to retrain as a web developer at 50?

[beastlyslumber]

Inspired by another thread in which there's lots of discussion about how in-demand developers are at the moment, I started doing a little research to see if it's the sort of thing I might be interested in, and I am! But I'm 50, have worked in education for most of my career and I'm worried about how long the training might take and what my prospects might be as an older female in this field. Can anyone advise?

Governance analysts, product managers, project managers, service managers etc. These would be an easy win for career changes but also offer faster progression, with previous experience making a big difference.

Tell me more @LegMeChicken? I'm definitely interested!

The Gov has some free courses

www.gov.uk/guidance/free-courses-for-jobs

Good luck !

You women are bloody brilliant! Feel like I've got loads of ideas and inspiration now.

I'm going to do some on the freecodecamp and see if I like it. Obviously if I hate it or find it impossible, then it's a non-starter. But it seems like there are a lot of opportunities to train and some good roles out there. I definitely love problem-solving and I'm creative and clever. I also like money, and really like the idea of making a decent salary after decades of scraping by in education!

My DH is a fairly senior web developer with a lot of experience but no qualifications. The money is wonderful, and he wfh full time, which is great. I'm not working while the babies are small but have absolutely thought about this after 25 years in sales management. Women are massively in demand across the industry, DH says pass a course or two and you are virtually guaranteed a reasonably paid role. Age is not really a major issue provided you are prepared to constantly learn and update as the tech changes all the time.

I'm in my 50s, and work in a very well know tech company. However, I've always worked in this area, so my perspective is:

• I fully agree with the post who suggested considering to start in QA role, and then transition to a development role if you are interested

• If you are not flexible on relocation, pick a few companies in your area. Look very closely at the job descriptions, and ensure that your training and courses are fully aligned with those jobs of interest

• Interviews are very different for these types of jobs in the larger companies. There is always a coding and problem solving exercise. Read about those companies, and the types of problems, so you are prepared

• With respect to age I'd think there is age bias in hiring in tech. I know companies are trying to deal with this, but IMHO it is still very much there. On the other side, there is a big effort to hire a more diverse workforce, so I'd consider being a woman to be ad advantage (assuming all other things being equal!)

Good luck!

Great thread OP.

I'm also interested in getting into tech. I've done Business Analyst jobs which were very much on the non-technical side, generally focused on trying to find software/tools that will help with data management and processing. I have worked on projects where a new system is being built and I undertake the UAT.

Currently in a role where I have to do up financial reports based on massive amounts of industry data. When I started I had to do it all in Excel but have convinced my company to invest in software.

I feel like I'm often involved with IT projects but on the outside.

I enjoy working away at something on my own, love problem solving, and appreciate autonomy. I don't enjoy being a manager or dealing directly with clients if I can help it, I seem to have a lot of anxiety around that.

Would love to explore if there are any suitable IT roles I could move into.

Following as I’ve also been thinking of retraining as a web developer.
Thanks for all the course reccomendations, I’ve just signed up for the free code camp site.

I guess what I’m unsure about as how do you know when you’ve learnt enough to start looking for jobs?

You've had lots of great advice already, I just wanted to say that when I went back into tech after a long break, I didn't find my age (late forties at the time) to be be a problem at all.

I'm definitely going to look into some of these courses! Wondering what hardware is required for doing the training and potentially work from home? Is there expensive software required? If internet access alone is all that's needed, my 8 year old PowerBook will do the job!

Thanks @AlabamaSong. Apologies for my ignorance, but what's QA?

I was reading that this morning and thinking the same.

This has inspired me to retrain. I am in education teaching GCSE and alevel computer science. Have coding experience so think I might stand a chance of getting a tech job. Fingers crossed! Good luck everyone!

It’s great that you’ve had lots of responses, OP - but I can’t help wishing you’d put this on the Mature Study and Retraining board!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mature_students

Then all the helpful advice would have been easily accessible to other people considering the same thing …

@veevee04

My OH works in IT and he says tech is an incredibly ageist field of work you start being viewed as too old to learn new programming languages. Train up and see what happens if that's what you want to do but getting your foot in the door might be initially difficult. I would plan to look for a job around the time the graduates aren't looking.

