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No, the candidates, they search for, don't exist. And yes, most job offerings aren't actually real. Also, you have as much chance on getting one of the real jobs as most others when you can tick _any_ box on the list.
No, going back to school isn't going to make anything better because development is really hard to teach. So you probably learn faster by actually doing it in a real project - researching what you need as you need.
Yes, other industries exist. If it doesn't have to be "web" or "mobile" and you are willing to code in less modern languages, there should be opportunities for "old farts" too. If you really like coding, get a job which has nothing to do with coding and doesn't consume all your mana. then you can build what you want in your free time and still can feed your family.
Support your wife as good as you can while she brings home the bacon. Since the 1970ies, being a househusband isn't considered shameful anymore. -
No school teaches experience and even if you do not know the latest tech it still builds on the previous and you should be able to learn a lot on the job.
That is how I have kept up for 36 years now, or 30 if you only count the time of full time employment.
The last languages I learned in any kind of school was C and before that old basic.
Everything else I have learned by my self or on the job.
But your right in that you need to keep learning in this business but going back to school is probably not worth it.
What are the skills requested and what are you skills? -
Taken from a rant seen here.
Just go out there and apply on jobs that you have atleast some of the "required" stuff they ask for. You'll see that in most cases they'll settle for way less as long as you seem experienced enough to pick up new skills while learning. There are just way too many stacks and languages and frameworks and so on that it is frankly impossible to be proeficient in all of them.
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Just apply if you have a few matches, and as long as the ones you don't match you're at least WILLING to learn. As someone else said, sell the experience you have, it's your most valuable asset.
And besides, "knowing" something is a spectrum. I mean, I "know" Angular, but my experience with it isn't all that great, but I'm sure as hell still gonna put it on my resume! (though I'm not sure I'd be willing to take an "Angular job" because what experience I do have tells me it's horrific... but I digress). Honestly, when I interview people, I'm looking for surface-level knowledge of most things I'm asking about (with a few deep-dive topics). I think most interviews are like that.
But don't waste your time out of work either! Make sure you're reading and playing with popular stuff to get at least that surface-level knowledge I mentioned. It'll definitely help... and you don't need real schooling because "proper education" is kind of a joke for this industry frankly. -
Thanks for the comments. I’m willing to be the house husband but she’s used to me being the breadwinner and we also need dual incomes. So even though she said originally with these last two layoffs to take time and find the right fit, apparently there’s a limit to that time. And my other entrepreneurial endeavors always are making her anxious (I’ve had a track record of failure there as well).
But, honestly, I’ve been hitting a wall for the last year. The job I just got let go from was really stressful and I wasn’t able to keep up. I’m slow. I’m not a quick study with literally anything. Managers lose patience with how long it takes me to grok stuff and when I’m stressed I lack attention to detail. I’m not a good programmer because of dyscalculia. So the thought of learning more at this stage just fills me with existential dread. I keep looking for complete career switch opportunities but all I can come up with is fast food or janitorial. -
You probably should consider 80% of these postings a product of illiterate individuals that don't have a slightest idea of what they request. They'll often forget to mention that "either" skill is enough, the percent of these, or assert that everything is needed to find a "perfect match". And yes, it sounds awfully familiar to dating websites now.
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@stackodev honestly this is a case to find a recruiter. Somebody who specifically goes for wp shops tha need maintainers
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@stackodev Non-brainy jobs still exist. Depending on your ability to focus and/or body fitness, there might be unlearned jobs in manufacturing or utilities.
It is almost impossible to find people who can repeat simple mechanical tasks a hundred times without completely botching it.
Search for "low level" jobs, no one wants to do, that you can and would be willing to do. They tend to pay okay as long as they aren't in healthcare or logistics. -
Yes those job listings are bs everything above 5 years is a stupid requirement and if you have good experience with 4 languages you can pick up just about anything. Foundations stay the same frameworks , platforms and derived technologies change.
With all the respect I do feel a resistance to learn and try new things this is where I would drop my candidates.
In 26 years only wordpress and only maintenance site for, to me that is not someone in the programming industry. I think your strengths may lie in project management and WordPress site building/design.
So my advice would be to look for those jobs. See if you are able to expand this beyond the WordPress ecosystem if you are willing to learn and grow technically.
