In my experience, you should be applying at small to medium-sized companies that are not tech companies. There's a ton of work in these companies and hiring is more focused on solving business problems than answering brainteasers in interviews. Just go to LinkedIn and search Jobs for "PHP", here's one right off the bat that fits your skillset: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3094812914/

Yes 100%. If you, OP, are already outside of a major tech metro (so not SF, NYC, Seattle, Boston) then even better. Small companies outside of major tech metros are desperate for developers who can code because these companies cannot compete on stock or salary the same way major tech metro companies do. These small companies often even train up smart-looking people who don't know code already just to fill their needs.

Judging solely from your "resume", OP, you are in a very good position.

Try looking around Craigslist too for local companies hiring developers. That's how I got my start ~10 years ago making $70k or so. If you have any code you can share, try emailing the CEO/CTO directly explaining your interest and sharing your resume and code.

And always ignore the exact qualifications listed and apply anyway. You don't know what the candidate pool looks like for a company and listings tend to inflate what they need or can get.

Happy to chat more in email (see my HN profile) since I was in a somewhat similar place as you, OP, years ago.

Anyone, not just OP welcome to message me.

>Try looking around Craigslist too for local companies hiring developers.

Here's the funny thing- My best career years were at jobs I found on Craigslist. They still paid pretty low next to decent traditional job sectors (banking, logistics, etc) that hire devs, but WLB was usually very good. I felt lucky to have worked at a web agency that, while not very reputable, at least didn't work their engineers to the bone at late hours.

Then I tried to "level up" around 2015-16 moving to major corporate listings on LinkedIn, Indeed, and Angel.co for startups etc, and was taken aback at how the jobs market there showed no mercy to me. I was striking out every time.

Falling behind in web tech most likely also had something to do with it, but in any case, it made my plans for a better future more difficult. I was on and off with attempting that side of the market, hence the sporadic nature of my freelance jobs in the late 2010's.

I live in a non-tech MCOL metro area. Is CL still ripe for dev work in 2022? I stopped using it after 2014 but I have noticed back then that listings were starting to dry up.

Other ideas: Would you also suggest consultancies and body shops like Accenture and Deloitte? Or would that be too out of my league? I'm just curious on the "they hire anyone with a degree" stereotype and curious to test how accurate that is.

I will message you later if I have any more questions that might come up.

It's a numbers game. I've worked for startups and Oracle and Linode. I have a somewhat popular blog and somewhat popular Github projects.

It still takes me maybe 50-100 applications before I find the right job every time I go searching.

It's easy to get discouraged but just take breaks when you need to and keep trying. At least, that's what I do!

I've taken some breaks as well. Since COVID I have personally recorded at least 1,000 job applications, 800 in the last year alone, with ~30 interviews. Got burned out last fall, and trying to get back into a rhythm of 5 per day. But I also get a lot of recruiter emails anyway and a lot of choices there too. Sometimes it can get overwhelming.

It’s time to approach your search differently

Learn to build a network inside the companies you want to work for

Start with Sarah Johnston’s advice: https://briefcasecoach.com/

Having worked in HR - you are trapped in the ATS system black hole. Never apply for a job cold. Always have an employee refer you in. You will 3x your chances (from 2% to 6%) with that one decision.

Employment isn’t by companies, it’s by teams.

Get your LinkedIn & Twitter game going.

I’ve been where you are. I made $50k more a year by making the decision to hire a career coach.

You’ve got a lot to offer. Giver yourself a real chance.

Have you tried taking a job at a Contracting firm type place? (Accenture, Revature, TCS) they do hire American on shore contractors, and they hire basically anyone. Go in, do some work for a year or two to at least get a bit of corporate recent work experience, and jump to somewhere better.

I haven't applied to all the ones I know, but my application to Infosys in 2020 was rejected (full stack Java dev). I had assumed these body shops just train you to fill in the gaps. It's been 2 years so I'm gonna give it ago again with similar companies. And test this theory because I was "basically anyone" and they still rejected my application.

Woah, 800 in the last year alone? That's a _ton_ of applications. Are you sending unique cover letters with each one?

It might be better to focus on quality over quantity in this case. Has anyone reviewed your resume and given pointers?

Agreed, this seems like a case for getting external help. Career coach, resume reviewer, practice interviews, mentoring, etc. Stay humble, ask for help!

> It still takes me maybe 50-100 applications before I find the right job every time I go searching.

To get some data points with others' experience, how long does the period of submitting 50–100 applications take? How about time between first contact to hire? (That is, for a given company you've ended up working for, how long between submitting your application to that company and receiving an offer?)

For me, 6-12 months.

