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Ask HN: Any job boards and age-friendly companies for older developers?

452 points by nonines ↗ HN
I've spent last year interviewing only to find out that I'm considered too old (I'm 45) for most shops around. They won't spit it out directly of course but people talk and what they say is that I need to be stellar or young to be hired. Companies won't invest in me the slightest bit, so the moment I miss a question in the long interview process I'm out of the door without second thought.

So...

1. I might be banging the wrong doors. E.g. FAANGs don't seem to be right. Any companies that don't drink/sell the youth cool-aid?

2. I might be searching at the wrong job boards. Any suggestions welcome.

3. Finally I might be better doing sth else altogether (but what?) rather than fighting a loosing battle against preconceptions that run so deep.

Anyway. Thanks for any non-insulting answers in advance.

PS: I'm based in EU and I'm a SW Dev working mainly in DevOps and Reliability.

463 comments

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znpy
You might be better off applying to companies directly through linkedin.

I've seen many positions that require seniority and had many colleagues even older than you.

jph98
In my experience of senior positions, they're typically ignored if you apply through Linkedin. You're better off going direct with a nice cover letter.
dominotw
> a nice cover letter.

Do people seriously read cover letters. I've often debated if its worth the time ivestment.

theonething
I used to always write custom cover letters to companies I was interested in and got responses often. This time, I got lazy and started submitting applications with resume only. The response rate stayed about the same. Cover letters don't really matter for me
znpy
I see cover letters as the the same as CVs/résumés: it can be a vector of either bs or interesting content.

I wouldn't write a cover letter unless the company explicitly asks me to, or unless I can add additional information that wouldn't be fit into the CV. For example, when I applied to Digital Ocean my cover letter was the correct place (in my opinion) to say that I've been a customer if theirs since 2014.

For the record, they were interested until I said I would have liked to work remotely (since they bragged extensively about remote work on their careers webpage).

janbernhart
This is a very difficult topic. Since discriminating on age is illegal in most countries, there aren't (much) sites/platforms where age is an actual explicit factor. Generally speaking, startups/scaleups are more inclined to hire younger folks. Older companies are more open to hire older engineers.

The bypass might be, looking for companies that have a lot of engineers with 15+ years of experience. You can do so with paid LinkedIn accounts. I'm happy to help with some specific searches if you don't have a paid LinkedIn account yourself.

OJFord
You might be right that's why they don't exist, but if so I'm not sure it's well-founded. The same legislation prevents discriminating on gender, but there's no problem (that I'm aware of, and there seem to be plenty of them) with women-specific recruitment/careers things.

You can't use age (resp. gender) as a factor in your decision making (bloody difficult to prove one way or the other most of the time I imagine) but that doesn't mean you can't run jobs4oldies.com or Women's Careers Day with Special Guest Sheryl McHighflyer.

That doesn't mean you should, but I'm pretty sure it's not illegal (in the UK, or generally against the spirit of similar legislation). IANAL.

janbernhart
It's indeed not illegal to do so. I'm just trying to explain why most job boards/ platforms don't register/work with age. Why there are a lot of initiatives around woman in tech and not oldies in tech? I'm afraid the answer is; there's a lot of karmapoints to be won first the former, while the latter will hurt your image/brand as the next best thing where magic happens.

(Not saying I agree with this or I like it, it's just what I see).

TheCoelacanth
In the US, it's only illegal to discriminate based on age of 40 or older, so it would be perfectly legal to run an ad that says "under 40 need not apply".
mobilefriendly
In fact the US government has employee programs that specifically hire 55 and up.
ttoinou
What about freelancing ? It'll be more flexible
dustingetz
specifically what types of companies are you applying to e.g. what size, industry?
exdsq
I've worked in companies that have had numerous developers your age or higher so don't worry, you will find somewhere. One thing I'd suggest is looking at consultancies in your area where experience is important. I've heard banking tends to have a slightly higher average age too. And finally, consider contracting! A senior experienced developer can earn a good bit of money and being 45 works for you rather than against!

FWIW, the consultancy I worked at that had multiple 'older' developers was https://oxfordcc.co.uk. They did some pretty cool stuff :)

sam_lowry_
I am based in Belgium and I was external consultant since I was 35. I am now 44 and I decided to switch to employee status at the company where I am now. They are planning to fire all consultants as their contracts expire, so it's either this or out.

Money-wise, I will loose, but I like the job, and good jobs are scarce nowadays.

ciguy
I second this. I am much younger than you (Early 30s) but very old looking for my age. People regularly guess that I'm 10 years older than I am. This has only worked to my advantage in the consulting space.

