Becoming a computer programmer at 40 years old

[Captain Cactus]

Good morning all:

There are lots of smart people in here... Would love your feedback on this idea.

I have been very professionally frustrated over the years because I live in a fairly rural area without a lot of economic opportunity.  As a result I've been in field sales my entire career outside of the Army, because that was the way I found to get a good corporate pay and benefits while living where I have to live (eastern Connecticut). 

I recently read an article online about coal miners making the transition to become computer programmers, learning to code, etc... they didn't need a college degree, etc... just learn the skills and go to work.

Got me thinking... Could this be a move for me?  Could I learn to code and program? I don't even really know what a day in the life looks like, or what kinds of things one works on in this line of work, but everyone keeps talking about it so maybe it's worth exploring.

I'm 40 years old, have a BA & MA (BA is in a language, MA was to become a teacher but I never really did that for long).  I've been in sales for 11+ years and I'm sick of being "the sales rep".  It pays well but as my stach has grown, making big bonuses has become less and less incentivizing.  I'm looking for something I can do, working from home, and something that requires an actual skill that I can learn and practice.  I'm chock full of soft skills but I don't have any "skills".  Maybe something that I could do either full time or part time... and of course the remote working is especially interesting to me these days.

Thoughts?  Recommendations?  How do people learn coding/programming?  How long is the initial training to get skilled enough to land a job?  Would love all thoughts and feedback... thank you! 

[mizzourah2006]

I've taught myself several programming languages (Python, R, and variants like Tensorflow, and Spark), it just takes time. I'd recommend doing some free or near free courses on things like Code Academy, Udemy, or Edx.org before you commit to paying any actual money for it. Code Academy offers some stuff for free. I took an intro to Computer Science with Python course on Edx.org a few years back that was actually an MIT course and that was free as well. Those are pretty good structured intros to give you a feel if it's something you want to do more of. If you do want to pay some money there are a good amount of Udemy courses for $10-$20 that IMO are well worth it.

What type of programming do you want to do? I'm really only familiar with data science oriented programming languages and while Python can be used for webdev, it's usually not the language of choice for that. I'm sure others have good recommendations for other languages and areas of CS/Programming.

Oh and I didn't learn until I was like 32, so I think it can easily be done outside of school.

Here's the MIT course: https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-7

[ctuser1]

I suspect it would be very difficult to learn the art of programming without an ecosystem around it. Ecosystem could be college courses, or networking with other people doing IT jobs etc.
(Note: the above is just a guess. I have been coding since I was a teen, so I don't have firsthand idea how easy/difficult it is to learn as an adult).

Can you, perhaps, network your way into a program management kind of a job? Your Army background should be a big asset for this. Maybe you can do a PMP certification (https://www.pmi.org/certifications/project-management-pmp). The content of the certification itself is unlikely to be very useful at work, but the credential should get you interviews for the much-easier-to-get W2 positions in any reasonably big city.

That gets us to the next step. You need to be plugged in to a reasonably big city in order to have any job market that can employ a beginner. Can you commute to one? If not, can you move to one? After you establish yourself in your career, you may get a lot more work from home opportunities, or find one off employers in the rural areas.

Once you land *a* job, then you need to figure out what you like to do. Actual programming and system architecture is the most rewarding, offers the most flexibility, and takes the most effort to learn. But there are a lot of other peripheral jobs around it - QA/Support/Project management. PMP credential should get you interviews for entry level project management positions and your Army background should be a big asset in that. But, if you want to change your role later, you may find it much easier within the same organization.

Once you get a lot of experience (5+ years), you should then have a lot of flexibility. If you are reasonably lucky, you can then perhaps move back to your rural area and settle down with a WFH job that pays big-city-money.

[nirodha]

Have you written some code? If not, go do it.

If you do not get that far on your own, it is probably not the work for you.

[ctuser1]

Have you written some code? If not, go do it.

If you do not get that far on your own, it is probably not the work for you.

1. Why can't OP not do PM job even if he can't immediately code? He was in the Army, so breaking down tasks and achieving a bigger goal step by step should have been drilled into him by now!

2. There are a lot of confusing details one needs to learn related to any of the IDE you would choose to code. That initial hurdle can be very daunting for a beginner for even the "Hello World" type of code. I saw this when my DW picked up coding as an adult. After the first few months of frustrations for her, she was eventually able to get to coding just fine.


 

[Captain Cactus]

Have you written some code? If not, go do it.

If you do not get that far on your own, it is probably not the work for you.

Not helpful at all. 

[jrhampt]

Computer programming is a wide/vague field and it's probably difficult to figure out where to get started.  What worked for me was business analytics as a field with a background in statistics, SQL databases and querying, combined with SAS (which is a statistical analysis tool you can use to integrate data from various types of sources).  SQL isn't too different from database to database, so once you get a foundation in the basics, you can fairly easily get up to speed on various dialects, and there's a lot of work to be done in querying and analyzing data, automating procedures etc.  I build a lot of models for insurance, and I've worked remotely for almost 10 years now.   However, if you're already 40, is it worth it trying to break into a new field, especially if you're already well paid?  Would it just be easier to keep doing what you're already doing for a few more years?  I find that as I get older my motivation to learn new things has dropped considerably, and it does take time to get skilled enough that people will hire you...it helps if you already have a job and can learn some programming skills in that existing job and parlay that into something else.