Hey OP, have you considered applying for tech jobs in non-tech fields? For example, instead of applying at web agencies & consultancies, applying for openings directly with small to mid size employers in other industries, like ecommerce shops, local retail chains, niche manufacturing (bicycles, automobiles, outdoor equipment, supply chain components, whatever you're interested in), hospitals, museums, universities, school districts, etc.

These employers are often less discriminating when it comes to tech skills (especially the smaller ones), and the interviews would be more general... fewer coding challenges (if any), more about teamwork, overall cultural fit, your ability to do other semi-related tasks (SEO, graphics, etc.). They don't hire the best coders, nor do they pay the most, but they are a great way to get your foot in the door.

I got my start in a similar way, first with HTML/CSS/Wordpress (mostly self-taught), then rapidly learned other skills along the way, mostly on the job. A few years later I decided to specialize in the frontend. Pay went from $15/hr to about ~$50/hr in about 3 years. Definitely not tech sector pay, but more than a livable wage for sure. And great work-life balance. My particular field is clean energy, and it's a still-growing sector with a lot of tech-adjacent opportunities.

So I guess making a return to PHP web shops but just "doing your job better" and take advantage of FTE opportunities for promotions, etc. Correct?

The job in that link is a junior job. I'm pretty open to reverting to a junior W2 job, with a modest (but not too low) salary, BUT it does raise the concern of presenting myself to employers.

I already know that a lot of employers will see 10 years experience and applying to junior jobs as a big red flag. Do I just present myself with a shorter resume, with less experience? Navigating the jobs market when you're stagnating 10 YOE and "expert beginner" is a big headache.

If you do well, you'll quickly get promoted out of a Junior role so I wouldn't focus too much on the title. Focus on fit. That said you should be fine applying for normal roles just at small to medium-size non-tech companies. Do ask for your value in salary and don't take something that doesn't pay you what you are worth.

Resume: Just make it tight and to the point. In interviews, press that you can solve their problems and work well with their team. Avoid companies that want live-coding whiteboard interviews and focus on ones that do take-homes or other assessments to ensure you are a good fit.

Having read a few of your responses, you seem to be over-thinking it. You need to just get in a role, start performing and start working your way up. Don't be afraid to switch jobs at the 1-year mark as opportunities arise if they don't value your growth and contributions, but try to avoid leaving a job < 1 year unless it turns out to be a bad fit and/or unsupportive.

This all sounds good to me. I'd prefer companies that would give me the benefit of the doubt. In addition to what you've suggested, I also want to avoid displaying all the red flags (or minimize them, at least) that user "codegeek" talked about. 2.5 years unemployed and 10 years of relatively little progress is not a good look, and this issue is probably the first objective I must overcome.

With job applications, I will try out an A/B test with resumes. One of them with a lot of years pruned from my experience so that employers will have fewer negative biases about looking like a dinosaur or other related "laziness".

You don't need to show that you haven't been working. Just stretch out your freelancing entry. You were still a freelancer at the time.

>Just stretch out your freelancing entry.

I also did that and it got people to wonder, in resume reviews, why my freelance content is so short given the amount of years.

I have done ~18 months worth of work in the time spanning from 2015 until now. It is sparse. So looks like there's not an easy way to spin this. I might just tell them I was a caretaker for my mom (which is the truth).

If you can explain why you're going back to junior, employers will be more than ok with it. Today it's not uncommon to see people changing careers in the industry, you seem to be going from a freelancer/"webmaster" type of role to a better-paid SWE career. Not a big jump, but still a change.

Do you get contacted by recruiters? It's in their interest to be honest to you about your chances, they might be able to provide good feedback or even direct you to companies that fit you.

Yeah, I get loads of emails from recruiters every week. Usually for contract senior positions. I ignore most of them and may ask one to filter me for junior jobs if it's possible.

I would try to reach back to them for help positioning you in a (well earning) junior or mid-level position.

Companies also want that, honestly. Hiring juniors and mid-level is a pain in the ass too.

Someone with a lot of field experience but willingness to learn would be a good fit in lots of companies.

Also lots of companies need people to working with marketing. For this case your skills are far from outdated.

(Sorry for the late reply!)

I spoke to a recruiter about a web producer role and she told me she needed someone who knew html for 7 years so you shouldn’t think you’re overqualified for a job just because it says junior in the title

I will be brutally honest and hoping to help you with some advice. You have a few red flags that may give a pause to prospective employers and it has nothing to do with your doing boring PHP etc.

- You have not worked for 2.5 years. That is a big gap and you need to be explain it well. Unfortunately there is lot of competition these days and anyone with that large of a gap without a good and reasonable explanation will find it difficult.

- You have never seemed to hold a proper W2 job and if you now are looking for one, you have to make that case which is not easy. For example, what happened with that 3 months full time W2 and then unemployed ? Did you quit yourself ? Were you let go/laid off/fired ?

