Getting back in after 10 years of absence
I have a friend who, 10 years ago, had a successful career writing Windows drivers for some periphery hardware by a small company. He has a CS degree from an okay university. After the death of a very close family member, he quit his job because he couldn't focus and needed a break. That break turned into 10 years of living his surviving family helping them around the house. In that time he's done some website programming in Typescript and Javascript. Long story short, he wants to make a change and get back in... I'm not looking for sympathy for him. I'm telling his story to gauge how acceptable it would be to explain his long hiatus, and how prospective employers might feel about it. 10 years is a long time. Furthermore, I'm getting him set up with HackerRank and Leetcode to work on his interviewing skills early, and I advised him to learn Java and Python as those are the most popular languages, but he's willing to pick up anything that's in demand and willing to pay for online courses. Does anyone have any further advice on something in high demand that he can get back in relatively quickly? Thank you in advance.
Might not be what he’s looking for but I’ve been seeing some companies lately offer “returnships” for people that take years off of tech, intuit has one but not sure who else right now
Perhaps start with consultant jobs or start ups that need anybody first.
Yep, consulting will help getting the grove back. Trying for FAANG might not be fruitful
Biggest hurdle will be systems design. When he last interviewed there were no systems design interviews. So he will need to understand how to code for a SaaS
Linkedin offers an apprenticeship program for ppl w non-traditional backgrounds. Maybe worth looking into.
How old is he? I know people that started their cs career in their 30s and early 40s. Shouldn’t be too hard to shake the dust off and jump back in. The gap might scare recruiters away though but with enough persistence I think he’ll be fine.
He's early mid 40's. I didn't consider his age being an issue - thanks for bringing that up. Good to know all the data points.