[bacchi]

What mizzourah2006 wrote.

Take a Python 101 course at the handful of learning sites out there. If you like it, take more, preferably in a more structured program (ha! get it?). Like so: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/python

[Captain Cactus]

Thank you all for the helpful replies.  This gives me a lot to think about.  I have an old friend in France who's been in this line of work for 20 years or so, so I'm asking him his advice as well. 

For what it's worth, I am exploring options for learning hard, marketable skills because I'm not getting any further with my soft skills alone.  Nobody seems to care about my project management experience when I was in the Army...I got out of the Army 13 years ago and I've been in sales for about 12 years.  So people see that I'm experienced in sales and that's all they want to talk to me about.  I can bear it, but I'm getting pretty darn tired of the endless quota loop, and I don't want to be doing this for the rest of my working days.  Early retirement you ask?  I'm well on my way, but with two kids at home I need to keep working... it has taken me years to come to this realization but my family situation isn't suited for nomadic living in Thailand and Vietnam.  So I seek something to do for the next 10-15 years.  I realize I need hard skills to move into a different domain.  Certainly open to other suggestions other than coding (former US Army logistics officer with 4 years leadership and project management experience, also with 12 years medical sales experience), but after reading the article about the out-of-work coal miners transitioning into coding it got my interest peaked...if they can do it then I can do it.   

Basically I feel very unsure of next steps but I'm eager to learn.

[Morning Glory]

What mizzourah2006 wrote.

Take a Python 101 course at the handful of learning sites out there. If you like it, take more, preferably in a more structured program (ha! get it?). Like so: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/python

+1
I did a slightly different python course on coursera a few years ago. Or you could just get a book and work through some problems on your own. A friend did that many years ago.

[ctuser1]

Thank you all for the helpful replies.  This gives me a lot to think about.  I have an old friend in France who's been in this line of work for 20 years or so, so I'm asking him his advice as well. 

For what it's worth, I am exploring options for learning hard, marketable skills because I'm not getting any further with my soft skills alone.  Nobody seems to care about my project management experience when I was in the Army...I got out of the Army 13 years ago and I've been in sales for about 12 years.  So people see that I'm experienced in sales and that's all they want to talk to me about.  I can bear it, but I'm getting pretty darn tired of the endless quota loop, and I don't want to be doing this for the rest of my working days.  Early retirement you ask?  I'm well on my way, but with two kids at home I need to keep working... it has taken me years to come to this realization but my family situation isn't suited for nomadic living in Thailand and Vietnam.  So I seek something to do for the next 10-15 years.  I realize I need hard skills to move into a different domain.  Certainly open to other suggestions other than coding (former US Army logistics officer with 4 years leadership and project management experience, also with 12 years medical sales experience), but after reading the article about the out-of-work coal miners transitioning into coding it got my interest peaked...if they can do it then I can do it.   

Basically I feel very unsure of next steps but I'm eager to learn.

Regarding the bolded part - all you need to find is one employer willing to take a chance on you. It does not matter if 500 or a thousand of them say no, you just need to find the one that will say yes!

PMP is not difficult. Why not just spend a few months studying for it and then see if any employer will give you an interview based on that new shiny credential?

Please make sure you customize your resume for it. I am pretty sure you must have had to do some sort of "project management" even in sales role. (wild guesses) maybe how you broke down your quarterly goals and achieved it step by step? Once you customize your resume, and linkedin profile like that - hit the gazillions of recruiter circuits that exist near any big city. If you are really adventurous and can take a few months off, you can move to one of the hotspots for IT Recruiter activity (New Jersey, SF, Chicago, Houston/Dallas, Tampa/Miami) and try to get plugged in for some recruiter to rent you out for minimal hourly rate at the beginning.

Learning to program is also fantastic. I love Python. I suspect, however, it will take you a couple of months to get over the initial hiccups with the tool (PyCharm perhaps) to get to the actual programming - that is what happened to my wife when she was learning in her late twenties. From there to getting to actual hirable skill-level, will likely take longer than the PMP->project management route will take. But if you see you like coding very much (some people do, it is just a different way of thinking) then go for it and I am pretty sure you will be very successful.

[seattlecyclone]

Have you written some code? If not, go do it.

If you do not get that far on your own, it is probably not the work for you.

Not helpful at all. 

The way it's phrased is unhelpful, but the basic advice is sound. Find a basic programming class online. There are dozens of them. Try it out. Do the concepts come pretty easily to you? Do you enjoy the assignments? If yes to both questions, this might be worth investigating further. If no to either, you're going to have a hard time in this career.

[EricEng]

Doing it without a degree: This will vary, but a lot of traditional MegaCorps won't touch you without an Engineering/Science Degree.  Especially ones doing Govt contracts as govt dictates that a person being paid for level X position meet certain requirements which usually includes a degree.  Lot of smaller/mid size companies and newer companies will hire without degree.  However, new companies and startups are hiring for programming hotshots and will dump you in a heartbeat if you aren't in top 20% of coders (or higher).  No room for mediocrity there (large MegaCorps don't mind though)

Actually learning:
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-how-to-code
I wish this had existed when I was a child.

Fun alternative -Maybe try programming with Unreal Engine or Unity game engines? Unreal Engine (UE) uses c++ base, but it has a great visual programming system for early design that lets even first time coder hit the ground running.  I used to use this to teach high school students how to create Rocket League (minus art assets) in just a few hours. Unity uses C# as a base.  Both will let you create some pretty flashy demos and are being used for more than just gaming these days, lots of vizualiation work.  Even going into car tablet interfaces.