Your foundations are likely in UX and making stuff happen and secure. These are valuable skills. -
What do you do now? I went freelance five years ago and never looked back precisely because I don’t have to deal with this bollocks. Half of those essential/desirable lists are written by fuckwitted recruiters who like saying “Kubernetes” or eager to please juniors, none of which helps you but, so you know, literally nobody is walking around with the complete skills these descriptions demand. I honestly feel your pain because there are so many cack wizards in the industry now, guessing you’re also British so one other thing I’d suggest is looking into Canadian visas. The Brexit brain drain is the best thing to happen to their tech industry, I don’t even think you need a job to walk into and I have to imagine their tech is less toxic than the London bro scene.
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@hjk101 It's not really a resistance to learn. It's more an inability to retain information that isn't being used regularly. I try to retrain myself on things I know while picking up new stuff, but the information won't "stick". Even for the period of a month. If I go 30 days without doing "a thing" that I've learned, it's like I never learned it. Memory like a sieve. That's the dyscalculia I've got going for me. Lovely disorder.
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@MM83 Not British, but I love your slang and words for stuff. :) Part of my family hails from Faceby, Hambleton, North Yorkshire a long way back and I like reading about them (the info I have anyways). And I wish we in the U.S. would start using metric. So much easier for my math-addled brain to convert between.
Freelancing is what I'm doing now. It pays the bills but it's spotty. Trying to get my own thing going but getting resistance from the missus who likes the familiar bennies of working for a corporation. I'm applying for everything and anything based on the advice from this rant and then if I get an interview, I'm gonna be super clear what I'm good and not good at. If they hire me, at least I gave fair warning. -
@stackodev I'm trying to start one with my other half (yeah I know, can only end well), she's very good at telling people to leave me alone which is all I really need in a PM.
I'm from the other side of the country but I'm happy you take an interest in it, a place that's probably better experienced second-hand right now tbh. You could always hop over the border, I don't think the Visa free-for-all is just for other subjects of the Queen - but it's obviously not as simple as that. Good luck with whatever you choose to do! -
You're doing this to yourself. Just say you have the experience to the bottom feeding gatekeeper.
Then during the interview say you don't have the experience but learn quick and have countless transferable knowledge from your extensive experience as a programmer.
People interviewing aren't the same people writing job descriptions. It's stupid AF but that's how it is, and since 90% of us are slightly on the spectrum it's fucking stressing us out because we're too logical for that shit. -
@stackodev I just read you're mainly a wordpress guy. That was a very wrong career bet unfortunately, but you could easily become the CSS guy in a company where nobody wants to touch it, including front end engineers who prefer to focus on logic.
If I were you I'd try to become a CSS3 *expert* and would apply for jobs that need a great CSS guy to handle styling. Web agencies are a great bet for you to pick your career back up.
Good luck! -
@glemiere In hindsight, which is always 20/20, maybe WordPress wasn’t as good as other choices, but it was the right one at the right time for me then. WordPress has put food on my table and a roof over my head for 15 years. And it has potential to do so for another 15 if I were as motivated now as I was when I first started working with it, and if I had the ability to keep up. But the increasing complexity of ALL software and integrations, even with WordPress, is not working for my particular brain. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Frontend-developer's day is like:
*moving element by 0.0001px to right*:
- *10 new pages appeared*
- *tex...
Manager: Hey, how are things with everything thats been going on? Hows the mood?
Me:
I’m so sick of the programming industry. It’s no longer fun. After 26 years, I’m utterly unable to keep up with all the new BS I’m supposed to know. I’m currently unemployed and every job description I see has a kilometer-long list of dozens of languages and protocols and technologies I’m supposed to have 10 or more years with. Utter bollocks. I’m completely unemployable according to these expectations. Nobody will even consider me for hire. Do these candidates actually exist?
Sure, I could do what everyone suggests and “go back to school”. But with what money? And only to find out that the tech bros have invented 20 new things I should have been learning during my 2-4 years getting on the new stuff. Not to mention all the time I will have lost in not being employed for going to school. And then STILL not having the “10 or more years experience”.
My wife is tapping her foot wondering when we’re gonna be able to stop eating through our savings while I dither around and try to find ways to make money. I’m starting to feel like I’ll never be employed or employable again.
rant
done