I learnt to code at 27 - AMA

[OliviaSoprano]

Before anybody tells me to get over myself - I do know that there is absolutely nothing special or interesting about this! But women are still so under-represented in tech and I think far too many see it as an area that is "not for them" / a career option that wouldn't even be worth considering. I felt exactly that way three years ago but then I tried it and realised that I bloody love coding and now I'm working full time as a software engineer and really enjoy my job.

Just thought I'd start this in case there is anybody out there who may have questions about what's actually involved or how to go about starting to learn the necessary skills (or anything else obviously, it's AMA!)

@idontknow54789

Hi, really interested in this as I'm considering a career change. Where did you study and what costs were involved? Do you need a certain level of training for entry level jobs? Given it's a very male led career do you find many roles that give you flexibility or any chance to be self employed/freelance in that area?

I took the expensive shortcut with my training and did a twelve week bootcamp which cost £8000, this price is pretty standard but there are sometimes discounts for women. It can definitely be done for about an eighth of that though will require a lot of hard work and initiative. It would be a very good idea to seek out help from the community I war referring to above after a little bit of self-study. MeetUp groups and mentorship programmes. There are thousands of free resources but peer support for direction to the right ones makes all the difference (in my experience)

@OliviaSoprano - no I wouldn’t have given it a go because I am risk averse and had discouraging experiences a teen where nothing worked and I could only do a couple of sums or text-based programs.

I think it’s so great that you did courses independently and persevered through it all. I would have been hesitant to do that as I have mortgage and kids; and would have probably have done something closer to my previous career in healthcare.

I did hobby coding with DH on a couple of side projects - and was only prompted to career switch at that time because I saw a job that was willing to explicitly take on non-computer science grads (I know a lot do if you have experience, but I didn’t really have v much). Since then I have seen a couple of similar ads that offer on-the-job training, so there is stuff out there.

@OliviaSoprano so great you got into coding at 27. I'm a Data and AI consultant. I didn't learn anything technical until I left school and took a jump on a comp sci degree.

To anyone finding this thread I'd like to add: not everyone in tech codes!! But a basic course can help, most people in non technical roles at my work have done at least a python or cloud computing fundamentals course.

Learning to code is a great way to launch into a WFH or freelance career. Especially Web development. Some roles are harder to do fully remote because they need lots of collaboration, and starting out can be hard to get as far as fast because remote mentoring is a bit more challenging.

Some of the top tech companies have some of the best perks, inc. Maternity packages. Other companies don't have the female representation to fight for it, but many have improved when challenged on it.

Burn out is a big thing, it can be really stressful at times when things go wrong. My work/life balance has deteriorated since WFH full time because I don't leave my computer at work/in my backpack at the end of the day. Its easy to "do another 10 minutes" and it becomes 2 hours....

On the flip side, the salaries are good. My starting salary was 37k, 2 years later and I'm on 50k+ 10-15k in bonuses.

That all makes complete sense Namenic, I guess I was more asking whether it would even have crossed your mind had you not had the insight via your DP. I recognise that I was in a privileged position as had no dependents or mortgage or anything. Nothing to lose! (well, other than my life's savings - but by that point I was very confident it was the right thing for me)

Hello MyDucksArentInARow! It's nice to have others in the industry popping in

Completely right about other options outside of coding, that's just my thing so have been sticking to talking about what I know.

I too work silly hours sometimes now there's no line between home and work but I'm generally a lot happier not having to go to an office. It helps that my company are amazing, I bloody love them! and I never, ever thought I'd feel that way about a huge American tech company. There's never any pressure to work longer than the standard 7 hours (quite the opposite in fact) And they just generally take incredibly good care of us and I feel completely trusted and respected as an employee. (But obviously this isn't true of every company)

Does the career lend itself to part time/flexible working?

@Twilightstarbright

Does the career lend itself to part time/flexible working?

flexible - yes, very much. Part-time sadly, like in so many industries, not at the beginning. Once you're experienced enough you can go freelance/ start contracting and then how much you work is up to you!

The part-time salaried positions don't really exist as far as I know but this is something that is ripe for change. There is so much talk about diversity and inclusion but without provisions like this... well, how do they ever expect to retain women? It's something I will be making noise about as I progress in my career for sure.

I found part time easier when I did some hours every day rather than, say, 3 full days. Because communication and collaboration are so important with Agile working, it helps to be in every working day just to keep on top of what's happening.

By the way - if anybody reading this is thinking seriously about taking some steps towards making a change in this direction but doesn’t know anybody in the industry or would just like to ask some more specific questions outside of the thread, then please feel free to DM me. Many more experienced folk were extremely helpful to me when I was starting out and I’m keen to pay the favour forward.

What a lovely thread OliviaSoprano, thank you Brilliant that you put all that work & investment in at the beginning & it paid off. Love a bit of paying it forward too

I'm going to lurk here for a little while & pick up anything which will help me to understand why my Coding husband is so addicted to it! It's very difficult to drag him out of the office & the coding on his screens looks a very complicated language to me. I'm fairly sure my brain wouldn't get it, but I'm enjoying listening to you all chat.

