Ask HN: Career advice for a developer with 10+ years experience

30 years is just beginning, don't even bother about it Focus in your goal - Business Become a freelancer, lot of freelancing websites are there - elance,odesk,freelancer etc., etc., use your skills - php or js or whatever you know, and try to get some work and pay your bills.

if you can't even get one freelancing work, then consider it as you don't have exposure skills

if you can't complete a taken work, then you have to improve your skills

If you get to a point where ageism actually becomes an issue for you, I would suggest embedded systems engineering. With your C++ background it should be no problem for you, and in my experience firmware engineers tend to be older and don't have age bias like the rest of the industry. I enjoy firmware because you get to work fairly closely with actual physical things and apply your knowledge to an extremely wide array of real-world applications.

I don't know about other places, but I'm almost 36, with about 10 years of Java and web experience, and I keep getting more and more offers (from around the nation) from both enterprises and startups (twitter, amazon, rackspace, apple, google, netflix, Oracle, NCR, banks etc...).

I talked to a friend who works at Twitter (he is 37) and he told me it's not a "college graduate world" as some depict it, he said most people he works with are around his age (which was very encouraging for me).

Here in Atlanta there are tons of Sr. Java jobs, both enterprise and startups, at least based on the recruiter spam I get in LinkedIn.

When you say "too old in this industry" which industry are you talking about? SV? Web Startups (Ruby / Python / Node)? Gaming? Mobile? perhaps for these you are right. But for the companies I listed above, or any enterprise company in the country, your age is just about right, and your experience years are in demand. Again, don't know about C++ specifically, but if you had 10 years of Java, you would have easily landed multiple offers from various good companies around the country, at least this is what me and people I talk to in the Java community seem to experience.

I don't know if it's C++ that is different, but the "if you are 30+ then your career is over" situation is not something I see even close to the reality at least here in Atlanta.

Hope it encourages you a bit.

P.s. If you want to increase your spectrum of possible jobs, I recommend learning "less cool" technologies, like Java EE 7, Spring, Hibernate, or if you need to choose between Haskell / Go or Scala, go with Scala, it will be perhaps less cutting edge, but will give you much more job opportunities. Also learning Hadoop, Storm, MongoDB will make your resume look very attractive. Also you should pick up good github projects that show you are full stack, do some AngularJS projects, write a jQuery plugin, the jobs offers will follow (I got more than a few solely based on some nonsense plugins I wrote in github that look as if I know what I'm doing)

YMMV, all based on my very subjective experience here in Atlanta...

Any thoughts given to moving towards a Solution Architect role? Within the right organization, you could be doing some hands on but mostly involved with designing and leading the solution.

You are definitely not too old to continue to do development but it seems like you would like to move on from that.

I'm in a similar situation (early 30's, 10+ years of development experience) and also left a previous job to start a business that didn't work out and just came back to work at a 'normal' job.

There is a good demand for C++ programmers in financial hubs. In Europe, this is London. I see 20+ jobs being posted every week for senior C++ developers. I'm guessing Wall Street will have similar requirements. Game development is also an option, but at your age/experience, I don't recommend that industry. Of course there are other companies that require C++, my last job was making a portable (Mac, Linux, Windows, iOS and Android) music streaming library with custom DRM. You will find these 'odd' jobs with C++ requirements less frequently but can be a good option.

So, that's C++. Now about focusing on something else. It really depends on your goals/life. If you prefer a startup type company, then yes, node.js/ruby/Python are your best bets to get a job at those (doesn't mean Haskell or Scala won't get you a job) but if you prefer a more enterprise company (which there is nothing wrong, I do, since I have a small boy at home and really value the work/life balance I get) you should probably focus on either Java or C#. There are tons of jobs around for these technologies (in Europe, C# seems more in demand than Java, no idea on your location).

If you want, you can also always learn Obj-C or Java(Android). Mobile developers seem to be in hot demand right now and it can be something completely different from what you are used to do (which can be a good or bad thing depending on how you feel about learning)

Technologies aside, if your 10 years experience really brought you to Senior level (I've met folks that seemed to have just repeated the same year 10 times) I don't think you will have a problem finding a Senior role in whatever tech you choose. I started with C, moved to C++, then C#, Ruby/Rails, Obj-C. Even though I don't have 10 years experience with each of those, I easily found a job for senior developer (actually, I got a few interviews and got offers from all, from Sony to a big financial firm in London and small start upsas well.)

If you have any questions or just want to chat about your situation, shoot me an email (email on profile).

What's the startup/idea you tried to launch?

I wouldn't worry too much about age. If anything you can move to a management role, lay back, relax and save your mental energy for your side projects and next big idea.

I have no doubt ageism is real but it does not start in the 30's. Trust me. You have a few decades to go before ageism is your problem.

I am curious why you decided to quit job to work on your startup? Were you getting a lot of traction?

I have done something similar and learnt a great deal. The biggest lesson I learnt is to sell before you build. If you can't get enough people excited to buy your product don't build.

a bit off topic question:)

Perhaps the way how you approached your own startup was wrong. Why quit job entirely rather than develop some network of freelancers and outsource time consuming tasks to them? It will increase costs, but also greatly reduce overall risk.

I've been in a similar situation. My advice is to work in parallel. Maintain a steady income with minimal time investment and leave enough time on the side to work on your Startup. The key of course is having enough time on the side to be effective with the Startup. For many people, this is why they prefer Freelance/Consulting. Much easier to schedule and make your own schedule. I found Freelancing/Consulting to be too inconsistent for me personally, so I found an 'Industry Job' that only takes up 3-4 days a Week (alternating). This provides steady income, and leaves me 3-4 days a week to work on my Startup. Once the Startup shows enough traction to generate funding, then I will move to the Startup full time.

On my first Startup I made the mistake of going full time with no steady income. In hindsight, I should have maintained a lower steady income instead of having no steady income. With no income, I effectively put a limitation on my ability to work the Startup full time. Unless the Startup gains traction, you eventually run out of money and end up back at square one (or square zero depending on the situation).

Some people may be in really good positions that afford them the opportunity to work on their Startup full time and not have to worry about income. That's great for them, but for everyone else, it's 90 hour work weeks.