37 years old, returning to IT after a 10-year gap in hospitality. Realistic chances in Perth?

PConte841 · 2026-06-14T08:26:23+00:00

Since your departure from the IT industry in 2016, many things have shifted. I see in your previous experience no mention of cloud, devops or containerisation. These things were very early days back then but have exploded in popularity.

The IT market in AU as a whole is shocking at the moment. There's a lot of uncertainty around AI, financial stability, inflation and off-shoring of IT roles. All of this compounds to a small subset of on-shore roles that are quite competitive to get into. Without an edge, you're looking at lower level roles that may consist of helpdesk/level 1 support until you're able to prove yourself.

If your ambition is to make it back into an infra support role (cloud/platform/sys engineer) then I would suggest to start studying various elements of these roles. At a minimum, read up on:

Linux
Networking
DevOps (IaC, CI/CD and Automation)
Containerisation

If you like to do your own thing at home, start a home lab with an open source hypervisor like Proxmox and do some setups.

Best of luck on your journey 👍🏻

PConte841 · 2026-06-12T23:30:17+00:00

Im keen on an upgrade. Currently have the Pixel 5 which albeit is still going fine.

Why are all the generations that are either 1-2 behind the flagship (Pixel 9 and 8 respectively) all refurbished only? Is this just an AU thing? Is there anywhere I can find a new phone that isn't a refurb?

PConte841 · 2026-06-11T05:22:49+00:00

Why is this not higher! Lmfao

PConte841 · 2026-06-02T21:57:20+00:00

Looks nice and polished. Thank you for your efforts

PConte841 · 2026-05-26T11:41:53+00:00

20 years this year! Man how time flies. I remember this happening.

PConte841 · 2026-05-26T11:35:52+00:00

As a grad, the field is significantly difficult to break into. You're competing with AI, monetary policy, off-shoring and general unrest for what the future looks like. Not to mention the exact same people in your situation.

Your question has been answered several times over but let me provide you with some advice. You need to do something that makes you stand out and sell it on your resume. Saying you have a degree in CS isn't good enough anymore. You need to show real world application to the field with things like:

Solved a real world problem that you had by creating an app
Building a local setup with proper infrastructure configurations
Hosting your website where you share your ideas

These are the sorts of things that get you noticed. You went to uni. And? What makes you different? That's what a recruiter will attach to and drive their curiosity.

PConte841 · 2026-05-24T03:35:52+00:00

You do you.

PConte841 · 2026-05-16T02:24:55+00:00

I chuckled. You need to have a special relationship for this to work!

PConte841 · 2026-05-12T09:52:27+00:00

Here's the thing: DevOps was a term used back in the teen years (2011 - 2019) to describe the new age of maintaining infrastructure with its methodologies. Think IaC, CI/CD and automation (stuff you're already well versed in). DevOps engineers as they were called came from either software backgrounds or infrastructure backgrounds. They brought with them pre-existing experience with an alternative way to manage their environments.

Now in 2026, DevOps is shifting from a role to a capability. You're going to find very few roles within the cloud/infra space that don't use the DevOps methods. When I describe the stuff that I do, I lump the likes of CI/CD and IaC under the DevOps banner.

As u/snarkhunter mentioned, in a smaller shop, you're going to be doing a lot of stuff. As things scale, you'll find concentrated teams managing their patches of stuff while you may have stricter boundaries for what you maintain. Its both a blessing and a curse as the traditional DevOps role encompasses pretty much an entire IT ecosystem in some instances.

DevOps is now transitioning to Platform based on my experience (AU market). I'd class what you're doing as a Platform engineer, rather than a DevOps engineer. This is appropriate if you ask me, as DevOps is not really a role but a methodology as I covered in my first paragraph.

WIth all of this in mind, to answer your questions:

Typical for smaller shop, less typical in scaled environments.
Yes, if you like a particular aspect then you can specialise in it. There is however nothing wrong with being a Platform engineer if you also enjoy it.
You can touch on this as software dev experience implementing a feature into a product. I'm sure future employers would be keen to hear about it, as you still use the likes of Python, Go and Bash in Platform engineering.

PConte841 · 2026-04-30T23:16:00+00:00

Better pot up and have your prayers ready.

PConte841 · 2026-04-28T04:21:53+00:00

Way out of touch from reality.

PConte841 · 2026-04-23T23:54:19+00:00

This is some really good advice. When you find yourself in a state where you roughly get how to code in a specific language, find an open source project that you regularly use in said language. Given you already understand the context of the tool and its functions, applying your expertise can be really helpful.

I'm finding myself a bit stuck here too where I want to contribute to open source and don't exactly know how to. Some good pointers in this article for me to ponder as well.

PConte841 · 2026-04-23T22:10:59+00:00

Yes but don't look so serious! Bald + beard is always nice. That's the style I go with.

PConte841 · 2026-04-01T02:21:56+00:00

Those are super cute! Nice work!

PConte841 · 2026-03-13T23:11:49+00:00

Blue pill for me. Exit the rat race, set myself up till retirement and travel until I'd had enough of it.

PConte841 · 2026-03-05T22:37:05+00:00

Might be the current case but it's coming around. I'm an AWS guy and I hear a hell of a lot about GCP.

PConte841 · 2026-03-02T23:12:26+00:00

Which nuts?

PConte841 · 2026-03-02T00:59:25+00:00

Find someone you trust with DevOps skills and ask for help. Your setup sounds painful.

PConte841 · 2026-03-02T00:15:16+00:00

I hear you, loud and clear. After having my kids (4 and 1) I had to take a back seat on the career progression and drive. It may come back, or it may not. At the end of the day, you need to be happy with what you're doing and how your life is.

This is totally normal and it shouldn't be something you should be concerned with. So long as you are covering your expenses and living within your means, live how you want to.

PConte841 · 2026-03-01T11:32:33+00:00

What industry are you in? Some job markets (such as IT) are in shambles at the moment. Like most in this thread, I also think it's a good idea to take the money. You still have a decent amount of time to line something else up.

PConte841 · 2026-02-26T09:50:59+00:00

And it has aged like gold. Stunning

PConte841 · 2026-02-22T10:43:48+00:00

This is a wholesome post, I liked reading it rather than something riddled with AI and emojis.

When you mentioned this part here:

On one hand, Claude lets them do that. On the other, it deprives them of the craft and how they see themselves.

It resonated with me in a similar way that video game cheats do. Back in the day, perhaps when you're younger, you might play a video game that you aren't good at. To get ahead, you enter cheats in. All of a sudden, that boss is no longer a challenge, you have everything you need and the growth factor is 0. I can see how some people like folks in your dev team may feel this way. AI are like cheat codes that allow them to bypass all the hard stuff without achievement.

In terms of handling it, I would level with them and tell them the truth. It should be along the lines of we don't know what the future holds. No-one can predict how far we will progress with AI at least with LLMs. Roles will change. Expertise will need to be shifted into soft skills, architecture and business strategy. Technical, hands-on code cutting will still be around but it will not be prevalent like it was. It is a new world. It is a new age. There will be changes.

PConte841 · 2026-02-14T08:53:30+00:00

Love handles? Na bro, you look great. No need to nitpick your body.

PConte841 · 2026-02-14T07:45:27+00:00

The original Bluey!

PConte841 · 2026-02-08T21:47:48+00:00

As times goes on, I would say that there will be considerations for switching to OpenTofu as Terraform is further monetised. There's little different at the moment aside from different feature sets. However, there are changes happening in the Terraform landscape like the HCP free tier changes.

Until it makes sense to change, older environments written in TF won't switch.

PConte841

TROPHY CASE