about age. Interesting.

Doesn't matter that much in practice, as getting less white (Warren
notwithstanding) isn't any easier than getting less old.

------
jhabdas
I saw an architect with a family depending on him get fired from Trunk Club
(selling your car back to you kind of company) and he was probably in his
40's. What I decided was that the company didn't care about quality just the
bottom line. Which not only makes you unemployable for life Gen X can't even
get a job because of capitalism.

~~~
jhabdas
selling your fat* back to you. if you need a car head to CarMax. thanks
Gboard. programmed by geniuses

------
x0b4dc0d3
#1 - find multiple recruiters to be working for you. They already have
relationships and can get you in the door.

#2 - Tailor your resume to the job. Remove bullshit and be frank. Show them
you're there to kick ass, not play politics.

#3 - Many companies probably think you're going to ask for a ton of money or
that you are way too overqualified.

#4 - Join MeetUps for domains you want to be working in, network, make it
clear you're looking for work.

#5 - You're a programmer... automate your resume submission. Get your foot in
the door.

#6 - Build a business case for something you want to build, or find someone
who wants to build something who has money, through the SBA or MeetUps and get
to work.

#7 - Consider humbly approaching professors directly (via email) at top tier
universities with your resume. They may have ins. I am certain they will have
empathy. We all know ageism is rampant.

#8 - Make sure your resume is achievement based and that your objective says
what you really want to do. Remove fluff and be specific.

