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Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

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Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#31

Post by arethuza »

roel_v wrote: post #22

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…

Another alternative is to look at one of the well paid but not very glamorous options such as Salesforce development - they have their own language (APEX), data query language (SOQL) and piles of other proprietary stuff that most developers won't touch with a barge pole.

However, if you are competent and can stand the poor development tools (I couldn't) then I suspect you could do pretty well....

Same goes for a lot of big-ticket commercial applications - mainly CRM and ERP, they exist in their own wee worlds of complex requirements, poor tools and high daily rates!

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#32

Post by blzabub »

Funny, I was almost exactly 31 when I decided to abandon my small business and go into web development. I have a degree in Psychology but had a long hobbyist programming history going back to writing BASIC programs on an Apple IIe, then later some dabbling in Assembler, Pascal and C.

From 2003 to 2010 I built LAMP stack bespoke websites for a modest living and then joined a startup that was using Ruby-on-Rails.

Now I make > $100K and get job inquiries twice a day.

It is definitely possible to make such a career change, but it is challenging to find just the right environment to be able to do it and still make a living while learning. For almost a decade I had to rely on my non-programming work skills to still have value to an employer while learning. For me this was Desktop publishing and light system admin work. It was also difficult to find increasingly complex real-world projects to work on to push me to learn more.

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#34

Post by Kurtz79 »

e12e wrote: post #27
roel_v wrote: post #22

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…

I agree with most of what you say, but: 2000 euro/month -- as a finished Phd in CS?! That's ludicrously low? 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".

Depends of where you are.

Probably ludicrously low for Germany/Switzerland/Nordic countries, likely on par for Spain/Italy/Portugal (and maybe Eastern Europe ?).

Company and sector also factor heavily, and number of paychecks as well (in Spain/Italy is common to have 14 paychecks for year).

Edit: Also, depends whether we are talking about pre or after tax (I assumed the latter)

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#35

Post by marktangotango »

uptownJimmy wrote: post #24

I went to tech school at age 41, after owning/managing in the restaurant business my entire adult life. I worked full time and studied full time and helped raise my little 2-year-old boy. I got my degree this spring. 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 d…

I got my BS in CS (US) from mid tier state school at the age of 38. I think getting a degree later in life is an advantage, people see my graduation date on my resume and assume I'm younger than I am. Some people say I look younger as well.

I'm a team lead now, and if anything, I see younger devs as a liability. IMO you gain a certain level of pragmatism and persistance from working on large (crappy) code bases for a few years. When faced with challenging bugs, I see some younger devs giving up too quickly.

It takes time to develop the 'large code base skill', and I'd rather not solve you're bugs while you do. Especially if you're telling me how great language X is, and we should move to it.

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#36

Post by chris_wot »

onion2k wrote: post #12

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…

I wouldn't employee either. The first one sounds like they have some issues. The second one doesn't sound like they have much passion.

I'd say something like "I'm passionate about coding". :-)

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#38

Post by aikah »

CS has to be one of the only tech field where one came build up a career even after 40.

If you are capable of continuous learning,and computers are a real passion then nothing is impossible.

Prior experience in a sale or management position can even be a plus to your resume.

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#39

Post by yummybear »

So presumably it takes 10.000 hours of practice to succeed in a field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)). Assuming you only have to became 1/3 successful (a wild guess) to get a job in the field, you need 3.333 hours of learning. If you spend 4 hours a night studying, it'll take you two years.

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#40

Post by zerr »

bulte-rs wrote: post #16
arsalanb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why, though? I've heard many canned responses to this, mostly about youngsters having more energy and in some way that extrapolates to having more "potential" or being better for a company. But my question here is, really? How can age alone tell you about how well a person is going to perform or how valuable of an asset he can be to a company? After some thought, I agree it is one factor, but I still maintain doesn't…

Not THAT much more experience probably ;-) You're - again IMO - right about it being only one of the factors. The reason we hire mostly 'youngsters' (damn, never thought I would say this before reaching 30 myself) is that 'they' are more readily available. I'm in no way saying that young people have more energy, are more driven. A reason you MIGHT consider - which I consider applicable to myself as well - is that as…

Could you please clarify about "cultural match"? Provided that the person is good and kind, but e.g. likes different music genres, or thinks that hunting is like a killing a human (while some existing teammate is hunter), would you consider this case as a cultural mismatch?
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