I think your biggest challenge is that you have technically "worked" for over a decade but seems like you don't have much to show for it unfortunately. This is where most employers may get a pause.

Good news it that PHP, vanilla JS/jQuery etc are very much in demand. You need to be more focussed in your approach and fix the negatives. Perhaps go back to one of our freelance clients and ask for a job if they are hiring ? You need to have someone vouch for you since you have been out there for a long time. Then go from there.

I hope this was helpful and not overly critical. Just trying to give it to you straight.

Don't stress about the gap. I addressed mine by saying:

"I had bitcoin and like climbing rocks and doing stuff, now I don't have any bitcoinlololol"

and it was totally fine. People just want to see if you will flinch.

Where did you climb? Did you follow the seasons or stick to one area? I’ve been doing the same off and on and found van lifing to be fun but lonely, even when traveling with a partner.

> You have not worked for 2.5 years. That is a big gap and you need to be explain it well.

God forbid people save up a bunch of money and decide to not work for a year or two.

God forbid people have health issues that keep them from working.

God forbid people lose their job, struggle at finding a new one - not because they're incompetent but because they're terrible at job hunting. Or because the job loss triggers mental health issues (which you can't get addressed because you don't have a job and lots of mental health professionals either don't touch anyone on insurance period, or they don't touch people on the subsidized healthcare plans.)

Employers: "WE CAN'T FIND ANYONE TO WORK FOR US!"

Employee with a 2.5 year gap: "Uh, hi?"

Employers: "Not you."

That’s why OP said you will need to explain it well… What you have listed are all perfectly valid explanations.

Everyone with disadvantages gets victimized by the PVP aspects of our world. It is reality. One must deal with it the best they can. And it is getting worse.

Agreed. This is a sick and denigrating attitude to take towards people, who might just maybe, possibly have prolonged lapses of other priorities in life besides improving bottom line value for others during half their day. And it shouldn't need some sort of rigorous justification as if one were a peon who had better make amends for not worshipping "hustle" every year of their damn adult life.

> God forbid people save up a bunch of money and decide to not work for a year or two.

That's interesting. My assumption is that you would need to work so that you can save a bunch of money.

Like the 11.75y of work that preceded it?

Your skills have almost certainly deteriorated in that time if they have not been used. I think that is a valid concern from an employer's perspective, don't you?

If the value of the skill has a life-cycle of two years, then precisely how qualified is this job?

The problem with a gap is that it "smells" of a "deficient person" that there is no demand for.

I think the only solution that actually works is to bullshit through the doubt.

Employers who want a front end developer can hire a boot camp grad who has more up to date skills.

I'll have to work my experience to my advantage, then. Squeeze out every last drop I can get, even if it's not much. Or go for one of those bootcamps.

I have to show that I'm still better than less experienced bootcamp grads, because I have not been able to accept that I wasted many years of my life.

If you haven’t kept up with technology, you probably have.

That’s harsh. But it’s not meant to be judgmental. I’ve told the story plenty of times how I became an “expert beginner” by the time I was 35 (I’m 48 now). I was still doing VB6 in 2008 when it was discontinued in 2001. It was until 2016 (at 42) that I had any type of “lead position”.

All you can do now is upskill and get current. I couldn’t spell AWS or “cloud” until 2018 (at 44) when I first logged into the console.

My first job at any company you have ever heard of was 2 years ago.

Also, the landscape changed a lot since the time you started pivoting at 2008. That's just one year after the time I started my career, competition was less fierce.

Now I'm curious it it's become more difficult in the present day for an expert beginner to rebound, when there's far more beginner competition and boot camps are springing up everywhere today.

On the other hand, there are also a lot more learning resources online since the late 2000s. Still trying to weigh both things in my head and estimating whether a 2022 expert beginner would be at a net advantage today compared to 14 years ago.

jQuery in demand? Since when outside legacy work?

Legacy work includes websites that were written a few years ago, but still work and don't need to be completely redone. Add some features, but a rebuild is unnecessary.

The point is, there is a ton of legacy work out there.

- Go to Laracasts.com. Get up to speed with "The PHP Practitioner", "Object Oriented Bootcamp" and the "Laravel from Scratch" Series.

- Look for PHP/Laravel Jobs in your area

I love the so called TALL stack (Tailwind, AlpineJS, Laravel, Livewire) which is extremely easy to use and allows you to build modern reactive apps. So if you want to work fullstack but don't want to learn a Javascript framework like React or VueJS, maybe check out Livewire, too. Tailwind is IMO the defacto way of writing CSS these days. There's tons of material on that out there, too.