I do too. This is probably the case in some companies but I think many or even most are extremely open minded.

www.computercareers.org/what-is-the-sdlc-life-cycle-and-who-is-involved/

www.comptia.org/career-change/switching-career-path/how-to

Usual way to transition:

• Take a couple of courses, highlight your transferable skills
• Go to one of these 'dev bootcamps', get a job and switch

**Many people find that they hate programming as a job and do this

@Sakura7 probably knows more on this as a business analyst.

I started in operations as a graduate and someone took a chance on me, my comments are from the experience of my colleagues and people I trained

@PurplePinecone

I was reading that this morning and thinking the same.

This has inspired me to retrain. I am in education teaching GCSE and alevel computer science. Have coding experience so think I might stand a chance of getting a tech job. Fingers crossed! Good luck everyone!

Your talents are wasted my friend... come and join us!

I found codefirstgirls one awful, but seems im in the minority on that one, you can apply for one of their free scholarship courses fairly regularly.
For other free courses I really like 100devs by Leon noel, on discord, Youtube, twitch and the Odin Project. Freecodecamp i found good for revising things but not as much for learning new things.

@RinklyRomaine

My DH is a fairly senior web developer with a lot of experience but no qualifications. The money is wonderful, and he wfh full time, which is great. I'm not working while the babies are small but have absolutely thought about this after 25 years in sales management. Women are massively in demand across the industry, DH says pass a course or two and you are virtually guaranteed a reasonably paid role. Age is not really a major issue provided you are prepared to constantly learn and update as the tech changes all the time.

Exactly. Very high churn rate A lot of bootcamp hires don't make it to senior technical positions. Because programming a job doesn't suit everyone, and that's perfectly fine. Also as long as they can say 'we recruited X women' they don't eally care. use it to your advantage

@Stossi

I found codefirstgirls one awful, but seems im in the minority on that one, you can apply for one of their free scholarship courses fairly regularly. For other free courses I really like 100devs by Leon noel, on discord, Youtube, twitch and the Odin Project. Freecodecamp i found good for revising things but not as much for learning new things.

I did them at uni and found the teaching terrible. but those were the free introductory ones with all volunteers.

People are recommending the sponsored ones, with companies ready to hire, and paid instructors.

How easy is it to get the higher salaries? and how long would it take?

I can highly recommend 100devs as it doesn't just focus on learning how to code but also how to get hired as a full-stack software engineer. It's a 30 week bootcamp and it's totally free.

A fellow member made a great site to help with catching up here.

@Sakura7

Great thread OP.

I'm also interested in getting into tech. I've done Business Analyst jobs which were very much on the non-technical side, generally focused on trying to find software/tools that will help with data management and processing. I have worked on projects where a new system is being built and I undertake the UAT.

Currently in a role where I have to do up financial reports based on massive amounts of industry data. When I started I had to do it all in Excel but have convinced my company to invest in software.

I feel like I'm often involved with IT projects but on the outside.

I enjoy working away at something on my own, love problem solving, and appreciate autonomy. I don't enjoy being a manager or dealing directly with clients if I can help it, I seem to have a lot of anxiety around that.

Would love to explore if there are any suitable IT roles I could move into.

There are a number of companies who provide support and software for finance departments. One that we use looks for accountants and finance staff who are used to doing the job but have a tech interest as well. Once you can write sql they can teach you other parts of the job. You do installs and customisations of software like Sunsystems etc.

One of our friends works for an international company doing SAP install projects for large companies. He was an accountant and now has his Prince2 project management qualification as well.

Pmk

@Quotebeastlyslumber, QA = Quality Assurance

A lot of the posts here are mentioning the salary, and that can be good. I've been in the industry 30+ years but very very few people I know from my earlier days have stayed. There is a lot of churn of people.

There is a huge pace of change, regular changes in direction, very frequent right-sizing (layoff, hiring), crazy long hours during crunch times, etc. There is a rapid cycle of boom and bust. We've relocated several times (not through choice).

Having said that I've enjoyed my career, worked with great people, etc.

Read the thread too and had the same thought!! I’d love to WFH too.

What about the data side? What kinds of roles and salaries can you get with SQL?