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I was laid off; my company lost their lease on an office. When I applied for unemployment insurance, I was told I have to wait five months before I can receive benefits.

I found NO jobs in my field. Fortunately, I have a backup, and currently being interviewed by a couple of potential employers.

As usual, employers are looking at the universal specification: wants everything right now for $1.95 -- which, if I wanted any of those jobs, I'd be looking at 3-6 months of training at a vocational school before having a hope of applying.

"Learn to code" says the "experts." I already know how to code, been doing it for 50 years, but not the right kind of coding that employers want now. Glad I learned how to write: lots more jobs there.

“Learn to code” says the “experts.” I already know how to code, been doing it for 50 years, but not the right kind of coding that employers want now.

As you know, there is lots of age discrimination in the software industry. The reason for it are as follows:

— An older person won’t work as hard — they will be especially relunctant to participate on a “Death March” coding project
— Not as flexible when it comes to new languages, tools and paradigms
— Unrealistic salary expectatios
— Fear that they will quit or retire in the middle of a project
— Concern that they won’t “bond” with the younger workers. Or won’t like be told to do by someone the age of their child (or even grandchild)

Sadly, there is some truth to all of the above.

"Learn to code" says the "experts." I already know how to code, been doing it for 50 years, but not the right kind of coding that employers want now. Glad I learned how to write: lots more jobs there.

I have a friend who is a developer, writer and tech support person. She went to Microsoft and wrote lots of documentation for them. She created the interface between the browser and Outlook mail and Microsoft literally stole it. The hire to write docs was a fair in-kind resolution for her. After a spat with a co-worker, she decided to move to Australia and became a citizen there. She writes documentation for US companies including analyzing software they don't understand and writing docs for their developers who haven't a clue without docs. That might me a niche you could leverage as well.

I've made good use of my development skills to be a better technical manager. It is helpful when writing clear tasks in JIRA with concisely spelled out requirements and conditions of satisfaction to call the task done.

I have to cobble up some CEUs for my Security+ certs before April 2023. CompTIA has a deal for $199 to do self-paced training. Estimated time to complete is 8 to 10 hours. It covers your CEUs for another 3 year increment. I'll be 69 at that point.