oil & gas engineer to web developer - advice please?

[kenno]

Dear fellow Mustachians,

I am a mid career oil & gas engineer in Canada, wanting to do a career switch to web development.

I am in my late 30s, my DW has a full time job and we have 2 young kids. I earn a decent salary in the low 6 figures, however am feeling more and more disillusioned with my job, company politics and just the (ab)normal office top-down culture. I work in a large multinational service company, and the work environment has been brutal especially in the last ~2.5 years since the start of the industry downturn. We have a decent amount of savings and can weather through a drop in income in the short term (6-12 months).

I like the idea of having control of my job, the location independent aspect and flexible hours that I understand is associated with web developers (whether true or otherwise). There are some 10-week coding bootcamps being run that apparently is able to help with securing Jr developer jobs. The starting pay of such jobs here is in the region of 45 - 50k CAD. I do not have any coding skills or experience.

However, I understand there are lots of folks in this forum who were from the tech scene and gave up the gig after ~10 years or so, mostly citing burnout and displeasure with the work culture.

My main objectives to switching is to (eventually) consult / build a business / generate income using the web for myself (and family), have more control over my work / time, and eventually  being able to spend more time with my wife and kids.

1) I'd appreciate if someone could advise if this is a realistic idea in terms of achieving my goals?

2) I know I would probably need to spend a few years honing my skills before I can set up my own gig. Is age a factor in this case? Will I be a dinosaur in a tech startup setting as a Jr developer?

3) Any thoughts or advice on web development bootcamps? I like the idea of toughing it out over 10 weeks and getting a job, vs 1-2 years in school. I do not have the luxury of time.

4) What are the downsides of being a developer?

Any other thoughts / ideas towards my goal would be most helpful. Thanks in advance!

[Cali Nonya]

From someone else working for a large multi-national oil&gas service company (but a little older than you and in the US), I have seen many people transition out.  Some doing okay, some not so much.  The last few years have been brutal, I do understand that part, and I like you are wanting out.

I have not seen anyone take on web-development.  Especially since you say you don't have a strong programming background (yikes!).  What I have seen a few cases of where people have successfully transitioned out into are mostly professional sales or business system support type positions.  You know the consultant type who goes into a company and handle product launches, etc. 

It doesn't matter if you were Blue Army or Red Army, anyone coming from mid-career in the O&G services will have a very strong (brainwashed) service background that will translate well into technical sales or project management.

As for the positions into the software platforms that are integral for O&G or at least tangential, I have noticed those companies are already very saturated with people and part-time consultants.  I recently ran into a very experienced geophysicist now working software sales (but he was trying to get leads from me to get back into a developer (but there's nothing out there)).  There are an awful lot of experienced O&G people hanging around looking for better jobs.

I have friends who were exceptional programmers who are now in their early 40's and are struggling for employment.   
From reading your post, you sound pretty far from FI, I don't think your plan sounds very reasonable.

Are you willing to take-on a radical (and permanent) cut in your life-style?

[phil22]

web development, and programming in general, can be self-taught and many of the popular tools are free to use.  you could take some beginning programming tutorials online in your spare time and see if it "clicks" with you.

if you absorb the information and are interested in it, then you might think about taking the next step and enrolling in a bootcamp type thing, but a safer option might be to take the time to see if you can get through a few web development tutorials/courses by yourself before deciding to leave your current job and pursue it further.

the web development industry has gone through several pretty big shifts in the last few years, so if you start now and learn the latest trends you won't be any further behind than anyone else.

[mbolton]

Kenno,

If you need to make a change, then do it.  Your happiness is more valuable than any paycheck.

I switched careers and I underestimated the time & effort it would take to make this transition.

It took me 5 years and 2 jobs to make the same amount of money in my new career as my previous career.

However, to me it was worth it.  I now much happier and I'm finally making more money than I previously had.

