You probably won’t like the answer.

I’ve spent my life living frugally, and investing cautiously, but aggressively.

I am not wealthy, but have enough to maintain my (fairly humble) lifestyle, while I spend -literally- 7 days a week, learning tech, which I love doing.

When I left my last company, after nearly 27 years, I did look at working elsewhere (I was a manager), but the way I was treated in that search was so abominable, that I decided it was not healthy for me to continue the efforts.

Being older in tech really stinks. This goes double, when we switch from management, back to tech, so my network is useless.

It was much better for me to give up on playing other people’s games, and do what I need. It literally would have killed me, otherwise. My health has improved dramatically, after making the decision to do my own thing.

It’s working out. I discovered that I never lost a thing, tech-wise, but I did need to spend the last three years “retooling” myself.

I am not actively seeking gigs. It’s been my experience, that as soon as people find out about my age, the relationship immediately dies. This is particularly obvious with recruiters. I’ve started to make my age clear, right off the start, to avoid that.

I’m an extremely good engineer, with “bleeding edge” skills, coupled with a lifetime of shipping software. I’m damn good, up to date, and used to Getting Things Done. I can prove it, too, with an enormous portfolio of code, apps, Web articles and participation in many fora.

I’m an “open book,” with nothing to hide, and nothing to be ashamed of. I have a very high level of personal integrity, self-discipline, and empathy.

I have a fairly deep and wide skillset that is quite rare in today’s tech world, coupled with enormous experience and a great deal of energy. I’m gregarious, optimistic, compassionate, and a marvelous team member. I treat others with respect and kindness. I’ve architected infrastructure that has become a world standard, and written humble little “toy” apps. I also have some specialization in areas with a substantial future (iOT, Apple tech, and Surveillance tech). My current project is a low-level abstraction of Core Bluetooth for Apple operating systems[0]. It’s not complete, because I still need to write three more test harnesses and supporting documentation. Despite that, it’s already in a shipping app[1].

I’ve been looking at applying my skills to help NPOs and whatnot to thrive in today’s world. There’s a dearth of up-to-date talent interested in doing that, as there’s not a lot of money, and the NPO scene is pretty crazy, in its own right.

Because of my investments and humble lifestyle, I would have been happy to work for far less than many, as long as the work was interesting, and I was not asked to compromise my principles. I wouldn’t have minded taking risks with startups, to which I could have brought a really unique level of experience and expertise. I would think that someone that is used to shipping would be useful to a startup. Also, I've got lots of experience evangelizing projects to cynical, empirical, intelligent managers at all levels of a corporation.

I’ve also started to look at training. That’s something I can do quite well.

But I’m pretty bad at leetcode, and I’m...well...not young.

I won’t enter a relationship that requires I be humiliated and treated like garbage. You -literally- can’t pay me enough for that. I never did that with any of my employees, and it’s rather shocking to encounter that in today’s tech scene.

It’s not surprising that the average stay at a company for an engineer is around 18 months. I kept senior-level employees for decades. It’s amazing what simple compassion and respect will buy you. None of us was paid particularly outrageously, but we were a very tight team.

It really is interesting that requesting (not demanding) to be treated with a little bit of respect is considered “arrogance.”

[0] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_BlueThoth

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blue-van-clef/id1511428132