Ask HN: How do I start over at 37? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do I start over at 37?

#41

Post by illegalsmile » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

Cypher wrote: post #8

I'm lost too although in 40s and stuck in dead end job that has basically meant I've stagnated for 15 years while all my peers have 2-3x me. I'm left behind and fear it's too late with the current economic climate.

Same here. Do I go back for a MS in CS or something else? Seems unlikely especially having taken a number of graduate courses. I'm a general systems engineer so I've thought about drilling down into specifics like Microsoft cloud architecture, or AI/ML architecture, or even authentication and gaining certificates to switch jobs. Then I think about starting an IT consulting business that would hire remote workers only and feel overwhelmed by that prospect. Part of me wants to get out altogether and start a pizza joint. Lots of options, too many.

If I wanted to I could probably stay at the same company for the next 20 years and retire but that sounds uninspiring and ultimately quite depressing. Two years ago was the time to do something but now is OK too. In another two years I will look back thinking "why didn't I make a move then?"

I know the feel, wish I had something better than my own story for you!

Re: Ask HN: How do I start over at 37?

#42

Post by mplewis » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 3:18 PM UTC

holografix wrote: post #16

What do you mean by scrappy Silicon Valley tech dream? I think you’re 5-10 years late unless you turn yourself into a GenAI/Machine Learning specialist very quickly. The Bay Area has attracted the worst type of people to compete with. It’s packed full of gold miners and even more shovel sellers. Try somewhere else. Do you have any money? Are you technically savvy? Can you take a 12 months course from a reputable inst…

ML is a boom/bust industry and it’s a current fad. I recommend looking for infra work instead — plumbing is always in style.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start over at 37?

#43

Post by oppositelock » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 4:56 PM UTC

thelastparadise wrote: post #34

oppositelock wrote: post #21

If you have the means, get a computer science degree at a reasonable school, and don't listen to people telling it's too late, and that ML is your meal ticket. We have two kinds of jobs here in the valley, the glamorous and competitive, and the really challenging and necessary. The latter are more immune to hype cycles and economic downturns. If you do something along the lines of networking/security, cloud infrastru…

Not sure what a CS degree is supposed to help with if this guy wants to pursue the "scrappy SV tech startup" world. He shouldn't be wasting time learning from professors who have never done anything real and have lived in an academic insulated bubble for decades. Instead he should be building and shipping product after product until something sticks. And spending just as much time on marketing as development, and put…

The degree itself is unimportant, but there are important skills that a CS program teaches, which you can teach yourself, but that degree makes getting interviews a lot easier. Like I said, I've been doing this for a very long time, and worked with many hiring processes.A person without either experience or a recognized degree has a very difficult time getting their foot in the door. I may have misread and thought that the OP was interested in engineering.

For PM's, or management, the skill set and showing that you have it will be different.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start over at 37?

#44

Post by catlover76 » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 7:59 PM UTC

oppositelock wrote: post #43

thelastparadise wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what a CS degree is supposed to help with if this guy wants to pursue the "scrappy SV tech startup" world. He shouldn't be wasting time learning from professors who have never done anything real and have lived in an academic insulated bubble for decades. Instead he should be building and shipping product after product until something sticks. And spending just as much time on marketing as development, and put…

The degree itself is unimportant, but there are important skills that a CS program teaches, which you can teach yourself, but that degree makes getting interviews a lot easier. Like I said, I've been doing this for a very long time, and worked with many hiring processes.A person without either experience or a recognized degree has a very difficult time getting their foot in the door. I may have misread and thought th…

Do you think there would be value in a masters for someone with a few years of experience, but no CS undergrad, and a career break?

Re: Ask HN: How do I start over at 37?

#45

Post by amerkhalid » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:49 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #29

wizzerking wrote: post #10

I am a 68 year old child of a navy family. Mostly far east, all over the USA, and some Europe.My advice from my life is combine your uniqueness into a single unit. Take your background and create an opensource project that can be done quickly 2 - 3 months max and after that is done use that to promote yourself if you want to be a developer/software engineer. If you are into DevOps or DevSecOps do challenges. Pursue w…

Please don't do a quick open source project for the sake of padding one's resume. The world is full of crap software as it is. Such software shows up in people's google searches, takes time to try out, and the user will inevitably find out that it's garbage (you can't do anything good in 2-3 months that wasn't done before if you're just learning) and not use it - but not before they wasted time to research it. Multip…

> Multiply it by say 10k users and you've done some serious harm in the world.

I would disagree.

While resume driven open source projects are indeed painful to sift through, you have no idea where these projects may lead to. We should not discourage people especially new devs from contributing. It should be upon experienced devs to learn how to quickly identify code that is worth exploring in more details. Like a year old project with no recent commits, maybe not worth looking further.