Haven't worked much with Laravel, but I know it's been around for many years now. I have MVC experience so it should not be so hard to get the basics. Laravel was something I had a very small brush with in a 2018 job. Was really burned by the client so it ended quickly.

Also, please excuse me from going on a tangent here. I have some kind of paranoia about picking a library or framework for a job, only for it to fall in demand soon after. Like how can I tell if some framework like Laravel is in the twilight years or not? My MVC of choice in 2012 was CodeIgniter. Nobody really uses that anymore. Not a good thing for my career. I just have an irrational fear of just picking the "late" thing again. Like the same fear some people get that every stock they buy in the stock market causes the price to go down.

On the JS side of things, I picked up VueJS and React for some side projects. I'm probably more up to date on VueJS though. (another dev informed me that my React project's code is 6 years out of date and nobody really codes React like that anymore)

Switching this mindset might be one of your biggest potential game-changers and frankly something you should have done years ago.

Over my life, I've gone deep down countless of such "dead ends". The same goes for most distinguished people I've worked with. Except they're not necessarily dead ends - syntax and APIs aside, so many concepts, practices and thinking can translate across. Ideally focus on first principles.

Being comfortable with picking up some new obscure thing, getting up to speed quick, and then moving on to the next one after x days/weeks/months/years, is one of several distinguishing aspects of a veteran.

That doesn't mean you should scurry around drilling down on random things for the sake of it, rather that a curious and fearless approach will naturally bring you there over time.

Maybe set aside x hours per week for some small personal project where you apply new technologies to get familiar with them and the process. For example Laravel, or whatever else seems relevant or fun to you. Move on to adding on some new frontend library like React or Vue or whatnot. If nothing else it should make you feel more comfortable during interviews.

You are a software engineer. Learning and picking up new things should be your bread and butter. No major tech company test for "framework" knowledge over fundamentals. If you know how http and network requests work, how state and architecture are handled on server and client side, then all frameworks are the same. Frameworks are just abstractions on top of the basics.

> If you know how http and network requests work, how state and architecture are handled on server and client side, then all frameworks are the same.

Also, if you know all this, you have an advantage over a lot of green coders that came up focusing on the frameworks and higher level technologies. This shows up as next-level debugging and troubleshooting skills when compared to the noobs. I know new kids who can run circles around me when it comes to advanced react topics but can’t do the basic troubleshooting that tells you what layer of the system a request failure came from. Something tells me this old freelancer could.

I don't think you should be too worried about specific technologies or frameworks. If you are strong in Web Development, Javascript, CSS, HTML, etc. then picking up React or Angular or Vue or whatever shouldn't be a lot of trouble. You have over 10 years of experience, so leverage that.

Most of my work experience has been in Java, Javascript, and Python. I took a Ruby job, and there was a small ramp up period but its not insurmountable.

Experience shipping production code should be teaching you many skills and thought processes that mean the actual specific tool shouldn't matter much.

This. I'm similar to OP (but I've got ~30 years of 'smaller' work/experience under my belt). I've never had problems picking up on a new language or framework; if you understand the underlying fundamentals, it's easier to pick things up.

Don't worry about it - pretty much everything we learn has a finite lifespan. The job is partly about constantly learning, for better or worse. (At least my brain won't atrophy as I age, or so I tell myself.) Also the more you know the easier it is to pick up new things, everything is a bit like something else.

An incomplete list of tech I know that became pretty much useless: VB6, perl (controversial?), classic ASP, director/shockwave, actionscript 1/2/3, flex, silverlight, GWT, ember, XSLT.. And there must be more!

The good thing is, learning most of this stuff is free and easier than ever before. The big problem is picking something; if it takes 2-3 months to learn you want that to lead to at least 6 months of decently paid work.

Client side web stuff moves ridiculously quickly, but if I were you I'd probably learn React and something like Next JS or Gatsby. You'll be up against bootcamp people in the job market and your broader experience should stand out against them. Pick a common hosted CI service (github actions, circleci, whatever) and learn it in a couple of weekends, the free quotas are plenty for small projects. Learn enough about TDD in your chosen new tech that you can talk about it convincingly and demonstrate proficiency. Often you'll get grilled on it in the interview then find absolutely no sign of it happening once you get the job!

If you want something a bit slower moving, Android and iOS could be good - there's more to learn though, and often you'll end up having to deal with both and/or some hybrid native+HTML/JS monstrosity so that can go from lovely to evil quickly. I really like svelte at the moment, I was lucky to get a project it was a good fit for but it may not be a good "find a job soon" choice. I also have a couple of brightscript (Roku) projects on the go, that's horrible but my client couldn't find anyone else to do the work so I learned it a few years ago. It'll join my list of obsolete tech in the next few years but it's been worth it financially.

