"Learn to code"

[Howaboutnope]

I've read this on a few threads recently - IT is where the money is at. But its all double dutch to me- I'd love to learn and try a new career and earn more money but I'm 34 and really don't have much IT knowledge bar the basics and using a laptop everyday. Is it really that easy to learn?! And how does it translate into a new career? Tips for dummies welcome!

Just to add, I had learned a more popular language, but had no job experience in it, which is what they wanted. Plenty of other people had the experience, so they were obviously preferable candidates.

I've done a bit of coding for my maths degree (python/MATLAB) whilst I've found the basics easy enough to pick up I've also found it incredibly boring.

I obviously don't have any kind of proper programming skills but I can do a fair bit of maths stuff with those programs, I've been taught a bit and googled a whole lot more.

Give it a go at home, python is easier through a compiler first imho, there's loads of free ones online. You might love it or, like me, it might make you weep tears of boredom.

I've never done any training in programming other than 1980s spectrum (showing my age). I loved it then but had no real understanding/teaching. I don't even know what language it was.

Over the last few years I've messed around with excel, my frustration is that I come up with an idea, solve the problem to automate it and want to expand my learning by understanding how more of the coded work but don't have any ideas on what to use them for.
My first attempts were very clunky and its making them more streamlined thats interesting.

There have been times when I've gone too far and get circular errors that need fixing so I'm thinking of doing a course to learn these properly. I wouldn't want to earn ££££ just to be able to do something I enjoy. To the pp who asked up thread, I have written crochet patterns and amended them to different sizes and the actual skill is similar.
Thank you to those who have posted links, I will have a look in the morning.

I was just talking to my daughter about this yesterday - how it's the best career choice by far!!!

It's what my brother taught himself outside of school/uni. He is in his mid-twenties and has been on a six figure salary almost straight out of uni. EVERYONE wants to hire him. He has worked for the largest banks and tech giants in the UK and the US and keeps getting headhunted for even more lucrative jobs. Just yesterday he left one tech giant for another and received a 30K "welcome bonus" and 165K worth of the company's shares just for joining them.

It's by far the best career money-wise where really young people straight out of uni can earn almost unlimited salaries if they are good. I wish it was something I could do. I say this as a Solicitor who has been a partner at City firms. My brother (who is 19 years younger) earns a lot more than me.

Thanks for this thread OP. Can I ask a question to the kind people on here working in coding please? I can do html and css. Currently work in web editing though most of that is wrangling with a cms.

Have two young kids under 6 and my husband left me. Now in a position where I need to support myself financially. Is there any way to take my web editing experience and use it to get something slightly more techy and better paid? Maybe around 40k? What job websites should I be looking at and what kind of job titles?

10 years younger- not 19* 😬

I went the other way from a compsci degree and web development into IT project management and been in IT non technical ever since (now management side) as I had no interest in keeping up with the technology changes required to keep suitably skilled. I think it’s interesting you can tell who on this thread has actually had lived experience of being a programmer as things like VBA were creaking 20 years ago never mind now. My experience echoed the PPs spending a whole day hunting for that one syntax error blocking the code from compiling - incredibly frustrating and not enjoyable from my own POV.

I would also echo those scratching their heads a bit at the claim of ‘just do one course and voila you are an in demand software professional’. I would suggest doing some research into software engineering as a whole and also look at some of the other roles already mentioned. Information security and cyber security are desperately short staffed; cloud environment engineers and devops engineers also hugely in demand but all of these disciplines would require training, certification, an aptitude and to enjoy the work which will be pressured at times (assuming involvement in project work with milestones and cutovers to live operations).

Without doubt you need an ability to understand and make use of highly technical information in any of the roles cited. If you don’t have a passion for it believe me the days can be long and it’s not the kind of work you leave at work when the pressure is on.

On the plus side as others have mentioned there are massive skills shortages in the IT sector as a whole so if you can find a role that suits then you should be able to create a good career out of it.

‘career switcher’ as someone took a chance on me.

There are dozens of threads on this very subject. Use the search function to find them, there are lots of good resources.

Go to CodeFirstGirls Boot Camp or the Odin project. Try building something. If you get it it’ll be easy for you, if not. No.
Reddit r/learnprogramming is the best.

Lots of female only bootcamps with interviews after.

HOWEVER:
A lot of people hired after boot camps actually find that industrial programming isn’t for them. Because

• You can spend 6 weeks on one error


• You need to spend a lot of time learning new things . A LOT. If you think you’ll immediately get a nice 9-5 job, forget it. I currently have no life.


• You constantly have things you don’t know. I’m always Googling, looking things up. Even senior devs do it. Things change so fast. Get complacent and you’ll lose out.


• You might be managed be people who don’t understand you need peace to work and constantly interrupt your day with meetings.


