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and i'm totally addicted to coding - even when i notice my lack of math skills. i spent the nights trying to understand cs concepts and couldn't sleep or stop before i found a solution (sometimes i did not sleep the whole day). That sort of thing sounds terrible to people who're recruiting. The fact is being good at making software is about 20% actual coding ability, and 80% being diligent and organised, communicatin…
'Career in CS' = MSc then PhD then postdoc in CS, making you ~ 40 when you will qualify for ~E2000/month jobs. So yeah, too late; also, not worth it (but that's a different topic).
'Being a programmer' = hitting the pavement hard to land your first job, transcend 'junior' status in 2-3 years. There are plenty of corporate programming jobs you can talk yourself into at your age.
Then there is 'I want to do only cool and hip things with computers and get paid well for it'. That doesn't have anything to do with age - or maybe a bit, but either way, it'll be a long hard road ahead.
I wrote a programming book. Excellent source of instant credibility. Computer science is a bit of a waste of time in many respects, lots of self taught people around (I did 2 semesters of comp sci courses, and a bit of AI stuff when I was a psych undergrad).
Now I'm 44 and working my first job as a .NET developer, and I've never been happier. I have encountered no resistance to my age, quite the contrary: I've never felt more welcomed and encouraged than I do now in the coding community.
IT is changing rapidly, and you hear that all the time. But it's not just changing technically, it's also changing socially. That's very important to remember. If you are smart, and if you have the "knack", and if you work your butt off, and if you have a modicum of charm and social polish and confidence, you will have no trouble getting a job.
The world of coding is not monolithic. It is not homogeneous. To put it tritely, it is amazing how diverse a room full of coders can be....
From there, once you start working, you can choose to work 35h per week, and spend the rest of the time teaching yourself more skills.
I feel pretty lucky to have stumbled into this. I think it's mostly repeatable with the right company -- small, probably not a traditional development house or major corporation (the company does a lot of industrial automation, PLCs and such, I do the PC side).
FWIW, you're exactly the kind of person we hire.
You talk about 'career in CS' but what you describe is 'being a programmer'. 'Career in CS' = MSc then PhD then postdoc in CS, making you ~ 40 when you will qualify for ~E2000/month jobs. So yeah, too late; also, not worth it (but that's a different topic). 'Being a programmer' = hitting the pavement hard to land your first job, transcend 'junior' status in 2-3 years. There are plenty of corporate programming jobs yo…
Still, there's a difference between working as a developer/architect/engineer -- and doing CS research. I'm guessing op meant a career in "software engineering", not "computer science".
Try and become a DBA. They are kind of expected to be old (as in 40+) and can rake in the $$$. Although the kind of "coding" you will do will be limited to scripting, SQL, and maybe some ORASQL/APEX.
For what it's worth, here's how my path looked: * Graduated at 25 * Worked editing photos of sports apparel for 3.5 years. Spent most evenings coding what I could and making things that were useful at least in theory (ridesharing web app, etc.) * Got a terrible job at a content farm in LA (not the one you're thinking of) working in ad trafficking. Took a pay cut to do it. Made a lot of tools with the the Google DART…
Try and become a DBA. They are kind of expected to be old (as in 40+) and can rake in the $$$. Although the kind of "coding" you will do will be limited to scripting, SQL, and maybe some ORASQL/APEX.