Traditional way would be a Computer Science degree.  This will open lots of doors if you want a complete career change.

[AlanStache]

Have you written some code? If not, go do it.

If you do not get that far on your own, it is probably not the work for you.

Not helpful at all. 

The way it's phrased is unhelpful, but the basic advice is sound. Find a basic programming class online. There are dozens of them. Try it out. Do the concepts come pretty easily to you? Do you enjoy the assignments? If yes to both questions, this might be worth investigating further. If no to either, you're going to have a hard time in this career.

seattlecyclone - yep.  @CC programmer communication can be a bit terse. 

You said you have children; to learn the new skill are you willing & able to put in +10 hours per week for a number of months?

Also to make it a little more explicit, there are lots of different types of programing.  It would be best to try several before getting to deep into any one type - see what you like, see what you could 'master' in a reasonable amount of time, see what might pay the bills.

[2sk22]

There is one more aspect to consider: The first time you try to write a program on your own, you will feel a sense of frustration greater than anything you have experience in your life until that point. However, you will get over it as you gain proficiency. The reason I mention this is that you will really need determination to get over the initial hump (and being enthusiastic helps too). One of the good things about taking a formal course is that it will give you a support network to help you through the difficult spots.

[ender]

There is one more aspect to consider: The first time you try to write a program on your own, you will feel a sense of frustration greater than anything you have experience in your life until that point. However, you will get over it as you gain proficiency. The reason I mention this is that you will really need determination to get over the initial hump (and being enthusiastic helps too). One of the good things about taking a formal course is that it will give you a support network to help you through the difficult spots.

I.... uh, don't agree with this, unless you've lived a sheltered life.

[mizzourah2006]

There is one more aspect to consider: The first time you try to write a program on your own, you will feel a sense of frustration greater than anything you have experience in your life until that point. However, you will get over it as you gain proficiency. The reason I mention this is that you will really need determination to get over the initial hump (and being enthusiastic helps too). One of the good things about taking a formal course is that it will give you a support network to help you through the difficult spots.

I.... uh, don't agree with this, unless you've lived a sheltered life.

From a formal education standpoint I can see the point they were trying to make. I got a PhD that involved a ton of statistics and calculus and programming was very frustrating for me at first. I think it's the sense of "getting stuff wrong" that was hard for me to overcome at first. Writing the code and then executing it and getting an error, or getting the wrong answer. Early on I spent tons of time double/triple checking my code before I executed it for fear that I'd get a bug or get the wrong answer. Now I throw some code together, run it, read the error, or look at the output vs. what was expected and re-adjust. I'm not afraid of getting it wrong, instead I use the "wrongness" as feedback on how to make it right. That type of negative feedback wasn't really a part of any of my formal education. Early on it made me think I was dumb and that was very frustrating as I've never been made to feel that way at any point of my educational or professional career before that.

[kaposzta]

Learning how to code is possible for the 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 ... years old. If you'd like to learn web development, you can start with freeCodeCamp.org. It's 100% free and it is the best source that I know of. It is amazing as is, but the site is constantly evolving into something better. They also have a Youtube channel with hundreds of free high quality tutorial (and they now have lot of content related to other programming areas, e.g. machine learning, databases, and other programming languages like Python, C#, etc.). I started there back in 2017 with the strong intention of becoming a web developer, and it went pretty well - until my regular job in finance slowly turned into a programming job, so I reached my goal (of becoming a programmer) without the need of finishing the course. I still like web development very much, so maybe one day I'll continue learning :)

[ctuser1]

There is one more aspect to consider: The first time you try to write a program on your own, you will feel a sense of frustration greater than anything you have experience in your life until that point. However, you will get over it as you gain proficiency. The reason I mention this is that you will really need determination to get over the initial hump (and being enthusiastic helps too). One of the good things about taking a formal course is that it will give you a support network to help you through the difficult spots.

I.... uh, don't agree with this, unless you've lived a sheltered life.

Almost all Americans lead a very sheltered life, as do almost any other first world resident. Welfare State (yes, even the American version of it) == negative feedbacks of screwing up is generally less severe than it really is for most people in the world == hunger/death etc.***

Removing the real negative consequences of wrong "choices" makes people less capable of handling it when raw negative feedback is thrown at their face => frustration at often being "wrong", as generally happens while coding.****

<Edited to add>Since the OP has been in the Army, I am much more hopeful at his being able to handle such frustration at being wrong, however!! So I'd personally strongly encourage him to at least try.</Edited to add>

*** This is how it should be! I just dislike how thankless most Americans are at how good they really have it.
**** I'm actively trying to teach my 12yo daughter to think differently.

[Paul der Krake]

I've always been curious about these online classes and what percentage of people actually use them to start a new career in programming.

Completion rates for MOOC are already horrendous, so I'd imagine the number of people who sign up for a python for beginners (or similar) class, complete it, then eventually go on to become professional programmers has to be vanishingly small.

I agree that OP should just get his feet wet and see if this is the kind of problem solving that's enjoyable. If and when that is determined to be the case, then worry about a more formal plan of study.