Companies want young naive employees who will work lots of unpaid overtime but when they hire consultants they want someone who's done the work before. There is a poise and sense of assurance that comes with age as well which you can definitely use to your advantage.

overqualified
Right until some mid-level prick wants a bonus and cuts costs, so your project is closed and contract terminated :-) Been there ...

But, the good thing is that nobody can fire you from your own business.

Give them a finger and use existing make, along with other binutils.

Good luck and don't pay attention to arrogant idiots.

ciguy
Oh totally. You have to view consulting like running a business and be constantly looking for new clients, there is no job security at all. But if you are decent with marketing and selective with your clients it can be super fun and rewarding.

It's also one of the least risky paths to starting a business if that's your thing. I ended up building a consulting agency out of it (https://startopsgroup.com) so it has definitely served me well.

mping
Send me an email, I know a nice company that may be recruiting. Remote friendly.
ssss11
How about applying to non tech industry companies... most big companies have software engineers. Ive worked in shipping/logistics/warehousing, consumer goods/manufacturing and legal all of which, in large companies, had older software engineers. (These roles werent in SV - europe and apac)
grewil2
Have you tried applying for a position in a public sector IT-department? The public sector should not age-discriminate, at least in theory.
yxhuvud
If you are in EU you should know enough to know that it is not a homogeneous place. Where are you located?

Also, what do you have experience of? Different work places may have different sources of people to employ.

Do4oolu5
Sorry to hear that. It's indeed an unfair situation and nothing is wrong with you, it's the industry that has a problem.

Have you considered building your own company? That's quite a change of skills, but that's what I've seen most "older" developers do.

BossingAround
Give me your email or let me know how I can contact you, we can think of something.
jerzyt
The situation in EU may be different than in the US. We also have the age issue, but I think the age is a red herring. People in tech change jobs so often that nobody is hiring for lifetime employment anymore. The best people leave in 2 to 3 years, because they get bored, get better opportunities, get poached, etc. So at 45 this shouldn't be an issue at all. But it is. I think that with age people become more aware of nonsense and are more reluctant to work ridiculous number of hours per week. And this awareness is highly correlated with age, the end result is the same. Have you been looking into consulting scene, where the experience counts more?
xavk
I'm one of the founders of https://otta.com - we're specifically focused on helping people find exciting roles at fast growing tech companies in London (but we don't include FAANGs).

Anecdotally, DevOps and Reliability is definitely a space where experience is valued and, although there might be the assumption that many of these startups drink the youth cool-aid, I think you might be pleasantly surprised.

wickerman
Have you tried applying for banks? Most of the contractors I worked with in banking in Ireland were older, 40+ including some 60 something, all python developers. I don't know what country you live in but both the UK and Ireland have anti-discrimination laws, so they can't discriminate based on age.
Cthulhu_
I'm 34 and I think I'm the youngest at my current employer; most of the development team is well in their 40's to 60's. The domain is mobile networking; these people used to work on things like SMS gateways and other core technology throughout the history of mobile networks, since the first technologies started to gain ground.

There's a lot to do still; right now 5G is on the roadmap, but we have to provide support for 4 and 3G as well. There's a lot of domain and protocol knowledge going on here.

Reliability yes, devops, not so much - our application is deployed as 'just' some RPM packages on physical hardware.

chooseaname
I think a lot of HN lean more towards SV web dev type stuff. But there's a world of software development out there beyond that. I work in the transportation industry and there's a lot of cool things I get to work with (my SO doesn't think it's cool that our office has antenna and sensors and things that go beep randomly, though). Even being remote doesn't matter (I've been remote for half a decade), they ship me the equipment I need.
theonething
That sounds so cool. I would love to learn more about that space. If you're willing to connect, email's in my profile
nonines
Same here. I'd love to hear more.
orwin
Devops and reliability will be usefull with the new DIH European initiative. My advice is looking at companies that position themselves as DIH, as they are often wiser than young startups.
sam_lowry_
Those EU-funded projects are really not the place to be for developers. I've been in a few of them and I always ended up doing paperwork and sitting in useless meetings. Before COVID-19 one would choose to work on such projects because of travel opportunities. Why now?
nherment
If you want you can reach out to me by emailing the address present at the bottom of this job offer: https://www.portchain.com/careers/611/full-stack-software-en...