[SnackDog]

This is sort of like transitioning from being a physician to a contract dental hygienist.  You will have more freedom to do what you want but unlikely to have the same career potential and definitely more into a fray of competitors from all over the world. Teenagers are web developers.  You can definitely do it.  But don't imagine that tech is more stable than oil and gas - it also has booms and busts.

[kayvent]

I have been a web developer and full-stack developer for a Fortune 500 company. I currently work for a company that would (if public) be a Fortune 50 company.

A boot camp, especially one with a strong job placement program, is a fair leg to start on.

My one word of caution, and this is true for web developers more so than other fields, is that you should be constantly learning. Within the last twelve months, Angular has gone from 1.5 to 5.x, React has advanced considerably, Facebook changed the React license, Rxjs’s popularity has blossomed, vue.js is catching many people’s attention, and more changes have occurred on the bleeding edge.

There are exceptions to this, large legacy systems comes to mind, but the industry of web development lends itself to being cutting edge in general.

[Askel]

Still appropriate:

http://leisuretown.com/library/qac/index.html

[scottish]

Lots of web developers out there and from what I've seen of contract work it's not very interesting.   The big on the job challenges tend to be fixing other peoples bugs quickly, meeting unrealistic schedules, and changing requirements.

Since you're an engineer, I think you'd be better off if you can leverage your engineering background.   

[afulldeck]

Lots of web developers out there and from what I've seen of contract work it's not very interesting.   The big on the job challenges tend to be fixing other peoples bugs quickly, meeting unrealistic schedules, and changing requirements.

Since you're an engineer, I think you'd be better off if you can leverage your engineering background.   

I tend to agree. As well I do know of a number of web developers who had to leave the profession due to the lack of work. (This type of job can be easily off shored or outsourced.) You might be better off investigating the project management area given your background. Just a thought...

[MilesTeg]

A ten week bootcamp will make you as prepared to be a professional developer as taking a first aid course would prepare you to be a surgeon.

You'll learn some lingo and maybe be able to write a bit of trivial code, but you won't be able to produce anything of value. You'll be able to apply a band aid, but you aren't going to be doing surgery. And there are millions of unemployed band aid appliers; the industry doesn't need anymore of them.

If you want to be a developer, that's great. But like anything of value, it will take real effort and dedication. Don't kid yourself thinking you can get on a real path without real effort. That effort doesn't have to be traditional (many of my best colleagues have been self taught), but it does have to be expended and 10 weeks is barely a start.

And as to what it's like? You spend a lot if time thinking, a lot of time stepping through code line by line, a lot of time beating your head against the wall trying to solve problems (especially with ecosystems that use fundamentally broken for the task tools like javascript in web dev), a lot of time doing repetative tasks, a lot of time in meetings, a lot of time trying to convince bosses/clients/customers that what they want is impossible/insane.

Junior developers with 10 weeks of boot camp, even if hired, don't get flexibility of schedule or location. They get assigned the worst of the grunt work, because that's the only thing they are capable of doing. Best case scenario you are chained to a desk 9 to 5 with whatever busy work the dev lead can figure out to keep you busy and out of the way of people who are actually prepared and capable of doing the job.

I'm not trying to be offensive here, just trying to make you understand that your proposed idea is pretty crazy. I seriously don't understand why people think being a software developer doesn't take real effort...

[anisotropy]

There are many ex o&g professionals training/switching into programming in Calgary these days, heck, many of them are even into MLM and various "entrepreneur ventures". Off the top of my head, I can recall 6 people who successfully left o&g for IT as programmers of some sort. (not necessarily web developers)

They had these in common:
1. pre-existing connections in their current companies
2. advanced degrees in physics, geophysics, mathematics, and computer sciences (only one of them has an engg degree, software engineering)
3. coding skills and experience prior to switching, in fact, most of them worked as programmers in o&g
4. they appear to be just as stressed out now as when they were in o&g, but I am just guessing based on social media

I am a realist and from what I can see, it is better to be on the side of capital, not labour.
ie, get FI, then do as you please.

Although, I wonder if IT network "specialty", network security for example, would be good for someone with no prior coding/programming skills.