[FIPurpose]

Straight programming jobs I think are becoming more and more specialized, and thus require more and more education in order to break into the field. In order to break into the field without a formal education, I think you'll likely have to find a Junior Developer position at $20/hr for a year or 2 as an "apprenticeship". As much as I think anyone can learn coding, they will either have to have a very impressive portfolio or solid work experience to get hired.

But as others have said here. Try it out with a few free online tutorials and classes (MIT courseware is fantastic and they have a Python intro). And if you enjoy it after a full class or 2, then you probably have the ability to keep going through to getting a job.

[Captain Cactus]

Thank you everyone for your contributions.  I just checked out the free code camp, looks friendly enough :)

[nirodha]

...
1. Why can't OP not do PM job even if he can't immediately code? He was in the Army, so breaking down tasks and achieving a bigger goal step by step should have been drilled into him by now!

2. There are a lot of confusing details one needs to learn related to any of the IDE you would choose to code. That initial hurdle can be very daunting for a beginner for even the "Hello World" type of code. I saw this when my DW picked up coding as an adult. After the first few months of frustrations for her, she was eventually able to get to coding just fine.

1. PM - maybe, more soft skills, relationship emphasis, etc. A scrum master or product owner role could be viable as well. Military types are big in the security and compliance fields, they tend to appreciate and understand the process heavy demands. OP asked about being a programmer though.

2. OP is literally minutes from simple coding in his browser. He needs to try doing the thing, before he worries about getting paid to do it professionally. TBH - based on the provided information and OP's response to my post, I'd bet a career programming isn't going to be a good fit. Someone happy programming for a living thinks differently.

[mizzourah2006]

...
1. Why can't OP not do PM job even if he can't immediately code? He was in the Army, so breaking down tasks and achieving a bigger goal step by step should have been drilled into him by now!

2. There are a lot of confusing details one needs to learn related to any of the IDE you would choose to code. That initial hurdle can be very daunting for a beginner for even the "Hello World" type of code. I saw this when my DW picked up coding as an adult. After the first few months of frustrations for her, she was eventually able to get to coding just fine.

1. PM - maybe, more soft skills, relationship emphasis, etc. A scrum master or product owner role could be viable as well. Military types are big in the security and compliance fields, they tend to appreciate and understand the process heavy demands. OP asked about being a programmer though.

2. OP is literally minutes from simple coding in his browser. He needs to try doing the thing, before he worries about getting paid to do it professionally. TBH - based on the provided information and OP's response to my post, I'd bet a career programming isn't going to be a good fit. Someone happy programming for a living thinks differently.

I'd say seconds. If he has a gmail account he can go into google drive, "new", "more" and open "Google Collaboratory" and he has a free server for just about anything. Heck he can even turn on a GPU runtime server for free and now he can even do deep learning :)

[lhamo]

Microsoft and Google have both recently started new programs to help people get training to transition to tech jobs. One is in partnership with linked in. On my phone so not easy to find right now, but should show up on a search.

Update: 

Here is the link to Microsoft's announcement of its programs, including the linkedin partnership:

https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/06/30/microsoft-launches-initiative-to-help-25-million-people-worldwide-acquire-the-digital-skills-needed-in-a-covid-19-economy/

And here is a link to Google's certificate programs:

https://grow.google/certificates/

[Dave1442397]

Back in the '90s, I worked for a contracting company in Retirement Services. It was all COBOL, CICS and DB2.

There was a shortage of programmers at the time, so I was interviewing applicants almost every day. We had a huge influx of Russian immigrants who were mostly living in the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn and commuting to jobs in the area. After hiring a few of them, I started printing out all the resumes and laying them out on a table. It was basically the same resume rearranged slightly for each applicant.

I asked one of my guys what was going on (he was an excellent programmer, had some great stories about the KGB in the workplace), and he said that there was an interview school in Brighton Beach that would coach you on the common interview questions, write a resume for you, and even, if you paid a little extra, have someone else do your phone interview for you.

It was a great scheme. Some of the people we hired were legit programmers, so when we got the newbies, they would work in groups. The newbies would get coaching until they could do the work, and as long as things were getting done, I didn't mind.

We did have a couple who didn't make it. One was a woman who was running a travel agency from her work cube, not realizing that the company kept phone logs. She was gone soon after her first $800+ phone bill showed up. Another was a guy who, unfortunately for him, was seated right outside my manager's office. He started at 9am, and at 11am she called me into her office and said "Watch what he's doing." You could tell the guy had never used a QWERTY keyboard before. Hunt and peck would have been a big step up. I had to ask him to leave, and he said "I come back tomorrow?". Uh, no, we'll see if we can find something else for you.

Anyway, the point is, most of these people were in their 30s and 40s, and most of them learned to code quickly enough to make $50-60k a year in no time. Once they knew enough to jump to another company, they typically made $50-55 an hour. Pretty good money 25 years ago. It can be done.

[ender]

There was a shortage of programmers at the time, so I was interviewing applicants almost every day.

One thing to consider is there is still a shortage of programmers, however there is much less a shortage of new grad/inexperienced programmers at this point compared to experienced programmers.

I am part of several careers related group for software dev and people who graduated in 2020 are having a really rough time.

I highly doubt people who just decided to take some online courses are going to experience the same dotcom boom experience you are describing.

[Captain Cactus]

Thank you all for your insight.  I've learned a lot from these posts today. 

