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Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

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Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#41
post #29

For what it's worth, here's how my path looked: * Graduated at 25 * Worked editing photos of sports apparel for 3.5 years. Spent most evenings coding what I could and making things that were useful at least in theory (ridesharing web app, etc.) * Got a terrible job at a content farm in LA (not the one you're thinking of) working in ad trafficking. Took a pay cut to do it. Made a lot of tools with the the Google DART…

Out of curiosity, what kind of money did you start at in your job in Dublin? I've been toying with the idea of moving to the UK/Ireland, and from what I've been able to gather pay seems to be really low there? For reference, I'd consider anything below 2500 euro/month after tax to be "really low" for knowledge work where you're doing something useful.

Hi e12e, I've messaged the email address in your profile.

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#42

For what it's worth, here's how my path looked: * Graduated at 25 * Worked editing photos of sports apparel for 3.5 years. Spent most evenings coding what I could and making things that were useful at least in theory (ridesharing web app, etc.) * Got a terrible job at a content farm in LA (not the one you're thinking of) working in ad trafficking. Took a pay cut to do it. Made a lot of tools with the the Google DART…

In case anyone's curious, my degree is a B.A. in Physics. B.A. primarily because I was in a school where switching majors was virtually impossible and I couldn't hack quantum lab.

I also think going to Defcon every year for the last 5 years helped quite a bit too.

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#43
I'm the exact same age. It's too late to restart your career. You don't want to be lumped in the same pool with the clueless 22-year-olds with little skill, little life experience, and lots of mindless energy. They will beat you at the grunt game. Chances are, you have an edge over them in other things (due to your life experience) but you may not have figured out exactly what that is yet.

Though it's too late to restart, it's not too late to resume your career. It's a matter of how you present yourself and what you are trying to do. You can't devalue your own career path to this point. You have to be able to make the case that it's relevant to the job. Literature: you developed an aesthetic sense by reading well-crafted fiction, and you have a sense of narrative. Philosophy: you're used to ordered, logical, methodical thought and you've applied it to a wide array of human problems. Failed IT startup: you've seen how companies operate in good times and bad (OK, maybe just bad) and developed leadership skills (transfer over different experience if you have to). EdX/Coursera: you're capable of learning hard material on your own. A lot of people play around in Coursera, but people who actually finish hard courses are pretty rare (and that's not a flaw of Coursera; it's just an artifact of how people explore and think).

I think every programmer in machine learning feels a "lack of math skills". I was very strong in math in high school and college, placed in a few national math competitions, and sometimes even I struggle with machine learning papers. Keep in mind that you're trying to absorb a month or few (or years) of someone's work in a few hours. (I studied pure math, so I hadn't gotten "down and dirty" with linear algebra for years when I started studying ML.) Except for the full-time category theorists and advanced probabilists to whom gnarly integrals come naturally, we all feel inadequate here. If you just keep studying and keep sharp, you can get yourself ahead of 95% of professional programmers quite quickly.

do you think, it makes sense to study computer science at the age of 31? or is it too late?

Fuck no, it's not too late. If anything, 31 is too early to stop learning challenging things (which many people do, sometimes even before then).

do you work at a human resources department and can tell me if there is a chance for those kind of people?

As you get older, your best bet is less often to go directly through HR. If you're at an HR wall, you're more likely to face prejudice and harsh age-grading than if you meet someone at a conference. Certainly by 40, almost all of your jobs will be found through networking rather than job sites or front-door applications. Is it ideal that things are that way? No. It's something to keep in mind. The good news is that you're probably way more socially capable and confident than you were at 22, so the networking is less scary.

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#44
> and i'm totally addicted to coding - even when i notice my lack of math skills. i spent the nights trying to understand cs concepts and couldn't sleep or stop before i found a solution

Yes you can definitely do it. Many, nay most 30+ y.o. treat this profession just as another job without a particular liking to it (not that there's anything wrong with it - I'm just stating facts). I think you will overtake them within a couple of years with this passion.

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#45
Definitely! I studied pedagogy at a German university but got into programming and really liked it. I took a vocational course for a CS bachelor's degree here in Germany but even before I finished I got a good job as a software developer in a medium sized company.

From my experience you don't need a university degree to get a decent programming job if you have some patience and can demonstrate that you're passionate about it (which your cs certificates clearly communicate).

If you want a formal education, I can recommend http://www.oncampus.de/medieninformatik.html

Feel free to send me an email (qgi at offliners dot com) if you want to hear more about this.

