Starting a new career in tech?

[Sannnyyy]

Has anyone had a complete career change in later life and moved to a developer/coding role? If so how did you do it and how old were you? What is the earning potential?

I'm really interested in this too, I would like to know whether it's possible to teach myself and then career change.

I suggest learning a simple programming language and spending a couple of 8 hour days programming to see what it’s like. It can be well paid but my god it’s boring. You literally sit alone and write lines of code for hours on end, day after day. Talking to nobody, working with nobody, no reason to ever get up from your desk, no variety. It’s like Groundhog Day. It seriously affected my mental health.

In terms of the level of skill required - I don’t think you can be completely self taught. Maybe you can learn some basic programming by yourself but not the complex concepts you’d need to understand to do the really well paid jobs. Even people with a 3 year degree in computing still need entry level jobs that offer further training, they’re not advanced enough to jump into a regular job.

Have a look at free courses on line futurelearn, udemy, coursera plus Google digital garage etc

There are some funded courses about at the moment, you do need to have an active interest in it and it helps to have a natural flair for certain skills. What in particular would you be interested in doing?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mature_students

There’s a whole board full of people interested in Mature Study and Retraining!

Thanks for the replies. I do have some experience of simple coding for data analysis from my current career (marketing/fundraising) and building webpages. What skills are most important? Is it really just sitting writing code all day or is there interaction with other teams? I'd find that hard I think.

Depends on the role/company

Many organisations use collaborative programming - doing it with a partner can be more effective than one person all alone

Most big projects you need to talk to other team members just so you all do the right thing/sane understanding

My experience was that there was a weekly (sometimes fortnightly) meeting to allocate work and discuss progress. Then you just got left to program your bit. There were several programmers and a manager, no interaction between programmers and when you got stuck you had to ask the manager for help. 9-5 programming and the only time you left your desk was for lunch. Might not be the same everywhere but this is what it was like at all three companies I worked for. And at my last employer they staggered our lunchtimes so you spent your lunch break alone and never got to talk or interact. This is why I quit, because it was isolating and soul destroying and I’d tried three different employers but it was the same. Might not be the same everywhere but that was my experience.

aws.amazon.com/training/restart/

Have you thought about doing a training program like this? You don't need to be a coder to work in a tech role...

OP not me but my DH did a software engineering conversion MSc in his late 30's. He's now a senior software engineer 5 yrs in and earns about 50k with lots of potential to earn more (we aren't in the SE, but wages can be much higher).

I'm considering doing something similar but trying to weigh up the pros and cons. Have you tried codecademy or similar? Lots of free tutorials

I'm a full stack developer, I did a funded bootcamp for 12 weeks and then started in a junior role before going freelance. It's repetitive and can be tedious, I don't have much interaction with others which I miss. I'd recommend looking into different roles and seeing what you think you might enjoy.

Thanks everyone. Yes I'm doing the free codeacademy course at the moment but will look into other courses too. @canaloha is there anywhere you'd recommend looking to see what different roles there are?

@Sannnyyy

Thanks everyone. Yes I'm doing the free codeacademy course at the moment but will look into other courses too. *@canaloha* is there anywhere you'd recommend looking to see what different roles there are?

I'd have a look at job adverts and see the kind of job descriptions, also LinkedIn- there are some women in tech communities that can advise as well. I'm quite creative which is why my job appealed.

Here is a list of the funded bootcamps that you can apply for, they are 12 weeks and so a big commitment but usually these cost a fair few grand, they usually help apply for jobs and some might offer evening sessions:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/find-a-skills-bootcamp/list-of-skills-bootcamps

Also lots of opportunity's to work within the field but in non technical jobs- software sales, SAM teams, procurement...

Thank you

Hello! I asked myself the same question two months back, I broke down the skills I wanted to learn first and then got accepted on to a funded scholarship with codefirstgirls who have been so amazing and helpful, it's a lovely community.

I am in the middle of their data and SQL course but interested in doing the python afterwards. I'm loving it so far.

Since I listed the SQL course on my CV I have had way more interest from recruiters than I had when I was first applying In December, three interview offers in a week to be precise!

There are grad schemes you can do as well where they train you up to do all sorts with a possibly route in to an entry job top, but as I've been reading the applications they are extremely difficult to get in to you have to be quite the bright spark to pass the assessment stages for many.

Look in to code first girls that's where I'd start!

@themadcatparade thank you!

Hi @Sannnyyy, there was a recent thread in chat about this as well, have a look here

I don't recognise MaggieMooh's description of what this work is like. My job is highly collaborative, I have daily contact with my team and usually work with at least one other developer. I never feel lonely or isolated despite being permanent WFH. Coding takes time to learn, but you will probably have loads of transferable skills from your current job. e.g. Problem solving, organising your time, communication skills. I've also found I can progress much quicker than I ever could in my previous career. It's taken a couple of years for my pay to recover, but I now have potential to progress and earn much more than I could have done before.

@gardenexpert thank you