[Edit: Also, typescript]

I'd probably start by asking myself, what type of company do I want to work for? And what type of job do I want? Scroll job boards and see what is out there and what appeals. Then go buff up any skills you need to get a job at those companies.

A great way to do that is build a clone of some aspect of their product or business. This will prepare you for the interview and job like an insider. You'll be able to talk about the parts of the product that were hard and why. Then all of a sudden your interview is just a good conversation.

Force yourself to do it the way an actual engineering organization does it, too.

If you aren't sure _how_ engineering teams organize projects, deployments, testing, etc then do a lot of googling and even reach out directly to CTOs, PMs, Senior devs, etc at different companies and just explain your exact situation - even link to this thread.

Lots of people are willing to take the time to help especially if it is as simple as saying... "At company X we do Y and Z" and then that gives you another thing to dig into. And you've potentially made a helpful contact/mentor.

It sounds like you don't have a lot of extra time to develop yourself into the perfect candidate for your maybe dream job, so for now you could probably pay the bills using freelancing job sites and offering IT/web dev help to local small businesses.

I was in a similar position to you about a year ago, some old PHP skills and a long break from work. The biggest challenge at this stage is getting out of your own way and selling your strengths.

I assure you, there are lots of companies right now with a roster of junior developers who are looking for a sage graybeard (if you are nearing 30 that is close enough) on the cheap, so embrace that role and angle yourself for it. Focus on your product and customer expertise and not the tech stack. Find the unsexy companies, plenty still operate remotely.

For me, I got a job at an old PHP shop and after 8 mo. upgraded with a big salary boost to a React/Python role, both languages I picked up while job hunting. The biggest challenge for me? Getting comfortable with the GitHub workflow and working on a bigger team was a bigger shift than learning a language, so I would recommend sticking with PHP for now and find a job where you can get comfortable with that side of things first.

The monthly HN job thread is a pretty good mix of companies so give that a shot.

Nobody is talking about starting your own business, if you already know how to build websites and web apps try looking for a small businesses that need your services. Learn more about internet marketing services, SEO optimization etc. learn sales 101. I believe you will get tons of work.

Yes! Just don't cold-email businesses with your offerings - lots and lots of low value options do!

Instead, find local meetup groups of businesses and start making connections. Be the local business doing this.

Is this still true with services like Squarespace and Shopify around? There are also many startups with millions in funding building sites for industry niches (e.g., Luxury Presence for high-end real estate). And many small businesses seem totally content with just their Facebook page. This feels like a tough area to compete in to me.

Yes, but many non-technical business owners want to focus on other aspects of their company and just get someone to do that work.

Business owners can’t always do everything. There are some aspects of the marketing, that requires some knowledge in the field

Every day that passes by I read stories that are so much alike to each other...it's so scary, because this is what I am going through for years now, with my ups and my downs.

If you would like to chat tomorrow, feel free to join https://larachat.slack.com/ so we can talk.

I'm using the same nickname.

Have no worries; we will make it.

> software engineer who is self-taught > I don't know testing, cloud, or CI/CD practices

"I'm a master craftsman but I don't know how to use a jigsaw, plane a table top, and also I'm missing my dominant hand."

First, be honest with yourself and your skills, then re-craft your résumé.

Honest to god though? Build a fake e-commerce store in Gatsby that isn't shitty, then get back to interviews. But this time you're "web developer".

Heck, I know testing, cloud, CI/CD, devops, etc. and have been doing it for 9 years.

And I still don't feel I can adequately call my self an engineer.

I feel like I can't call myself an engineer cause while I'm a decent doer who executes well, I am not the one coming up with high level plans of architecture. I've never been put on the spot.

Same, but for 12 years and I agree, even though I've done a lot of high-level architecture in the past few years. Some of my job consists of engineering no-doubt, but until I've graduated with my engineering BS, I'm just "developer" unless someone gives me a title that says otherwise.

Just been given the software engineer title at a few jobs, which I know is just a job title at this point.

Plenty of good advices out there. Remember that momentum is key. Someone once said to me, "its easier to get a girlfriend, a job, whatever, when you have one already". So get a job. A whichever job. For momentum sake.

I have had people tell me this when I was struggling, but I didn't go get a job "flipping burgers" or stocking shelves. It's demoralizing. I held out for better jobs and in the end, waiting and getting paid more was worth 3x more than working an entry-tier job. IMO, I suggest not getting "any" job, but attempt to get a related (I call it lateral shift) job.

Also, there's an opportunity cost to taking any job. If that job exhausts you (either physically or mentally), then you're not going to be able to put your best foot forward in the application process, which can be killer if you're an unconventional applicant.

