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Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?

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Re: Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?

#71

Post by fsloth »

tuukkah wrote: post #57
fsloth wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does not really reflect the modern understanding of how people age and learn. There are some things you can learn only as a child. Those differences become apparent only with feral children who fail to adapt to society at later age. Programming languages and frameworks are created as tools for humans . You are never too old to learn to use tools for pragmatic use cases.

Can you give a concrete example of something that can only be learned as a child? Also, feral children may not be a relevant example as they have not undergone the full childhood development and in that sense they have a development disability as opposed to just having missed some typical learning. They cannot learn some typical human things and the rest of us cannot learn some typical unhuman things.

The feral child was the concrete example and it's the only one I'm aware of. All evidence points that you have to live with humans as a child to learn how to be human.

And yes, I agree on your assessment of them.

Re: Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?

#72

Post by cashsterling »

In the last ten years I have written useful programs in Python, MATLAB, C++, Java, and PLC programming languages (ladder-logic and structured text, which is like PASCAL). I do a bit of Python and Julia programming now and dabbled in Rust but with little free time, I don't have time to do much more.

I'd love to switch over to software development but don't know how to manage the transition. I am willing to take a pay cut.

I have a PhD in chemical engineering and have done a lot of different things: control system engineering, biotech, semiconductor and MEMS fabrication, some aerospace, cryogenics and low temperature physics, vacuum system and surface science, etc. I think there are organizations that would appreciate that I need some investment but would pay it back with interest... difficult finding them, though.

Re: Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?

#73

Post by notapenny »

iwangulenko wrote: post #55

Tech recruiter here. Choose to work in a domain you are familiar with. If you have been an accountant, try to find an accountant software vendor who will hire you. It won't be easy though. Ageism is my pet peeve. I think it is one of the biggest, yet forgotten-about discriminations in tech. Here a shameless plug of a video how much it annoys me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V6XMvtNKS8

Ex-finance guy here, though I went against the grain and didn't go for financial companies, trying to stay close to where you came from is a solid strategy. Especially if you have some sort of business experience and a level of maturity about you, a lot of companies will be quite eager to take you on because you know the field.

Re: Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?

#74

Post by notapenny »

I was 36 when I quit my corporate finance job, took a year off and learned to program, so yes, you can. Tips?

- Make a plan, when are you starting, what do you want to have accomplished in year 1, 2, 3. Commit to it.

- Make a financial plan, I basically lost 65% of my income (ouch), but I knew there were high paying jobs out there. How long can you live on a lower salary or are you good just taking a cut anyway. Do you need to take time off to retrain? What will that cost. For me budgeting that all out really helped.

- Figure out your worst case, for me it was "what if I can't get a job" or "what if I do and after 6 months I hate programming professionally". Can you still get back to your old career, do you want to?

- What skills carry over, do you have some business or commercial experience? Or some background in a field where those skills would help being a programmer?

- Learn your butt off. I've been doing this for 3 years professionally now and I spend most evenings 50/50 coding on pet projects and reading literature/CS books. Its hard but I've managed to make back my lost income and somewhat compensate for the lack of actual programming years. Its also been rough on my social life, but that's the price for me. I figure once I hit the 4/5 year mark I can maybe take a breather. This year though with corona it actually works out fine, nothing better to do anyway.

Re: Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?

#75

Post by notapenny »

dalu wrote: post #36
fsloth wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree software engineering is not an advisable career for 40 year old. I fail to see how the situation is any different for a 40 year old than for younger junior devs who either get education or self-educate and start coding. I think the most important thing is to accept you can never stop learning. Agree playing around is a good idea :)

"Was Hänschen nicht lernt, lernt Hans nimmermehr." Aka the things you learn at that young age are nearly impossible to learn when you're not young anymore.

Poor little Hans was brought up with the most self defeating advice he could've gotten. Do yourself a favour and don't do the same thing.

Sure you won't pick up a language from mostly just hearing it like when you were a little Hans but you'd be surprised what you can learn when you're not "young" anymore, whatever "young" means.