[Zette]

Got me thinking... Could this be a move for me?  Could I learn to code and program? I don't even really know what a day in the life looks like, or what kinds of things one works on in this line of work, but everyone keeps talking about it so maybe it's worth exploring.
...
 I'm looking for something I can do, working from home, and something that requires an actual skill that I can learn and practice.  I'm chock full of soft skills but I don't have any "skills".  Maybe something that I could do either full time or part time... and of course the remote working is especially interesting to me these days.

It seems like the main attraction of coding is the idea that you would be able to work from home.  As a beginner without contacts in the industry, I'm not sure how likely it is that you could get hired for a work from home position.

You have a MA in teaching -- how about online tutoring? 

Is there anything you know about sales that you could turn into a coaching gig or educational class for other sales reps?

[habanero]

I've always been curious about these online classes and what percentage of people actually use them to start a new career in programming.

I did a few courses on Udemy to get started with Python and found those pretty good (the usual syntax/quirks/Pandas/Numpy stuff). I have a computer science background, but haven't worked in the field since some internship while at uni and I have mostly written only rather short snippets in my job to automate stuff, process amounts of data too large to do manually etc and I have a decent understanding of SQL for various reasons. I never written anything that would qualify as production code. I think this would be enough to get me to switch towards data science type of work for my current employer if I wanted to as they were looking for people internally to move into that field around that time, but I found it way to simple and shallow that I would employ myself  in an outside organization to put it that way. Maybe in a situation where there was a massive shortage of that particular skillset I might have had a shot. Or maybe not since Im getting towards my mid 40s and the ageism is a thing in this field. Or I might have been persistent and gotten lucky at one point and entered the game and then anything can happen.

I did this together with a coworker and he, being a smart guy and all, came quickly up to speed. But it did, on multiple occations, become very, very clear that I had a much better understanding than him due to my background and way back when having done some work and coursework in a strongly typed, compiled language and the other usual stuff you do in a CS degree.

I was at university during the .com boom and then you could pretty much get a job in the field if you were capable of spelling "Java".

[2sk22]

There is one more aspect to consider: The first time you try to write a program on your own, you will feel a sense of frustration greater than anything you have experience in your life until that point. However, you will get over it as you gain proficiency. The reason I mention this is that you will really need determination to get over the initial hump (and being enthusiastic helps too). One of the good things about taking a formal course is that it will give you a support network to help you through the difficult spots.

I.... uh, don't agree with this, unless you've lived a sheltered life.

From a formal education standpoint I can see the point they were trying to make. I got a PhD that involved a ton of statistics and calculus and programming was very frustrating for me at first. I think it's the sense of "getting stuff wrong" that was hard for me to overcome at first. Writing the code and then executing it and getting an error, or getting the wrong answer. Early on I spent tons of time double/triple checking my code before I executed it for fear that I'd get a bug or get the wrong answer. Now I throw some code together, run it, read the error, or look at the output vs. what was expected and re-adjust. I'm not afraid of getting it wrong, instead I use the "wrongness" as feedback on how to make it right. That type of negative feedback wasn't really a part of any of my formal education. Early on it made me think I was dumb and that was very frustrating as I've never been made to feel that way at any point of my educational or professional career before that.

That's exactly what I was trying to say :-)  Over the years, I have mentored a number of people who wanted to enter the programming field and have seen this frustration first hand and helped them overcome it - so I speak with some experience.

[rantk81]

Recommendation ... find free tutorials on YouTube. Python would be a good start.  There are tons of fantastic tutorials.  Don’t just watch them. Stop the videos and spend time to actually write code too. Watching and doing are VERY different...

I don’t know this guy personally, but I found YouTube videos by Derek Banas to be quite good.

[EricEng]

Now might also be an easier time to get hired as a programmer because of govt cutting back so drastically on h1b visas that has made it harder to fill low level programmer jobs.  Those jobs used to get flooded with folks from India (among other countries, but tons from India still)

[Lovelywings]

I logged into MMM after more than a year just to comment on this. 🙂

2.5 years ago, I posted about investigating a career in programming (instead of business school), and the advice wasn’t completely encouraging. I remember one person saying if coding was something I was interested in, shouldn’t I have gone into the field earlier. I was 35 at the time, so younger than you but still old by coding standards. My background was in the humanities/ social sciences, so I didn’t even have any business experience.

As I write this, I work as a software engineer remotely and I’m paid at the high end  for my city (salary is highly location-dependent in tech). I’ve been working full time for about 9 months as a programmer.

The journey was incredibly difficult, and cost me a lot of money. But it was worth it. I wanted to share with you a few things that I think you need to know:

1/ programming has a lot of gate-keeping. There are a lot of coders who look down on and are skeptical of people who weren’t taking apart computers at 13 or didn’t study computer science. You see this snobbery in the disdain towards bootcamps - because there is an almost unconscious bias towards people who learn to code as adults. Oh they’ll say they’re just concerned about poor quality schools, but you don’t see that concern for poor quality CS programs or free online courses. If this is the career for you, you will need to prepare yourself for the challenge you may face in getting hired. That challenge increases with age and if you look nothing like the stereotypical coder. Separately, you’re unlikely to succeed as a career changer unless you love programming. So you really need to investigate first if you enjoy learning JavaScript or Python etc and building things with specific languages.

