I am a hardware engineer with a lot of software experience to go with it.  I have had no work since the &quot;crash&quot; in 2008 when I was 58.  Since then no company even returns a &quot;no thanks&quot; letter.<p>However I must admit there is a lot of karma involved.  When I was 30, head of engineering, I was responsible for hiring a total of 30 to 40 engineers.  I would have never hired anyone at my age.  I didn&#x27;t even think about it.  It just seemed obvious.<p>So I tell people I am retired, which means I&#x27;m old and unemployed.  Like others in these comments I am continuing to work, but only on FOSS projects, like the Atom editor.  I can now sling full-stack code with the best of them and I figure I could for 10 or so years.  But there is no hope of gainful employment.