Re: Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?

#76

Post by fatnoah »

trashface wrote: post #64

I'm 46 and basically retired now because I felt like my opportunities were drying up. You'll probably be able to get a job, but it will be at a second or third tier company that is questionably managed and considers you to be a cost center. So you'll have no political power and everyone breathing down your neck to get things done - while also having you sit in meetings half the time. You won't be able to work at a FA…

>You won't be able to work at a FAANG unless you are have such innate talent that you are basically god's gift to programming.

EDIT: I misread your comment, and realized you were referring to the newly-minted programmer in their 40's. I apologize, and fully agree that person will have a VERY hard time landing an entry-level role.

Keeping my original post below for posterity:

I like to think that I'm good at my job, but I can assure you that I am in no way god's gift to programming. With over 20 years of experience under my belt, whiteboarding was easy (fun, even), though I did have to practice the leetcode a little bit to make sure I was well-versed on the "smell" of problems and "tricks" required to get to O(n) or O(log n) complexity. That took about 10 hours or so.

Ageism is absolutely a thing, and it's something I worry about, but getting into FAANG at 40+ is 100% doable. There is such a massive shortage of experienced engineers that I spend an hour or two each week helping our recruiters find lots of other experienced folks.

Re: Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?

#77

Post by webmaven »

tuukkah wrote: post #57
fsloth wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does not really reflect the modern understanding of how people age and learn. There are some things you can learn only as a child. Those differences become apparent only with feral children who fail to adapt to society at later age. Programming languages and frameworks are created as tools for humans . You are never too old to learn to use tools for pragmatic use cases.

Can you give a concrete example of something that can only be learned as a child? Also, feral children may not be a relevant example as they have not undergone the full childhood development and in that sense they have a development disability as opposed to just having missed some typical learning. They cannot learn some typical human things and the rest of us cannot learn some typical unhuman things.

> Can you give a concrete example of something that can only be learned as a child?

The canonical example is fluency in an unfamiliar (spoken) language. Most people lose the ability to internalize a new language to the point of being able to 'think in the language' as opposed to 'translating in your head' past their tweens, although the skill of deliberately acquiring new languages is itself learnable, and of course improves with practice, but the ability to learn to speak a language 'natively' (not merely fluently) is lost by nearly all people even earlier.

However, more to the point of this discussion, this age-linked loss of ability or plasticity does not seem to apply to learning programming languages (it is fairly common that one's first programming language is successfully acquired well past that point, after all). I suspect this has something to do with differences between listening/speaking vs. reading/writing fluency.

Re: Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?

#78

Post by dennis_jeeves »

No is the simple answer. It's like education and certificates, everybody will encourage you do it but won't be around to give you a job.

All the 'Yes's reflect survivor ship bias. (ask them to access you once you learn some basics which should not be difficult, if they are willing to put their money where their mouth is)

Of the more nuanced answer is - it depends. ( not elaborating on that because it often will not be useful advise).

And finally the only way to really find out is to plunge in - you will know in 5 years where you stand, you will be either doing well or really miserable.

Re: Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?

#79

Post by pintxo »

If you can make use of your past industry experience and combine them with some relevant technology knowledge you might find it extremely easy to get into tech.

Technology itself might look hard, but the real challenge is applying it to the industry problems at hand.

Re: Ask HN: Can you switch to a programming career despite nearing 40?

#80

Post by legerdemain »

nickelcitymario wrote: post #62

Absolutely. I wish more people would. This industry's over-representation of 20-30-somethings creates a real echo chamber. When any group is over-represented in an industry, that industry will struggle to hear other perspectives and experiences. So please, let's increase the supply of diverse voices. (This is not an "SJW" thing, by the way. I can feel some of you being triggered by words like "diverse", but I'm not t…

Honestly, there is too much representation in Silicon Valley companies from young people with pretty radical progressive politics and SJW philosophies, and too much lip service from those companies toward those causes.

More older male devs in Silicon Valley would be a breath of fresh air. Please make the switch, we need more people like you here!

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