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Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?

#91
Yes. I'm living proof. I'd always played with coding, and freelanced a little, but was mostly a public school math/physics teacher until just over thirty. That job, in that district, was not sustainable for me, so I put resumes out listing all the things I'd played with over the years and someone took a chance on me and I've been at it since, slowly but steadily adding to my skills and taking on more responsibility. I'm not running companies, but I do lead a couple successful teams now.

One thing that possibly helps but also causes confusion is that I look much younger than I am, so if I only tell potential employers about my tech job history it lines up, visually, with an assumption that I started out of college. If they happen to learn my age they do a double take. Hasn't caused issues, but it's weird.

I've heard from others on here that, fair or not, it can help to ensure you are not "dressing old" by having a hip neice/nephew advice on some age/setting appropriate but current clothes to wear to interviews.

One important note: I worked very hard on personal coding projects for years before making the switch. That probably isn't absolutely critical but helped me a lot.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?

#93

You totally can. I've taken multiple right-turns over my 'career' (I'm now 51). I think it's a myth to believe that you're stuck in one path, and TBH I think most people now won't have the same job for a long period (when I was at school, I knew plenty of people who thought they'd have a job for life in a particular trade or profession). However, I've been self-employed since 1/1/2000. There's NO WAY I would be emplo…

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?

#94

Yep -- I graduated grad school at 34 and got a series of amazing jobs with incredible people over the last 8 years. I was a complete pile of poop until 25, and slowly crawled out of my bad habits from 25-30, caught some ambition at 30, managed to turn it into an advanced degree by 34. Hell, I dropped out of high school and, 5 years later, still managed to fail my first year of undergrad. In hindsight, it was a natura…

Adding to the polite pile of plus ones, I wasted my 20s in directionless ways. I spent 28-30 ramping up into tech and managed to kickstart my career began two months before I turned 30.

> I still feel like I wasted the years from age 16 to age 25, but I no longer feel like I've wasted my entire life

I shall steal this turn of phrase, can relate so much.

To the fine OP: success is not guaranteed but I've met so many people that have pivoted their entire careers and lives later than you'd think. If you have the drive and privilege to give it a real try, you have a chance to join the ranks.

If you don't... you won't.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?

#95
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Olivier Stone's documentary, Truman was nominated to be the Democratic party's president to "prove a point that a party is such a well-oiled machine that it can push through even a complete nobody". So, in other words, he was incredibly lucky.

If you consider a nobody to be a Judge, Senator, and Vice President.

Sorry, I messed up the story in my original post. It was about the vice-president nomination.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?

#96
post #17

I went from bare metal/OS stuff to cloud in my 30's. It felt like starting over.

Interesting, I've always wanted to go over the opposite direction (probably won't happen). What made you do it ? Somehow high level programming feels not as good as low level to me.

Didn't have a choice. For my particular niche skillset, the work dried up, and the company I was at pushed me to start doing cloud stuff.

So I started learning cloud stuff, and eventually someone came along and said, "Hey we like your mix of skills which include some cloud stuff". That job ended up being all cloud stuff, which required a massive amount of learning to get up to speed.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?

#97
(Disclaimer: USA-centric advise)

I advocate the formal education route here. Figure out the least expensive path to getting yourself a technical undergrad degree. Meaning a BS in Engineering or Computer Science, from an ABET-accredited university.

For my BigTechCo, you are not going to get hired without a technical degree. Any Engineering degree with some Computer Science emphasis will work, or straight Computer Science. This assumes a software engineering role. There are other technical disciplines, of course, but you are likely to need a graduate degree. An internship will be the best route to getting hired full time.

Your age will not matter. One of the best engineers I worked joined my company as a mid-30's intern after finishing his second undergrad. His first undergrad was non-technical, second one was technical. He also had a healthy GitHub and spent a lot of time doing hobbyist programming before taking the plunge into formal education.

If nothing else, it sounds like you have a lot of experience in what not to do. And for school, you should have a serious advantage on your fellow students in terms of time management and social skills.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?

#98
Sure. I was 32 and freshly married, working as a field sales rep for an optical inspection equipment oem and programming for fun in my off time. Hated the day job, loved the hobby, and when the oem was acquired I took the opportunity to bail out and look for a full time software gig. It was a month or so before Christmas, 1992, and my wife was pregnant with our first child, and when I told her I wanted to leave the sales position and write software for a living she said yes instantly. It was a very good snap decision on her part :).
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