I think there are a lot of companies that would like to hire people like this - not FAANG perhaps, but smaller companies who would want someone smart and with life experience, and are willing to train a new employee in their specific technologies. She'd be happy to do a trial period or internship first. But we weren't sure how to reach such companies. Does anyone have experience finding jobs that would fit this profile? Where would you look?
(If you would like to hire such a worker in the NY area or remotely, PM me!)
You can do a Google search for "companies hiring ex military", and Google will pop up a job search based on military occupation codes. Or you can look around websites dedicated to it.
IBM has offered “reentry” (my term, probably not the official or correct ones, my apologies) positions in the past for women who want to reenter the tech workforce. I don’t know the details or whether the program is currently active, but I recall seeing it and thinking “that’s a really smart and thoughtful thing to do”
As for cold networking, two options are:
- talking to recruiting agencies, which often have a pool of employers that they have relationships with and can help open doors
- good ol' cold calling - research companies that you feel are good matches and are hiring, send a resume and go from there
A third potential option is to do freelance w/ local mom-and-pop shops, at least temporarily, to build up a small portfolio, dust off tech chops and getting the google-fu up to speed.
Often times, non-tech companies have less strict/technically challenging hiring processes. These are good companies to aim for.
For her old experience specifically, I hear that there is demand for COBOL in some government niches. Might be worth looking into.
This is spot on.
I'd recommend signing up and completing a relatively well-known coding bootcamp.
Edit to add, in 20 years a lot has changed outside of just specific CS skills:
Cloud collaborative suites, conferencing systems, Slack/MSFT Teams, JIRA, git, just to name a few.
20 years ago, I was at my first role out of college--we used Outlook, MSFT VC++ 6.0, VSS, and AOL Instant Messenger.
Your profile is empty and Hacker News doesn't have a native PM function.
This lays out a process which works counter to the conventional wisdom of applying to open positions on job boards (a "Satisficing" approach). I'm trying it now, because I'm in a similar position.
Unless she's particularly interested in learning new frameworks, I wouldn't suggest trying to do internships as she'd be starting from zero, competing against young coders.
I spent six months doing a (failed) startup with a student from the biz school, and then I started taking freelance gigs. I got a few job offers, but I was enjoying self-employment so much, I wound up just sticking with freelancing. Today I'm making more than I would as a non-FAANG employee. I'm 44 and haven't felt any age discrimination.
Ironically, getting contract work is way easier than getting an FTE offer. You have a 30-minute call with one programmer and another with the owner/manager, and you're hired. No leetcode, day-long on-site visits away from home, or unpaid trial projects.
While your rates are still low, you can also find a lot of work by reaching out to web design firms and presenting yourself as an expert in X. For example if they mostly have PHP employees but you do Rails or D3, they will be happy to bring you on. Even with expensive rates, I still get subcontracting work when people need a Postgres expert.
In my case I was still very comfortable building web applications, but the six months at my own startup let me learn Rails & Heroku and gain confidence that I could still get things done. If she can also spend half a year learning and building something that proves her skills, I think she will de-risk herself for lots of employers.
Or she may be able to find a lot of Cobol opportunities immediately. I know someone who was at a bank doing sales, and they gave him paid on-the-job training to switch to Cobol work. (I'm happy to talk with her and make a connection if she is interested.) Now he's applying at IBM. So it seems like there is plenty of work out there still.
From my conversations with them, a lot of them hire in non-traditional areas too, because they know they can't compete with FAANG. So look broadly for their posts.
https://www.pathforward.org/return-work-programs-around-us/
They specifically help people who left the industry for caregiving roles reenter the industry.
53 now. It's been a weird ride, my own faults contributed a lot to not progressing anywhere near as fast as others that I feel I could code as well as... but I'm having fun with this and if life turns out that way this job will be a good solid stepping stone to any other Sr Engineer position.
After that effort, she was able to get a job with a large stable company.
https://military.microsoft.com/programs/microsoft-software-s...
Good luck!
Teenagers need parental attention just as much as younger children—more, in some ways, because while they don't need constant attention like young children do, when they do need help, it tends to be more serious.
How viable is it to get into software?
The main issue is that there is no option for them to stop working to learn full time.
Also, be aware of the overall climate. She should be able to land a dev job in the current climate where standards are being so dramatically lowered and people are getting promotions/raises merely because of the tightness of the labor market. This is a seller's market - just the right time to jump in, regardless of your age.
My main advice would be the same advice I give to everyone else:
* Don't lie on your resume. It's OK to say "I can pick up skill X because it's similar to skill Y which I already have" or "I didn't use X at my last job, but it is similar to Y and I've been brushing up on this as more people need it" (assuming you have been learning X on your own time). But don't say you know skill X if you don't. Don't wing stuff.
* Read the requirements of the job posting and spend some time trying to understand this problem space and company. Really think about the things they need, and then study up on and practice these things.
* Adopt the attitude that you are there to help them solve problems in exchange for money. So try to be helpful and have appropriate expectations of compensation commensurate with the value you add. Do not adopt the attitude that this is some kind of courtship and they need to woo you, or if they turn you down that you have been personally rejected, or that you have a career arc and they are there to boost you along the arc. The job will not give you meaning, it will not save your soul, it is an exchange of your problem solving skills for money. It may well help your career arc, but that's not going to land you the job.
* Do not hop from job to job, and be prepared to have a good explantion if you did. Be aware that it is a red flag to see a sequence of 4 one year positions at different places, because you start being really productive at the end of that first year. If that's when you look for greener pastures, the firm hiring you should dramatically downgrade the estimate of value a rental will provide as you will be leaving before the time invested in training you starts to pay off. Similarly, don't say "I really want to be a manager, and I thought this dev role was a good way to get into that". Apply for a manager job if that's what you want to do. If a firm is looking for a rental, they'll let you know. Usually they are not looking for rentals but people who will learn the tech stack and then deliver a stream of value rather than dissapearing.
I disagree 100%. If you take a job and it's not a good fit, leave. You're not doing anyone any favors by sticking around & being miserable. Don't take a job w/ the intention of leaving, but certainly don't stay only because you feel guilty. The benefit of leaving a job you don't like if you relieve the company of retaining a bad fit, and you reward the new company w/ the experience you got at the old company. LIfe's too short to stick around when you're miserable.
I can buy I’d you move once or twice quickly, if are clearly showing progression, or have some explanation (those were contracts, my source kept getting relocated, etc) but I agree with GP that regularly flitting between companies/positions in less than a year isn’t great look without an alternative narrative.
You can do this for some positions, but pair this with rapidly applying as fast as you can. There were 160 applications to a SWE role at my company a month ago. Modern systems make it easy to apply and if you are looking break back into the business I think “quantity has a quality all of its own”