Sign up for Frontend Masters, take the courses on React, Vue, Angular, Typescript, and CSS. See what other courses spike your interest. At the same time start participating in weekly coding challenges, as most of these are what show up in tech interviews. Build a project using a good API; I hear Spotify is a solid choice.

You're still ahead of most graduates because your resume has experience. You just need to commit a solid month of learning to bring it up to date.

There is a little exercise I was asked to do recently as part of a skills assessment, and it used the Spotify API. It’s not a bad way to practice: https://github.com/alexgurr/react-coding-challenges/tree/mas...

In addition to the other suggestions here, Academia could be another interesting route. Look at the job boards for local colleges/universities/research centers in your area. They're typically struggling to find technical people to either:

1. maintain and update the main websites

2. administer other IT-related systems on-campus (may require brushing up on some Linux or Windows Server skills)

3. help with the coding side of their research

There's a lot of low-hanging fruit available when it comes to coding needed for a research grant. Sometimes it's just standing up a basic website for a lab, but you'd be invaluable if you were able to help someone scrape together their pile of perl/R/python scripts into something that can be be hosted on a website. And IMHO the bar for quality is usually quite low -- many labs just want to have enough to earn/fulfill a grant and then move you on to the next project.

I'll warn you that there's not a strong career path available for software developers in Academia at the moment. So you may eventually need to break out. But it strikes me as a viable way to get a few years of real software dev experience working on interesting projects which would definitely put you in a better spot to branch out elsewhere.

Are you asking specifically about applying your experience in older tech because you have already ruled-out learning new skills? If so, why? And if not, I'd suggest getting in touch with a local boot camp or technical college.

> And if not, I'd suggest getting in touch with a local boot camp or technical college.

I would not encourage anyone who's cash strapped to do either of these.

It's easy to learn new tech online if you're motivated.

Although I don't know what to say as much if you're not motivated.

Yeah, I'm rather cash strapped at the moment and up-front payments would my main barrier to bootcamp or online tech college.

If they offered better financing plans or some "pay back after employment" arrangement, I might consider.

My personal story is I was in a similar situation, I used to do "Flash" development, which died out a long time ago. After some sporadic work and rough times, I did a developer bootcamp (General Assembly) and took out a large loan. I had my older brother co-sign and help pay. I worked REALLY hard, 10-12 hour days of coding for 3-4 months. I landed a contract coding job after several interviews, and usually one job is all you need to get the wheel rolling. The loan is paid off, no regrets.

Getting any job is an effort. I suggest people get better practice interviewing and presenting themselves. Finding a career coach or mentor is incredibly helpful. And finally, getting instructor-led education is potentially the best strategy. Even taking one introductory class can be invigorating to see a clearer path forward.

You probably don't need a bootcamp.

You're experienced enough to get good by doing courses online.

Just get over the fear of picking technology that will be outdated and do a course right now. Vuejs or React for the frontend and Laravel for the backend.

If both backend and frontend end up being too much, maybe focus on the one you like better.

Learn to deploy to AWS. Learn how to make a CI/CD in Github Actions to deploy for free.

Boom, you've done a bootcamp (or a bunch of them actually).

Now all you need is 10 year experience to get hired by companies... oh wait you already have it ;)

You will need to get you foot in the door somewhere by applying at the entry level, then build your reputation by making an impact. Take on projects without being asked. Seek forgiveness not permission. Even if your role is not tech focused or IT related you can make an impression. You clearly have some knowledge and experience, you're on HN, that alone shows that you've got the aptitude. Non-tech companies still need tech people, they just don't know how to hire them most of the time. Since you have been freelancing it for 13 years there isn't much you can say about the past that will impress a tech manager, but you should find some entry level positions that pay much more than you've been averaging. I work at a firm that isn't tech focused, and there are so many opportunities for anyone to engrain themselves into the business by creating a technical role for themselves. Spinning up web-apps, automation, even spreadsheet programming can make an impact and turn an internship or helpdesk position into full time employment.

I'm going to take a wild guess that you're a boomer?

The whole "start entry level, work your way up by impressing" thing doesn't work anymore. These days many companies for most of their entry level workforce just chew people up and spit them out, while fighting for top-skill young talent or older experts.

You are misunderstanding the advice. You don’t necessarily move up just within one company, and you don’t necessarily impress just your direct boss.

But fundamentally, if a person has a weak resume, the only way to strengthen it is to do good work that has an impact. Then you get some more bullet points on the resume (and can drop some weak ones).

And if you have a weak professional network, the only way to improve it is to actually work with people and impress them. You can build professional relationships that can lead to new opportunities, even with peers and people junior to you.

Even if you get “spit out” after a year or two, you are better set to get a better job.

