Late 30s Career Advice Needed

5 points by oceanghost ↗ HN
Dear HN,

I need honest advice. I am in my late 30s, in so cal and recently departed my position of 10 years as a Sr Software Dev at an international electronics company.

My resume is diverse-- I've worked as an Architect, Team Lead, Software Developer, Systems Admin. I've done desktop, mobile, web, web services, consumer electronics, semiconductor manufacturing... etc. I was a core contributor to a major Linux distro many many years ago.

My last project--I designed, implemented and was Team Lead for a cross-platform IoT library for Linux, iOS and Android. I worked in half a dozen languages on a daily basis.

I have been out of the job market so long, I don't know how to sell myself, if I'm viable, or how or where I should be looking for work. My talent isn't any particular platform or technology-- I don't have a specialty. My talent is this-- I always focus on doing a good job-- and I pick up any skills needed along the way to do that. I'm an abstract thinker. When I last looked for a job the mantra was "let's hire smart people and see what they can do." Great for my kind-- but now the engineering world seems to be populated with concrete thinkers-- knowledge isn't how things work-- it's facts.

I have no idea where to go from here. Pick a specialty? (what technologies?) Remain a generalist? How and where should I be looking for work?

My finances are such that it is not urgent that I am employed, but I could very much use help putting together a plan :)

Thanks, Ocean

5 comments

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Difficult to respond because it's unclear what you're looking for or what excites you. What types of problems? What types of people?

It sounds like you don't have a clear answer to that. If so, your #1 problem is to find out. Talk to lots of people and figure that out. Maybe respond to Hacker News Who's Hiring posts, if only to start conversations and hear what's going on.

This came out recently, I'd take a read: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2017/02/18/Geek-Care...

Quality. Quality excites me. I'm happy doing almost anything as long as I am free to do a great job.
Okay, that trends towards: * bigger companies * software companies (where you won't be micromanaged by a pointy-headed boss) * companies with more autonomy
> I don't know how to sell myself, ... could very much use help putting together a plan

The simple, direct approach is look for senior executives/managers WHO you know how to help. Linkedin's advance search feature is a great tool to source target prospects.

Suggest reading Mike Weinberg's New Sales Simplified, specifically - Chapter 14: Planning & Executing the Attack, helpful in your job search. > http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15863998-new-sales-simpli...

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