I switched from being a System Admin/Engineer to being a SWE when I was 40 -- and that was a decade ago for me.
Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?
161–170 of 234 posts
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?
#162Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?
#163I'm in my 30's and currently using an MBA from a top program to pivot into a field unrelated to my previous tech-heavy work life. It's an expensive way to "start over", but it's worth it for the near-guaranteed cushy outcomes.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
> technical undergrad degree OP stated they were in grad school, implying they have some degree. I'm not sure it would help to take another one now?
I think it would, assuming they want to work for an established tech company. They do not say what field their degree was in. If it is non-technical, even a hard science, getting an additional undergrad in an Engineering field would make them much more employable. If they do have a technical degree then I agree that an additional undergrad would not help. But I certainly think returning to graduate school would help…
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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?
#165Absolutely! One of the smartest people I know did, and works for Google now and even landed a YC interview. Not only is it possible but it could end up being a boon. Best of luck.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?
#166I cofounded Hack Reactor, the coding bootcamp. (I'm no longer involved.) Your story is extremely typical, it's very normal to successfully do what you want to do, and you have way more marketable skills than you think. I recommend doing a bootcamp if you don't know what else to do; do a sales or recruiting bootcamp if you don't like code.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?
#167I know lots of people who have started their careers over in their 30s. My mom, for instance, went to school to become a respiratory therapist. My dad was in his 30s when he learned to be a tool and die maker. Both of them needed formal training. I've hired people who have switched careers by going to dev bootcamps, but their situation was different because they hadn't had a period of downtime. In general, though, I…
Where do people actually find career coaches that arent a sham?
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?
#168You still have at minimum 30 years of work in you. So I would say mid thirties is still young. I've read it takes around 10 years to become an expert in a field, so you could become expert in three different fields.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?
#169I was 33 when I left a successful automotive engineering career to start an ISP. It was a steep learning curve but in 12 months I learned a lot about networking. Then I went into network security. Have not looked back in the last 25 years.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?
#170Definitely, I was a college professor through my mid-30s. I spent 3 years as a stay at home father, and then built an iOS app startup. The startup wasn't quite financially sustaining, but I bootstrapped my iOS app work to become a professional software engineer just as I was reaching 40. I developed in the Apple ecosystem for about 5 years and then migrated to cloud services. I am now a data engineer and very happy and fortunate to work for an enthusiastically Clojure-friendly company.