This obviously can work because almost everyone starts out with a very weak resume and network. Yet, many people go on to build rewarding careers.

This is an unnecessarily pessimistic take on jobs. Of course showing value still works. People advance and move up the ladder still.

Besides, what do you suggest? Just give up?

Your rant doesn't match reality though, although it depends on what you mean by rising up the ranks. Do you consider directors and above rising up the ranks or are you talking about the C suite only? I know plenty of director and VP levels under 40 that got there recently (obviously given the age).

I don't know where you live but reading this makes me happy my reality is much like OPs.

Boomer? No, my parents are though. I’ve just had success by getting a job at 21 as one of the lowest paid positions, worked hard, took on projects above my pay grade, and was eventually rewarded for it. I’ve been associated with the same corporation in various roles for 17 years. I’ve seen graphics interns carve out positions as web developers, CAD technicians move up to engineers, and staff accountants become BI leaders. I have a buddy who started in sales support, had an opportunity to start managing and is now a VP. So in my experience it works to work hard. The thing all my anecdotes have in common is they don’t have any hint of a defeatist attitude.

> getting a job at 21 as one of the lowest paid positions, worked hard, took on projects above my pay grade, and was eventually rewarded for it.

This is how many people got their start, but it is rare for people to be rewarded unless the company is quickly growing a "bigger pie" of rewarding positions, or tradable CV item lines. And these are not easy to predict.

Lots of good technical advice. And it sounds like you're getting at least some interviews so I'd like to suggest:

- Have a professional review your CV / resume. It's a numbers game. You need more interviews, or perhaps more appropriate ones. A goid resume / CV won't get you hired. It just needs to get you an interview.

- Work on your interview skills. If you're getting interviews then at least some believe you're qualified. The disconnect seems to be at the fit / culture level. When possible, record your interviews and then go back and listen to see where you can improve.

- Looking into volunteering to do WordPress for a non-profit or two. That's worth listing on your resume. Perhaps revist your GH repos, make sure they reflect you and your coding skills.

As a non-American who worked in USA for a while, I noticed, because its easy to fire people in USA, employers will take risks like hire someone with 100% liberal arts background for highly tech job. If it doesn't work out they can fire them. It seems to me, because of this, Americans have a lot more 2cnd chances than Europeans. Seems weird you're meeting such risk aversion in such a hot job market, with the skills you've got, which sound in demand. If people are having a weird reaction maybe its best to be 100% honest with them and say, due to various factors such as looking after your mother etc, your career has never quite got off the ground, but you're motivated and hard-working, and ask them to try you out. Tell 'em "give me a coupe months you'll see results, fire me if you don't". I'd think someone will bite, for that.... You just need 1 job where you achieve lift-off, and the future is golden. (This comment assumes you're actually in USA not a risk-averse country, but even then... persuade someone to try you on temporary basis first, probation period etc, and try to be a rock star quickly...)

Make sure you have a clear story for why you haven’t worked in 2.5 years. It can be a complete lie. Don’t worry about that - it’s really none of their business, but you need to tell them what they want to hear to move forward. For example:

- You were taking care of a sick family member

- You became a stay-at-home parent to support your spouse

- You were full-time contracting

Keep it simple. 99% of the time it’s not an issue if the excuse is reasonable and your delivery is confident. The more personal the issue, the less likely they will probe.

If you know you have skills gaps why haven’t you tried to fill them in the 2.5 years you’ve been unemployed? If you tried to build a SaaS business in that time, even with 0 revenue you’d have both some new experience as well as something you can put in front of employers when you do interviews.

Can’t change the past of course but seems like you should take this time to also build something and learn in addition to job searching.

You talk about yourself like there's this hard barrier, like you've been barred from the "modern" web industry. But I'm going to guess you have a ton of experience with the web platform, and that's still relevant. If a new-grad can get up to speed on the currently-popular languages and frameworks, you should have no trouble doing so with all your added context.

If it's a matter of not knowing where to start, I'd say start by looking at what the job listings are asking for. And then beyond that, HN is a good source for keeping a general "pulse" on the industry; that's the main reason I'm on here.

Nothing's standing in your way, you just need to seek out and learn about the current landscape. You're in a perfectly fine position to do so.

Another way to look at it, my bias I know their story but have never met them or emailed them...

Creative Tim which now is at $1.7 million got it's start by I think 3 self taught front end coders as they wanted a killer resume to go after smaller clients.

So they started building UI kits some free ones that point to paid ones business model.

Not saying that you would get to $1.7 million.

However, given you already have half the work done in that you already know jquery and JS. Why not build two smallish UI kits to teach yourself design and put both the free kit and the paid kit out there.

Yes, it is more work than probably what others are suggesting.