Nevermind the actual job post :) We're based in DK and looking for remote employees.

andarleen
Not OP but I always found it odd that danish companies don’t post salaries in job ads. Just an observation vs the UK where it is common practice. Wondering if it’s one of the reasons, along with tax, salaries are so much lower in that country. Either way very kind of you to help OP, I highly recommend denmark as a country and culture.
cpach
Same thing in Sweden. Does US employers post the salaries in the ads?
lotsofpulp
Generally, the US does not. If they do for a higher paying position, I would find it weird and/or a sign that they aren’t open to negotiation, which I would take to mean they aren’t competitive (but that means you also have to be desirable enough to have options).
andarleen
Not sure about the US, they do in the UK tho. I usually don't consider ads without pay info.
onion2k
They won't spit it out directly of course but people talk and what they say is that I need to be stellar or young to be hired. Companies won't invest in me the slightest bit, so the moment I miss a question in the long interview process I'm out of the door without second thought.

You're saying is that you're not a good fit technically and would need some investment in terms of either time or training, and companies are choosing not to go with that option. Why is that ageism?

brooklyn_ashey
It is ageism when a company would hire a 25 year old with the same skill set but would’t hire the 45 year old in those circumstances (or insert anyone in a protected class). The point is, they arehappy to invest in young ppl but not so-called “older” ones. The only way around this is collective action that includes the young- other industries have unionized and sued again and again w class actions to protect themselves and their futures. It’s how discrimination became “illegal”
onion2k
The point is, they arehappy to invest in young ppl but not so-called “older” ones.

The OP didn't say that they are. He only said they're not willing to invest in him. Based on the limited data in what was posted companies aren't hiring him for roles he isn't qualified for, and they are hiring younger people. That's his evidence for ageism. Maybe he's right. Maybe the younger people just don't need that investment.

The point here is that the OP has literally said he's being rejected for roles he can't do. That changes what advice he should be getting considerably. He's trying to fix the problem he wants (being discriminated against) instead of the problem he has (applying for roles he's not going to get).

I have no doubt ageism is a huge problem. I'm 43, and I've experienced it. One company was quite open that I was rejected because I wouldn't be a good fit culturally despite being the most experienced candidate. I don't think that's the case here though.

nonines
That is not what I said. That is what you understood.

In any case my experience up to now is being rejected with no good reasons (at least IMO) relatively far in the game. If you are looking for reasons to reject someone it is easy to find them as you surely know.

From other sources I learned that my (older) age is working against me in this game. How much so I do not know. Thus my questions.

[dead] brooklyn_ashey
The Ayn Randian perspective isn’t all that helpful for those in protected classes, and the sunset of her life and career (depressingly) argued strongly against her theories re: ubermenschen...
Grustaf
I'm 42 in Scandinavia and have never felt that companies care about age, I've been working both for tiny startups and a FAANG. Maybe you're in the wrong EU country?
jeltz
Another anecdote: when my dad was laid off at 65 he managed to get multiple offers without too much effort here in Sweden.
andarleen
What country are you in? Afaik in the UK you shouldnt have issues. When I was a head of dev I personally NEVER discriminated based on age (or other reasons such as race, gender, region, etc for that matter), and neither have others i know nor have i heard people raising this issue.
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dominotw
unconscious bias is by definition unconscious.
bryanrasmussen
My experience is that once I hit a certain age, and salary, almost nobody wanted to hire me full time but lots of people wanted to hire me to consult. General rule: Make sure you take at least 2 times as much per hour when you consult.
vmlinuz
I'm a similar sort of age, and having trouble finding something this year - not that this year isn't a terrible time to be looking for anyone, of course. I was actually the oldest engineer in my previous place, out of over 70. I seem to have found myself in a couple of catch-22 situations - I have both wide/shallow experience and narrow/deep, but if I'm looking for senior positions that means mostly only the deep experience counts, which means I've got narrow skills. I'm also a Brit based in Hong Kong, who doesn't speak Cantonese - not a huge barrier, generally, but it just further narrows my opportunities. I've actually had a couple of people this week ask if I'd be interested in something remote for a North American company, but working at least partly in their timezone, which doesn't really seem sensible, given it would mean destroying my social life and/or sleep...

I'm recently mostly a backend web/API dev working in PHP and Python/Django, but I've done Unix kernel work, written a few Android apps, and a few other random things. I've worked in large companies, in a local unicorn, and as a solo freelancer.

I'm not necessarily sure it's age itself that's a problem, but maybe a combination of factors where age is part of the cause/effect chain?

To be clear, as well as my thoughts, this is also a "hire me, please?" post!

slmkbh
In my company (DK Based), the youngest SW dev(not based in India) is 38, so the companies are out there. I'm one of the youngest HW engineers at 35. My guess is that we average close to 50 in R&D. Granted, we are in Medical Devices, so young gun speed is not our thing, but still.