2/ changing careeers to programming will cost you more than you anticipated . The people who learn for free online pay the price of isolation, not having enough experience to know when a course is teaching you the wrong thing, not knowing which language or frameworks to use, and TIME while having to stay in a job they hate. People who go to bootcamps pay the price of something like $20,000 in tuition, living expenses, and the 6-9 months it may take after bootcamp to land the first job. However much you think it will take to change careers, double it. Double the time, money, frustration and isolation. I went to two ‘bootcamps’. One full time, and later a program for technical interviewing as a software engineer. I certainly didn’t expect that.

3/ the first job search is the hardest one you will have ever done in your life, because of challenge 1 above. The junior developer job market is over-saturated with self-taught, bootcamp grads, and Computer Science graduates. Getting my first Dev job was harder than getting my H1B job during the recession in 2009. There is an entire economy around the Dev job search and as an older candidate you may end up having to take classes on technical interviewing, unless you’re lucky.

4/ If you enjoy coding (you have to first make sure you do), you’re able to build enough skills in it to get hired, you manage to find a job although your income as a new programmer has been reduced by 40-50% (that’s another thing I didn’t expect), and you manage to stay employed in the right language and stack for about 2 years, you can pretty much write your ticket. The benefits of this career are enjoyed most by intermediate to senior programmers. If you have the patience, hustle and intellectual capacity to survive the first 2 years of employment, then you just might get the career of your dreams.

Good luck!

[bacchi]

Great post, Lovelywings.

Re: 3, when interviewing job applicants for a web dev role, I found that a LOT of people didn't know how to code. It's not like they forgot O(N) for a binary search but they literally didn't know about python and tabs, even if they stated that they knew python. Buzzwords were just slapped onto a resume.

It's probably why it's so hard to get that 1st job. If you receive 50 resumes for a job posting, and 35 are fake, some filters are needed. It's just easier to look at the known gate keepers like universities or reputable bootcamps.


I've recommended helping out with a github project before. Find one or two projects and fix some issues. It's not only a visible example of your ability to code but it's also helpful in that you can see how good (presumably) code is structured. Git alone is valuable as a skill.

[FINate]

I logged into MMM after more than a year just to comment on this. 🙂

2.5 years ago, I posted about investigating a career in programming (instead of business school), and the advice wasn’t completely encouraging. I remember one person saying if coding was something I was interested in, shouldn’t I have gone into the field earlier. I was 35 at the time, so younger than you but still old by coding standards. My background was in the humanities/ social sciences, so I didn’t even have any business experience.

As I write this, I work as a software engineer remotely and I’m paid at the high end  for my city (salary is highly location-dependent in tech). I’ve been working full time for about 9 months as a programmer.

The journey was incredibly difficult, and cost me a lot of money. But it was worth it. I wanted to share with you a few things that I think you need to know:

1/ programming has a lot of gate-keeping. There are a lot of coders who look down on and are skeptical of people who weren’t taking apart computers at 13 or didn’t study computer science. You see this snobbery in the disdain towards bootcamps - because there is an almost unconscious bias towards people who learn to code as adults. Oh they’ll say they’re just concerned about poor quality schools, but you don’t see that concern for poor quality CS programs or free online courses. If this is the career for you, you will need to prepare yourself for the challenge you may face in getting hired. That challenge increases with age and if you look nothing like the stereotypical coder. Separately, you’re unlikely to succeed as a career changer unless you love programming. So you really need to investigate first if you enjoy learning JavaScript or Python etc and building things with specific languages.

2/ changing careeers to programming will cost you more than you anticipated . The people who learn for free online pay the price of isolation, not having enough experience to know when a course is teaching you the wrong thing, not knowing which language or frameworks to use, and TIME while having to stay in a job they hate. People who go to bootcamps pay the price of something like $20,000 in tuition, living expenses, and the 6-9 months it may take after bootcamp to land the first job. However much you think it will take to change careers, double it. Double the time, money, frustration and isolation. I went to two ‘bootcamps’. One full time, and later a program for technical interviewing as a software engineer. I certainly didn’t expect that.

3/ the first job search is the hardest one you will have ever done in your life, because of challenge 1 above. The junior developer job market is over-saturated with self-taught, bootcamp grads, and Computer Science graduates. Getting my first Dev job was harder than getting my H1B job during the recession in 2009. There is an entire economy around the Dev job search and as an older candidate you may end up having to take classes on technical interviewing, unless you’re lucky.

4/ If you enjoy coding (you have to first make sure you do), you’re able to build enough skills in it to get hired, you manage to find a job although your income as a new programmer has been reduced by 40-50% (that’s another thing I didn’t expect), and you manage to stay employed in the right language and stack for about 2 years, you can pretty much write your ticket. The benefits of this career are enjoyed most by intermediate to senior programmers. If you have the patience, hustle and intellectual capacity to survive the first 2 years of employment, then you just might get the career of your dreams.

Good luck!

Is this the comment you're referring to? While not super encouraging, it appears to be fairly prescient based on your experience.

RE gatekeeping: While largely true, it isn't entirely unjustified. One becomes a lot pickier with candidates after cleaning up a few troubled codebases. Yes, there are bad CS programs and competent companies take this into account when evaluating candidates. And even the best CS programs produce duds, which is why stringent coding interviews exist. Of course it's possible to break into the field via bootcamp or self-taught. I've worked with wonderful people with such backgrounds. But the these folks confirm what you've said: it's an uphill battle at each new company.

