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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?

#181

Post by misterjensen »

-Is there any hope for someone like me?

Yes. I reset my career 3 times between 30 and 40 and I did progressively better each time.

-Is there any reasonable path to starting over?

No. Jump into it. Be unreasonable. Fail fast. Accept lower seniority positions if it gets you in the area you want to work in.

-Where do I even begin?

LinkedIn Jobs, trade shows, old friends and former coworkers. Hit up on LinkedIn founders and upper management of the companies you want to work with, you would be surprised how many have answered me back over the years.

-Will tech co’s ever consider hiring someone like me?

We live in credentials bubble where everyone has a piece of paper saying they are a senior specialist on yadda-yadda, but finding someone who is lean and mean, hungry and means it, who would be willing to work 12 hours a day to bridge the gap and overtake the rest of the team? That's really hard.

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

#182

Post by beej71 »

I only know people who have changed careers in their 40s, sorry. ;)

I'm a university instructor now having dropped out of the programming field about 6 years ago after 20 years in it. I have a lot of 30-something students in CS.

"Where do I begin" is a great question. I'd ask you, "What do you like doing?" If you didn't know, I'd start showing you different careers and you'd categorize them as "no" and "maybe".

If you know what you want to do, Google how to get a job in that field. Then do those things.

Caveat: beware of student debt! Do the math on if the career is worth it. (Some careers can't pay back the cost of the training and you end up paying for life.) Try to get grants and shop around for less expensive accredited online schools, verifying their value.

I'd also recommend that you choose a lucrative field that you genuinely enjoy. If I weren't teaching, I'd be working in GIS. (I'm going to start training for that.)

Every day is just a day later. It'll be a gift to your future self. It'll be hard work, but you can absolutely do it. No better time than the present!

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

#183

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

My friend immigrated from Ukraine in her 50s, without any money and with very rudimentary English. She became a millionaire by opening a network of cheap kindergartens. Now retired with a nice portfolio of real estate properties.

Generally, any immigrant from a poor country starts from a much worse place than yours, but they have a huge positive gradient in their lives that serves as a motivation.

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

#184

Post by jriot »

I went from air traffic controller in my 20s to data scientist (economist as DS is vague in specialization) in my 30s.

1. I realized the hours of ATC were not for me and began graduate school in international relations, while I was finishing that I applied for grad school again this time in economics.

2. Got hired as a data scientist for a labor market economics firm, and upped my skillet. Now work as a data scientist manager for a cyber security company. They hired because of my economics background, needed someone for financial/economic risk quantification of cyber events. 3. You have to realize you'll go from expert to beginner again. You'll have experience in the work force but from a domain perspective you're a beginner.

It was a great decision!

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

#185

Post by w10-1 »

Your primary concerns seem to be emotional - any hope, any path, where to begin, ever consider. Others have responded with encouragement, but as you know, encouragement does not create courage like success does. The solution there, I think, is to realize (moment to moment) that your feelings are a normal response to floundering: loss of energy and perspective. They are not real.

One aspect of your questions is essential: leverage, from networks and experiences

You're now recognizing that your diligence and skill did not add up to connections or milestones that could lead you to other opportunities.

That leads you to want help. Sure, help helps, but wanting help doesn't. Getting help might. Helping yourself? definitely helps. But realize that with your history, people who can give help are not inclined to help you. That includes partners, admissions and job evaluators, etc.

The solution is to work on something you can control, and use success in that to engage in more collaboration, and build from there.

Just don't forget the most important thing is to work on the right thing. Don't polish any turds, and don't hesitate to leave behind a bad investment.

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

#186

Post by w10-1 »

jriot wrote: post #184

I went from air traffic controller in my 20s to data scientist (economist as DS is vague in specialization) in my 30s. 1. I realized the hours of ATC were not for me and began graduate school in international relations, while I was finishing that I applied for grad school again this time in economics. 2. Got hired as a data scientist for a labor market economics firm, and upped my skillet. Now work as a data scientis…

I'm going to use "skillet" for "skillset" from now on!

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

#187

Post by sibeliuss »

jvanderbot wrote: post #10

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…

I can very much relate to this! Whole 20's were a blur with lots of bad habits. Life definitely began ~30-32, and also met someone very supportive.

The 30's are very young!

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

#188

Post by jriot »

w10-1 wrote: post #186
jriot wrote: post #184

I went from air traffic controller in my 20s to data scientist (economist as DS is vague in specialization) in my 30s. 1. I realized the hours of ATC were not for me and began graduate school in international relations, while I was finishing that I applied for grad school again this time in economics. 2. Got hired as a data scientist for a labor market economics firm, and upped my skillet. Now work as a data scientis…

I'm going to use "skillet" for "skillset" from now on!

Approved!

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

#189

Post by rvba »

not_a_shill wrote: post #142
gensym wrote: post #11

I 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…

>figured out what they wanted to do and took the serious steps to do that with a record of setting ambitious but reasonable goals for themselves and hitting them What would this actually look like to you on a resume?

Perhaps something like: personal blog where you try to make X small apps per year. Or personal project where you write something on your own. Perhaps getting some certificate, everyone knows they arent very useful, so maybe get a cheap one (scrum.org?).

So if you have a candidate, who was a baker for their whole life, but in last year: started a blog where they do some coding projec(s), say "implementing tetris in language X" and then making weekly updates to that pet project, like adding score, adding AI. At the same time that candidate got some certificate in last year (everyone knows most of those certs are a scam).

To be honest when you are a junior, probably the hardest step is to get that first job; perhaps you can go to some meetups and plainly say there that you are a junior and search for a job.

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

#190

Post by NiagaraThistle »

I taught myself to create websites after 30 and have made a decent living and career from it. I may struggle with burnout and lack of motivation from time to time, but that really isn't a problem of restarting a career after 30 as much as it is a personal issue with juggling priorities.

After 30 I taught myself to code HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and build Wordpress themes. I spent 5+ years at a multi-million dollar (US) ecommerce company in which I was part of a small (5 dev) team that built a ecomerce cart and inventory system from the ground up (admittedly I was a small player on that team for the first several years). From there I went to a local marketing agency and built out custom Wordpress sites for client.

Throughout all this time I worked on my own side projects and freelanced for small clients.

I took several months off during COVID, and went back to work at an agency building WP sites for clients. I still Freelance, and work on personal side projects.

I don't earn FAANG $$, but I don't live in an area where that is necessary. I make an excellent living for where I live, and it all started after I was 30.

EDIT: To clarify i SWITCHED careers after 30. I had gone to school for Finance and Economics, and came out of school into Financial and Investment sales, then into banking. I did it for 7+ years, hated it in the end, and learned to code so I could build a website for myself, then switched careers when I realized I could actually make $$ building sites.

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