Working from home as coder/Web dev

[Pippy2022]

How realistic is it to be able to fully work from home in these roles? I'm 45 and looking to retrain.

Pretty common now, but if you are retraining you would be far better starting off somewhere with colleagues. I believe you need to absorb information from being around them to become a productive and practical coder. Learning from a course is all very well as a foundation, but learning from colleagues is where you learn all the things the courses don't teach you.

From the beginning? Not at all. Remote jobs are what you can get when you have several years' experience and a track record. It is not an appealing prospect for a company to hire someone with no applied experience to work 100% remotely.

Thank you. I'm surprised all these techie types don't just zoom everything? I've got 3 kids in Primary (2 sen) so very tied at the moment.

Agree with the pp comments. It’s a role well suited to remote working but only when you know what you’re doing.

I hate to say it but I’d be put off by an older coder new into the sector.

Do people set up their own Web dev businesses without company experience or is that rare?

What the others. I've been in IT for 25 years. I have a masters in IT. I'm shit at coding, although I did it for years, then ended up testing. We all worked in the office until covid, and now we can work remotely, although if we are local then we are expected in the office at least twice a week. We do have teams meetings all the time, but it really isn't the same as being there in person. I can't imagine an established company taking a gamble on an older person with no experience working remotely full time. You might learn the basics on a course, but really you learn on the job, and to do that you really have to be present.

Dev jobs are team jobs. The idea that 'techie types' just sit alone writing code all day is a myth. You might be able to string lines of code together, but you won't have a clue about all the other aspects of the job when you start, and being fully remote in that scenario is something no employer with sense is going to do because it's setting you up for failure.

There are really only two ways to work fully remote: to do something low skilled and badly paid, or to already be experienced in a highly skilled role.

OK, thanks for the honest answers. It doesn't sound like a great option then. Think I'm basically forked! 😅

Some other roles that are “adjacent” to coding might be more suitable. User research? Performance analytics?
What are you retraining from?

I've been a stay at home mum for over 10 years. Before that I was a civil servant policy advisor/team manager/performance/ casework. As a sahm I've taught myself graphic design in the meantime in various programmes and produce art/surface pattern design to sell for the hell of it.

Why would you be put off by an ‘older coder’ ? Like, you wouldn’t hire them? Even though they have 20 working years, and in that time the job will evolve enormously?

I was also a landlord for 10 years as a sahm.

I think your best shot would be building on your civil service experience, tbh. I don't know what it was exactly or how much it would have been affected by a 10y break, but trying to get into anything new is going to involve in-person time.

Also see the CFG thread that has just been bumped in this board, if you're interested in exploring this route...

I career changed in my 40s into a technical role so I hope everyone doesn't think I'm past it!

My son is 45 and works full time as a self employed contract developer. Has been doing this for 10 years and wfh for 3 years now. Before that clients (insurance companies etc) expected him to go into the office citing security as a reason. He says he will never commute to work again. Fortunately he can pick and choose between contracts now so this should not be a problem.
Working remotely with permanent staff is difficult as they often don’t have the urgency he does to ‘produce’ and he relies on them for information.
From what I have heard him say you have to choose your product to train in carefully (TM1 etc) and keep up to date with changes.
Working with IR35 rules can be challenging. You have to know your tax stuff or have a really good accountant.
On the other hand pay, with several years of experience, is really good £150k-£200k a year if you are good at the job and therefore are in demand with returning clients. Someone on permanent staff likely earns half of that.

As a 20+ years brand agency owner, the graphic design skills could be lucrative.

We have so many clients making an utter hash of using canva, it's bloody awful from a typography perspective and so easy to spot a client that's just "chucked it in canva"

We develop a large scale brand and then they systematically destroy it by using the wrong fonts, crappy layouts etc, with all the will in the world even the large brands can't resist "trying" to design. .

But there is a solution if you can master adobe express, that would be brilliant. As we can export from indesign, it's so much better than canva and
It means you can tie up with agencies and then help the clients develop the on brand assets for socials.

Your offering to agencies is doing the Adobe express work. And your offering to clients is to do their social in professional software.

Just my thoughts and there is currently a gap, my freelancers want to charge £40+ a hour and it's more of a £20-25ph job.