• there is no syllabus. Unlike accounting or medicine. You need to be savvy at what new skills to learn.

Coding is easy. Programming is hard, and GOOD programmers even rarer.

A true ‘good’ programmer transcends language. They understand the principles of good code. And can pick up a new one within a month.

if you just want money I suggest you go for a non-technical job like project manager, business analyst, user experience. This is a lot easier, more lucrative without the constant grind. Many ‘boot camp’ grads end up in these btw after a year or so.

Also work under pressure.
i recall one memorable meeting were stuff broke, MD’s were ringing me up and I told them to STFU while I sorted it out.

If you like algebra, can visualise how things fit, and like puzzles and stuff you’ll probably make a good programmer.

I struggled really hard at first but was lucky my team was great. After a few months I could ‘see’ the code, like a map.

Forget the syntax, when you learn to code the first thing is DO NOT touch the computer. Nope.

get a piece of paper, write out the problem and associated steps. If you’re good at that, no problem. Syntax, how X language does it compared to Y.. icing on the cake and you can always google it.

roadmap.sh/

Btw as PP said ‘code’ isn’t the only one. There are also things like cybersecurity, ‘cloud’.
that’s known as IT infrastructure as opposed to programming.

However that’s actually harder as you need to know lots of bits everywhere, no Substitute for hours at the coalface. Not many ‘boot camps’ fpr that either. You have to learn on your own.

boot camps themselves are mainly for front end web developers. Python is good for learning but not used for that. More for data science

I started with html and then css. These are the building blocks of web pages.

Ive done a basic course in python but then hit a bit of a wall!

Another well paid career is data analysis.

One thing to think about is what your current skills are. So for a teacher I'd recommend educational data analysis as a field on the rise. If you already use an LMS it's a really complimentary skill.

I retrained at 50 as an instructional designer and am starting my first job as Lead Instructional Designer because of my overall skill set. Happily no one has actually asked my age yet!

This is an excellent site for learning coding:

The Odin Project

@Wallywobbles I found your post really interesting - I started in web editing twenty years ago with html and CSS then kicked the whole thing into the long grass by having kids and six years later being entirely out of date, went in a different direction. Funnily enough, I've recently started teaching Python to Year 6 children. I've had to learn it and I"d forgotten how much I love coding! If it doesn't work, it's your error, the code itself is never wrong, which is great because it means it can be fixed. It might take a while but the solution is hidden somewhere - usually in plain sight. It's fascinating to see some children motivated by this and some just wanting to sling the laptop through the window. I love the structure and the certainty, but then I also do algebra for fun (maths teacher!) so I appreciate that it's not for everyone!

I work in tech too, but on the business side. I get to work with lovely designers and engineers but don't do their work thankfully!

I did a free two day course with Django Girls, specifically for women to learn Python. They were operating out of major UK cities pre pandemic, so worth looking into.

That course showed me I 100% didn't want to spend day in/out looking at code, but it could be for you.

This thread is interesting, I'm thinking I'd like to learn how to code just to make routine tasks at work faster. Thanks op for asking the question!

Low-Code is the way to go …. Get yourself learning Power Platform, and you won’t be short of work.

This seems a little defeatist?

Fwiw I've had a career change in my late 30's. No IT qualifications or experience but I've always dabbled in coding for fun. And I'm glad I did it, and didn't let the thought of younger, more recently qualified candidates put me off.

Fwiw I've had a career change in my late 30's. No IT qualifications or experience but I've always dabbled in coding for fun. And I'm glad I did it, and didn't let the thought of younger, more recently qualified candidates put me off.

So, you already had an interest in it. Interest and aptitude are far more important when it comes to programming than knowledge alone. If the OP had an interest in coding, then they wouldn't be asking what it is on a parenting forum.

It's not just coding, Salesforce is a huge growth area for jobs and they have a program to train beginners, all free- salesforcefundamentals.splashthat.com/

Following

a lot depends on what your situation is. But first I would try hobby coding in your free time. People have said python is a good start and I would agree (you can do remarkably cool stuff quickly by using some components that other people have made - I once linked downloaded components together in my script to convert speech to text and post it on a teams channel). Personally I find web dev quite hard because it involves many technologies - but some people like it because you can make something visually cool (and if that is what gives you motivation then do that).

doing hobby coding for at least 6months will help you decide if coding is for you. Then there are a number of different paths you can take (eg continue hobby coding, do a bootcamp, look for apprenticeships). If you find it is not for you, there are other non coding jobs in the tech sector - a couple of my siblings (who earn more than me) used their experience in finance to get into FinTech in management/Product Owner/Business analyst roles. These find out what the customer (internal or external) wants and prioritise tasks for the technical teams to implement.

I agree with all of this unfortunately.

and this. I fear you want to do it for the wrong reasons OP (money)