One of the most enduring questions in the Internet workplace is where are all the programmers over 35? Can you do this till you’re 40? Can you still code in your 40s?

Yesterday, I received a post from a 40-something programmer who shared his career experience.

45 years old and nearly 20 years old, used to do software development, technical department management. In December 2019, I began to send out my resume to look for a job. After 7 months of unremitting efforts, I finally found an ordinary technical job.

The following is a reconstruction of the long process of job hunting, hoping to shed a little light on the unemployed in 2020.

Shenzhen is a young city, but also a young people’s city. I’m ashamed that an older man my age needs to come out and fight for a job with a younger man.

But life is life, in addition to poetry and distance, life is more casual and firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, is the expenditure of a family, understand people naturally understand me.

If the age requirement is indicated on the recruitment post, I will not take the initiative to submit my resume. This is the least respect. There is no need to waste their time if they are not in line with their age.

Over a period of seven months, I got three interviews. Fortunately, I entered the second interview for the three times. I succeeded in the second interview and gave up the first entry opportunity. I seized the tail of June and started to work in early July.

Due to my age and the impact of the Spring Festival epidemic, I was lucky to receive my first interview opportunity in May 2020. It was a Shenzhen branch of a Beijing listed company, and I applied for the position of technical management.

Because my experience basically meets the job requirements of the company, there may be another factor (the guess has not been verified). The interviewer and I have both had entrepreneurial experience, which can be regarded as a close distance between us. Therefore, it is relatively easy to pass the initial interview and make an appointment for the second interview with the branch boss the next day.

The boss is a middle-aged lady business background, analysis of the conversation from the out is almost the same age with me, after some talk can feel more care about her age, very normal, now most of the company’s recruitment requirements are marked as the age of 38, within the 45 age also can I get the interview opportunity I’ve been very grateful. Finally, I politely said that when they called, I knew there was a high probability of no job offer.

The second interview was also in May. The boss of the technical department asked me to wait for the news after the interview. The boss may have to have a second interview. I don’t have much hope, because the company is too far away from my place. I go to work at 8:30 in the morning, and the commuting time is more than 2 hours, so I can get up at 5:30 without being late.

About a week later, I actually received the company’s employment notice, saying that the boss was back on a business trip and did not need a second interview. Maybe the position was in urgent need of someone to take over and I did not find a more suitable person, so I was chosen. But I really do not want to go, talk about the next salary from my requirements are still some gap, give up not to go to work, thank them for the job opportunity.

The third interview was in June, also for a technology development job. Before the interview, I took the initiative to ask the personnel of the company about my age. The personnel said that the company has no hard requirements on age, and it mainly depends on ability, age is not a problem. In order to make an appointment in the past interview, the first interview is two technical boss together, basically I have done all the questions mentioned, so the first test is relatively smooth, after the interview, the personnel directly told me that I passed the first test, and then let me come over two days for a second interview, because the boss is on a business trip for two days before returning to the company. After returning home, HR contacted me in the afternoon and told me that the boss was going to call me for a second interview the next day. There was no need to wait until he came back for a second interview.

During this difficult job search, I have three lessons to share with you:

  • The current environment is not good, can provide more jobs to the job seekers, to cherish every interview opportunity;
  • Most of the positions in the company are streamlined according to the minimum configuration. The company hopes to recruit employees who deeply match the job requirements, reduce the cost of training and trial period adaptation, and reduce the enterprise risk.
  • Many companies are relatively taboo about age, so it is really not easy to find a job in Shenzhen when you are over 38 years old. Young people should be alert to danger in times of peace and make a good career plan.

Interview Review route

If you are also preparing for the interview but don’t know how to review efficiently, you can refer to my review route. If you have any questions, you are welcome to communicate with each other. Come on!

Here is a direction for systematic learning:

1. Watch videos for systematic learning

The Crud experience in the past few years has made me realize that I am really a fighter in dishes. Because of Crud, my skills are scattered and not in-depth and systematic, so it is necessary to learn again. What I lack is systematic knowledge, structure framework and ideas. Therefore, learning through video is better and more comprehensive. As for video learning, I can recommend website B for learning. There are many learning videos on website B, but the only disadvantage is that they are free and easily outdated.

In addition, I also have several sets of video collection, I can also share with you free of charge, [click the blue word] you can get.

2. Systematically comb knowledge and improve reserve

Client development knowledge is so much, interview questions are still a little bit of stuff. So there are no other tips for interviews, just how prepared you are for them. So, when you go out for the interview, find out where you are in your revision.

Systematic learning direction:

  • ** Essential skills for architects: ** Deep Java generics + annotations + Simple + concurrent programming + Data transfer and serialization +Java Virtual Machine principles + reflection and class loading + dynamic proxy + efficient IO

  • **Android advanced UI and FrameWork source code: ** Advanced UI promotion + FrameWork kernel analysis +Android component kernel + data persistence

  • **360° All-round performance tuning: ** Design philosophy and code quality optimization + program performance optimization + development efficiency optimization

  • ** Interpretation of open source framework design ideas: ** hot repair design + plug-in framework interpretation + component-based framework design + picture loading framework + network access framework design +RXJava responsive programming framework design +IOC architecture design +Android architecture components Jetpack

  • **NDK module development: **NDK basic knowledge system + underlying picture processing + audio and video development

  • ** wechat small program: ** small program introduction +UI development +API operation + wechat docking

  • **Hybrid Development with Flutter: **Html5 project Combat + Advancements with Flutter

After the knowledge is sorted out, it is necessary to check and fill in the gaps. Therefore, I have prepared many e-books and notes for these knowledge points, which make a perfect summary of each knowledge point.

Read the source code, look at the actual combat notes, learn the great god ideas

“Programming languages are the way programmers express themselves, and architecture is the way programmers perceive the world.” Therefore, programmers want to quickly recognize and learn architecture, reading source code is essential. Reading source code is solving problems + understanding things, and more importantly: seeing the ideas behind it; Programmers said: read ten thousand lines of source code, line ten thousand practices.

It mainly contains wechat MMKV source code, AsyncTask source code, Volley source code, Retrofit source code, OkHttp source code and so on.

4, the eve of the interview, brush the question sprint

A week before the interview, start sprinting. Please remember, brush questions, technology priority, algorithm to see some basic, such as sorting can, and intelligence questions, unless it is a school recruit, otherwise generally not how to ask.

I sorted out the interview questions of big factories I had brushed before the interview. Why did I brush the interview questions of big factories? First-tier Internet companies are the weather vane of technological development.

[Click on the blue word]Get the full notes for free.

conclusion

To change your life, there is no shortcut at all. This road needs to be taken by yourself. Only deep thinking, continuous reflection and summary, keeping the enthusiasm for learning, and building a complete knowledge system step by step are the ultimate winning ways and the mission that programmers should undertake.