But, quite frankly if you can empathy for other humans; YOU can IN FACT DESIGN awesome websites. You just have never push towards as of yet.

Times are a changing, it's no longer enough to code as one has to do the human other side of the equation.

I’m kind of in a similar boat in terms of tech stack. A few things you could do:

Try to get into https://www.codeable.io/. Haven’t tried personally yet, but might in the future.

Have a look at low-code/nocode tools and become an expert in one of them (Shopify, Wix, Webflow, Zapier, etc.)

Concentrate on landing pages and reach out to marketing agencies to ask if you can contract with them. Might be the easiest way to get a fulltime job as well.

Ignore the requirements and simply apply for some of the job ads. Especially for older big companies, many of them are likely to run on your stack and simply put things like cloud in because the hiring manager has heard that’s what they need to do.

Just some ideas, hope this helps.

You should research how to describe what you did to make it more attractive.

Apparently, you took a "sabbatical" to find your true purpose in life or whatever, so you took a long break from working.

But you have experience with PHP and jquery, the foundations of WordPress, which is hosting a large part of all enterprise homepages and newspaper websites.

I'd say do a few freelance homepage projects for small companies to show off that you still have all necessary skills and then you can approach a potential employer to level up to larger and more difficult projects.

If you phrase it correctly, seeking a challenge will make you look motivated and energetic, i.e. like a great employee.

Web agencies would be a great place to look for work with that skill set. A quick way to find them is to look in the partner directories of Wordpress and Drupal hosting companies:

https://wpengine.com/partners/agencies/

https://directory.pantheon.io/agencies

https://www.acquia.com/partners/finder

Hey, I know you aren't asking for a job, but you should put some contact info in your profile. I might actually be able to use/help you in my small company/ dev shop. We do some basic dev, had issues with WordPress and focus on Vue projects. Sure I could probably hire some outsourced worker cheaper, but maybe we could be a fit. Maybe not, talk is cheap and I'd love to chat. In the very least some free mentors ng would be fun. My anon profile email should go through.

Hope to chat!

This 3 steps are key:

1) Make a good resume. 2) Work on GitHub portfolio, they need to know what you are capable to do (this is really important) 3) Don't be afraid to apply as much as you can!

If you don't know where to apply, well there are tons of job boards nowadays, check out this great resource, a curated list of the best job boards out there that I am building: https://jobboardsearch.com

Good luck :)

> I don't know testing, cloud, or CI/CD practices

Like has been pointed out elsewhere; if this was carpentry, these would be new words to make "cutting, masking, and gluing" sound modern.

For web frontends, everyone is self-taught, just like all carpenters are self-taught on the job (or as apprentices). Degrees are used as filters and for gatekeeping.

Have you considered becoming a Webflow developer?

I work as a PM at Webflow with many freelancers who say “First I made websites. Then, I made apps. Now, I’m back to making websites. And, it’s great.”

Developers often overlook low-code. But, their experience lets them dissect the tools super quickly and become incredibly productive.

Feel free to reach out to me - philip.thomas at webflow.com

What is W2 work?

American shorthand for a permanent-position full-time employee (usually with benefits), as opposed to a contractor / freelancer. Named for the year-end tax document full-time employees receive.

As one in the same boat and tired of LinkedIn sending false positives and cold calls from 'recruiters', and Google searches returning the same five filled jobs over and over under different job site guises, and /then/ reading about recruiting scams, I decided to take Sun RA's advice and get off that planet.

Remember how fun this job used to be? Design meetings in pubs that included a go at Space Invaders, enabling all sorts of solutions that brought smiles instead of KPI's.

A lot of it was because we were in the Frontier, things built from chicken-wire and duct tape, we had the who, thanks to Usenet and Fidonet, who gave us the where, and we had that common why of being evangelists of a new era. There was no money but that was because there were no VCs, we were free, in the GNU sense

That today pretty much describes the Fediverse and ActivityPub, and the dawning need by non-technical folk that thinking small and 'local' is smarter than surveillance capitalism running recommendation algorithms only machines understand.

So it's just like the world we know, only it includes golang

Not that I've found any work there yet. It just feels way better than tunneling through superlatives on LinkedIn.

Take a look at the Algorand ecosystem. Maybe build a tool or something. Try working for yourself with some kind of service or product.

There is nothing wrong with Vanilla JS and the rest of those skills.

> Algorand ecosystem.

Pretty specific advice! Blockchain does seem to have a lot of remote-first jobs, so it is good for that. But there is quite a learning curve from basic web development, so it will take some investment in time and courses.

I would look at sys admin type jobs at law firms, small medical practices and other places that need a “tech guy” but don’t need to hire a full time developer.

You say that you're not good. Why aren't you good? Separate question, have you tried making an effort to improve?