A CS degree (or similar) provides something that's difficult to document with bootcamp/self-taught: a credential representing a multi-year well rounded education in the core foundations of the field. In lieu of such a credential employers necessarily seek other evidence of competency. IMO that's fair, and just something to be aware of if going the bootcamp/self-taught route. Maintaining a portfolio of open source projects/contributions may be a good idea.

[EricEng]

RE gatekeeping: While largely true, it isn't entirely unjustified. One becomes a lot pickier with candidates after cleaning up a few troubled codebases. Yes, there are bad CS programs and competent companies take this into account when evaluating candidates. And even the best CS programs produce duds, which is why stringent coding interviews exist. Of course it's possible to break into the field via bootcamp or self-taught. I've worked with wonderful people with such backgrounds. But the these folks confirm what you've said: it's an uphill battle at each new company.

A CS degree (or similar) provides something that's difficult to document with bootcamp/self-taught: a credential representing a multi-year well rounded education in the core foundations of the field. In lieu of such a credential employers necessarily seek other evidence of competency. IMO that's fair, and just something to be aware of if going the bootcamp/self-taught route. Maintaining a portfolio of open source projects/contributions may be a good idea.

Well said and exactly true.  Lots of people go through those bootcamp programs in a few weeks to months.  Some come out decent, but some learned nothing.  It is hard, expensive, and risky to filter through lots of them.  The CS 4 year programs are typically accredited and longer, which tends to filter out more (not all) of the duds.  Thus hiring managers have better odds with a CS degree. 

Now from my own experience I have of course ran into a few mediocre to bad CS programmers.  I have also ran into a larger share of self-taught & bootcamp coders that weren't nearly as good as they thought.  Maybe they could code something that compiled and ran, but they commonly missed good design, documentation, or maintainability which is much more important than speed.  Lot of self taught ones only stuck to actual coding for a few years and then transitioned to management/leadership positions without actual coding.

[Lovelywings]

@FINate this isn’t about resurrecting that one comment in particular. So all I’ll say is, having gone through the process of learning as an adult, I know what kind of advice was most helpful to me and to other career changers into programming in my circle.. I succeeded in spite of some of the feedback I was given, not because of it.

[FINate]

@FINate this isn’t about resurrecting that one comment in particular. So all I’ll say is, having gone through the process of learning as an adult, I know what kind of advice was most helpful to me and to other career changers into programming in my circle.. I succeeded in spite of some of the feedback I was given, not because of it.

That overall thread and the specific comment in question seemed rather civil and positive, not really negative/bad advice, and even some nuggets of good advice. OP here may want to glance it over as well.

Sincere congratulations on your success. Breaking into a career in any field is always challenging, whatever path one takes. My hat goes off to you.

[ctuser1]

@Lovelywings That is impressive.

My DW faced similar dilemma as you. She had a liberal arts background. At my suggestion, she actually took the MS in CS route. In order to fill the "pre-requisites", she had to do about 30 undergrad credits in in a community college - up to the calculus series, and 21 extra pre-requisite grad credits in the MS course on top of the regular 30 credits for MS. The total process took her 3.5 years.

I sometimes second guess if it would have been easier to push her towards the bootcamp route instead.

[AccidentialMustache]

Thank you all for your insight.  I've learned a lot from these posts today.

It is worth keeping that Army tag around. A lot of the silicon valley types are actively trying to improve their diversity, so there's extra outreach to underrepresented groups. That often includes veterans.

Other things that might be worth considering:
- IT rather than CS
- "Sales Engineer" -- applicable to IT or (to a lesser degree) CS -- This is where you work with the customer, alongside the sales person -- to win their business. You need to be technical, but you also need the soft skills you already have in sales. Quota may still be a problem here though.

[dignam]

Go for it.  Age doesn't really matter, and programming is something you can teach yourself.  I graduated with a CS degree and was a developer for roughly 8 years.  I still program here and there, but I have shifted more to a database admin and team lead role.

I'm part of our developer search committee when we have spots to fill.  For us at least, the code assessment is a huge part of whether you will get that second interview.  There are 4-6 of us who will review the submitted code assignment and we all discuss.  The next most important thing is how you would fit in with our team (which is probably true of any profession).  We have, however, turned away a candidate with a slightly better code assessment for someone who clearly was a better fit for our group.

As far as education goes, that is not a large part of our consideration.  Our devs have degrees ranging from associate's to master's.  In fact, our worst developer to date had a master's degree (he didn't last long here).  One of our strongest has a degree in English.

[Louisville]

I've been in Information Systems since 1996, having entered the field after two prior careers in military and hospitality. I do mostly ETL and data design in a large enterprise these days, making well into six figures.

I've always been dubious about "learn to code". I'm still not sure what that even means. Yes, one should have at least the rudiments of a hard skill (like a programming language) to get started.

But, there's so much more than that. Operating systems, network concepts, database concepts, overall algorithm concepts that could apply in multiple "coding" languages, source control, etc., etc.

No one wants to do it, but a great place to build I/S experience is in first level support - trying to help end users over the phone.

Maybe I'm a dinosaur. Maybe there are some Information Systems ecosystems out there where one can just show up and write some JAVA (or whatever). But, no place I've ever worked would hire someone who has just "learned to code".

OP, if you're serious about this, maybe do what I did. Go to your local community college and bang out an Associate's degree in Information Systems.