@Residentdove2020

What a lovely thread OliviaSoprano, thank you Brilliant that you put all that work & investment in at the beginning & it paid off. Love a bit of paying it forward too

I'm going to lurk here for a little while & pick up anything which will help me to understand why my Coding husband is so addicted to it! It's very difficult to drag him out of the office & the coding on his screens looks a very complicated language to me. I'm fairly sure my brain wouldn't get it, but I'm enjoying listening to you all chat.

I don't really do much coding yet, but I do get lost in data and then suddenly realise it's 6pm and I have to go and pick up the DC, and I think it becomes a flow experience really easily because it's incremental and satisfying to keep building one little bit on the next. Also coding languages look intimidating if you know nothing at all, but once you start to learn them it's really not that complicated. They are much more logical than spoken language because they have to be. You definitely don't have to be some kind of genius to code, hell, if it was that difficult, men couldn't do it

A guy in my team works 4 days a week. He is middle grade though - ie experienced but not management.

I’m a DBA and have worked in the industry for 30+ years. I adore it. I’ve stayed on the tech side because I love it - a lot of women, in my experience, go into the project management side rather than remain in more technical roles.

Over the years I’ve worked part time (4 days) or flexible shorter days at times but alongside that I’ve put in a lot of on call time and out of hours working.
When I started there were many more women working in IT. I’ve seen those numbers drop away steeply but glad to see that the numbers are beginning to rise again.

Another thing I’ve learned is that nothing stays the same for long in tech and you are constantly learning but you’re always building on what you know - take every opportunity to learn and keep moving your skills on.

So if someone really wanted to start this what would you advice them starting at on codeacdemy

Hi @OliviaSoprano
I would love to code and thought I would enjoy it but got pushed into another course at uni. More of a data driven course, and I love data!! I am very logical and thorough but coding didn't click with me. What could I do to get back into it and really get me started and good at it?

Great thread I’m a developer too (mainly JavaScript & PHP though - your side of things scares me a bit!) & am in my 40s... not all of us give up after children! It’s generally a job I love. Really varied work with great satisfaction when you solve an annoying problem or create something new that actually works. Like OP I changed from a completely different career by enrolling myself on a course (15 years ago now). I think it’s a job that suits people who are logical & like solving problems. I’ve also found I’ve done pretty well for myself despite not having a great background in the technical side - no interest in how computers actually work etc. it just turns out I’m just good at coding! Most people I have worked with are male & have always done this line of work. I’ve never worked with another woman

You have to pay with codeacademy after 7 days so I need another site to start on

Not used it myself but there’s a site called lynda.com with a free month if that’s better XmasBelle

Congrats OP, that’s a great achievement Appreciate the thread too
Do you think being good at maths is important to become a developer? I think I’m quite a logical person but my maths skills are quite rusty (not terrible, just average - haven’t done it since gcse days)

I previously attended a Code First Girls beginners course whilst at uni (for absolute beginners, mainly focused on basic web dev rather than programming) - loved it though. Never thought programming was for me as I’m a social science grad, also it’s intimidating to me how much there is to learn even to qualify for an entry level role - especially when I’d be presumably competing with comp sci grads

Damn I'm so jealous! I taught myself SQL and PHP in the late 90s, just on the cusp of the e-commerce wave, built one bespoke trading site (which had some pretty cool stuff like online stock control 20 years ago and continued to run on my code for 18 years after I left yes I'm still proud), did a Comp Sci masters as a mature student because I loved it but got sucked into the corporate side and ended up a Tech project manager. I only realised about a decade in that I had been at least as good as all the "real" programmers but I'd let myself get pushed into a XX chromosome career path :(

I still code when I can find an excuse though - not production code of course but I use python for bulk testing, data preparation etc

To me the difference between a professional coder and someone like myself isn't the ability to write code but the professional discipline around it - unit tests, dev ops, logging and alerting, merging changes into an existing codebase, that type of thing.

My plan B if I get made redundant is a bootcamp - does it cover that sort of thing or is it pretty much just about the coding?

Not sure if this was asked already, what was your background and did you have a degree already before doing the coding courses?

What is the first sort of role after training- like a junior developer role or something? I think coding sounds like something I'd be good at, but there seems to be very few jobs that are for those just starting out (and on the wrong side of 30!) but maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing. Plus I wouldn't really want to work full time which pretty much rules it out, though if it takes a couple of years of train first then it might be do-able once kids are older.

For those looking to get into the industry with little or no experience the Civil Service and several other organisations sometimes run digital apprenticeships or similar schemes and welcome applications from all ages.
This is out of date now but similar things to this HMRC

@Twilightstarbright I'm a web developer and work part time but it wasn't exactly easy to get part time. I did what a lot of women do and went back PT after mat leave but was made redundant (covid!) and then has to hunt down a replacement PT job and hit a lot of brick walls. Most recruiters we useless and jib boards would have thousands of FT jobs and literally a hand full of PT. In the end I applied for a job directly with the company (to avoid a recruiter saying no) and they hadn't didn't specified and then I asked at interview. By some miracle they already had a PT dev AND more women than men

Thank you. My need to work part time is more for health reasons than family commitments and I've always liked the idea of coding.