[SwordGuy]

Have you written some code? If not, go do it.

If you do not get that far on your own, it is probably not the work for you.

1. Why can't OP not do PM job even if he can't immediately code? He was in the Army, so breaking down tasks and achieving a bigger goal step by step should have been drilled into him by now!

It's possible to be a really good PM without knowing a damn thing technically -- if you have a good technical person to lean on.   

Most PMs that I've met who don't have any technical skills have no idea how to tell who knows what they are doing and who doesn't until it's too late. 

As for learning to code, yes it's possible to learn on your own.   A lot of people think you have to be really smart to be a good programmer (certainly doesn't hurt!) but the biggest requirement is to be able to put up with and make use of huge amounts of pissant detail.   

If you're the kind of salesperson who really pays close attention to detail and to figuring out customer requirements, you'll have a leg up on being a programmer/analyst.    If you're a "big picture" person who uses hand-wavium on the details you'll be a walking disaster to everyone who works with you -- which is not to say you can't land a job in IT anyway.

[Retire-Canada]

I have a B.Eng in computer engineering. Spent 10 years in the Army doing nothing related. Got out of the Army not sure what to do so I did some graduate work in engineering and project management. I ended up spending the last 24 years doing a mix of project management and quality management work.

I mention this because I struggle to see how the OP goes from a high paying, but unsatisfying sales career to a reasonably high paying programming career given his age and dependents. That transition would involve a significant amount of work/time and risk with low/lower pay for a significant period. If he was younger/single I could see it. If he was super passionate about the idea in his current situation I could see it. But, if the goal is to just switch careers it seems like a pretty steep hill to climb.

Given you've got the Army logistics background that's what I would try and leverage and get into something management related. The project management idea mentioned above was good. Getting a PMP is easy. There should be a lot of PM work that's remote at least for some if not all of the tasks. You'd be able to enter the PM career path higher in the food chain and progress faster than as a programmer. It will work with skills/experience you have and in a lot of business environments being ex-Army is respected/valued.

Not that doing PM work is the only option, but it's worth exploring and in the process you can see what other management jobs are being offered and pivot as makes the most sense.

Looking back at my career my skills/experience in the Army were noted/valued a lot more than the things I learned in school.

Good luck whatever you decide to do OP.

[lhamo]

Since no one has mentioned it, I will -- another route into the tech field is to start in QA/testing.  QA roles are kind of the cinderella of software.  Lower paid, lower glamor, but boy do you want some good ones putting the software through its paces before it ships!  My sister was in QA for many years before she moved up to a development role -- she probably could have made the move earlier but didn't for various reasons. 

[FINate]

Since no one has mentioned it, I will -- another route into the tech field is to start in QA/testing.  QA roles are kind of the cinderella of software.  Lower paid, lower glamor, but boy do you want some good ones putting the software through its paces before it ships!  My sister was in QA for many years before she moved up to a development role -- she probably could have made the move earlier but didn't for various reasons.

Great point! And in my experience those with QA/testing background often produce better code if/when they move into development. My guess is that this is from spending a lot of time thinking about all the potential failure modes.

[ender]

The barrier to entry in most QA roles is different too.

[nirodha]

I've been involved in hiring for a couple QA's over the past 6 months. I can't see someone with the OP's history getting past even HR screening. A typical entry level QA:

1. early 20's
2. heavily introverted
3. happy sitting alone for long periods of time
4. takes direction well
5. obsessed with details
6. likes pushing the boundaries of systems
7. (preferred) knows to code, but lazy, a fan of test automation tools

That just doesn't match a 40 year old sales guy with a graduate education and prior career in the military. The role probably isn't a fit on skills, personality or culture. He'll be undervalued relative to prior comp, has a good chance of underperforming while causing team disruption and will probably move on as soon there's experience. It's a bad risk as the hiring manager.



What might convince me otherwise

1. The candidate's prior career gives expertise in the business domain I am now serving
2. Referral from someone I know is an A player, even better if they are on the team
3. An ability to articulate genuine enthusiasm for growth, into meeting the needs of my team
4. Strong proof that a big personality won't upset team balance. I've seen too many developers shut down as soon as someone is a little loud. This is a big risk with the OP - he's going to look and act like a leader, especially compared to the typical IT person.

[ender]

I've been involved in hiring for a couple QA's over the past 6 months. I can't see someone with the OP's history getting past even HR screening. A typical entry level QA:

1. early 20's
2. heavily introverted
3. happy sitting alone for long periods of time
4. takes direction well
5. obsessed with details
6. likes pushing the boundaries of systems
7. (preferred) knows to code, but lazy, a fan of test automation tools

That just doesn't match a 40 year old sales guy with a graduate education and prior career in the military. The role probably isn't a fit on skills, personality or culture. He'll be undervalued relative to prior comp, has a good chance of underperforming while causing team disruption and will probably move on as soon there's experience. It's a bad risk as the hiring manager.



What might convince me otherwise

1. The candidate's prior career gives expertise in the business domain I am now serving
2. Referral from someone I know is an A player, even better if they are on the team
3. An ability to articulate genuine enthusiasm for growth, into meeting the needs of my team
4. Strong proof that a big personality won't upset team balance. I've seen too many developers shut down as soon as someone is a little loud. This is a big risk with the OP - he's going to look and act like a leader, especially compared to the typical IT person.

Ah yes, the classic age discrimination aspect of tech.