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#46
First of all: Can we please stop pretending that your professional life is over and your skills and abilities are set in stone when you turn 30? I really can't hear this anymore and I think it's as far from the truth as can be. So, first of all: NO, IT's NEVER TOO LATE for you to learn something new, even at the biblical age of 31 :D

For a more detailed answer let's first have a look at the facts: You're 31. You have a University degree in Philosophy. You have several years (?) of work experience in a startup. You're passionate about programming. You're based in Germany.

Should you go study CS to land a job as a programmer? It depends.

In Germany, I think it's always beneficial if you can show some formal certificate or University degree in CS or a related field if you apply to a position as programmer: The lack of IT talent is not as big here as in the US, so most companies have a larger pool of candidates to select from and will actually care about degrees and relevant prior experience as a programmer, especially if they're big corporations. So if you want to go work at BigCorp, a CS degree will open many doors for you.

Startups might be more pragmatic when it comes to hiring programmers without formal education in CS, although salaries tend to be much lower there (especially in places like Berlin where there's a large influx of programmers from abroad).

I think a good strategy for you could be to keep working in a field were you can use your prior experience to make enough money, but where you can progressively add more and more programming and technical tasks to your job (e.g. working as a technical project manager could be interesting).

Concerning CS degrees I would have a look at part-time programmes offered by Fachhochschulen (FHs), since most of them have an excellent reputation in the industry, offer very pragmatic and relevant curricula (as opposed to some academic CS programmes) will even allow you to work on your degree part-time, or at least give you the opportunity to already work in a company during your studies.

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#47
post #22

You talk about 'career in CS' but what you describe is 'being a programmer'. 'Career in CS' = MSc then PhD then postdoc in CS, making you ~ 40 when you will qualify for ~E2000/month jobs. So yeah, too late; also, not worth it (but that's a different topic). 'Being a programmer' = hitting the pavement hard to land your first job, transcend 'junior' status in 2-3 years. There are plenty of corporate programming jobs yo…

When you say "~E2000/month jobs" do you say it based on what? On personal experience? As far as I know, corporate labs (which is an alternative to academia) are paying much more...

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#48
post #27
post #22

You talk about 'career in CS' but what you describe is 'being a programmer'. 'Career in CS' = MSc then PhD then postdoc in CS, making you ~ 40 when you will qualify for ~E2000/month jobs. So yeah, too late; also, not worth it (but that's a different topic). 'Being a programmer' = hitting the pavement hard to land your first job, transcend 'junior' status in 2-3 years. There are plenty of corporate programming jobs yo…

I agree with most of what you say, but: 2000 euro/month -- as a finished Phd in CS?! That's ludicrously low? Still, there's a difference between working as a developer/architect/engineer -- and doing CS research. I'm guessing op meant a career in "software engineering", not "computer science".

Sorry I meant that as the salary for a post-doc, which you will be for 2 (if you're top of your field) to 6-8 years (if you are a postdoc for longer, you should reconsider academia imo).

Also I meant 2000 pre-tax, but when I look at it, it seems that in some Western European countries you get paid more; like 2500-2800 pre-tax (I know several postdocs in Southern or Eastern European countries who would jump with joy with 2000 pre-tax though).

Don't think a PhD means you will earn a liveable wage! I personally know of a post-doc in economics (not paid like CS I think, but certainly normally one of the better-paid fields) who came from Eastern Europe to Belgium where he qualified for the equivalent of welfare payments ('leefloon'), which basically meant he made less than 817 euros a month!

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#49
post #22

You talk about 'career in CS' but what you describe is 'being a programmer'. 'Career in CS' = MSc then PhD then postdoc in CS, making you ~ 40 when you will qualify for ~E2000/month jobs. So yeah, too late; also, not worth it (but that's a different topic). 'Being a programmer' = hitting the pavement hard to land your first job, transcend 'junior' status in 2-3 years. There are plenty of corporate programming jobs yo…

When you say "~E2000/month jobs" do you say it based on what? On personal experience? As far as I know, corporate labs (which is an alternative to academia) are paying much more...

'Careers in CS' don't exist in the corporate world, certainly not in Europe.

Not personal experience in the sense that I took that route, but in the sense that I know plenty of people in positions like that.

Then again, fuck some anonymous dude on the internet like me - for all you know I could be a bored 13 year old pimply-faced teenager in Boca Raton trolling would-be academics online during his civics class. Check out job posts for postdocs on university websites, your eyes will start welling up when you see the salaries advertised there.

Re: Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?

#50
Given how many people are uninspired and undirected in their lives, it's a wonderful privilege to have something you know you want to do. On top of that, it's amazing to be in a position where you can make it happen.

I've got a lot of similarities with your story.

I dropped out of EE in 1997 when I was 18. A few years later, in 2003, I was about to begin studying writing and literature when I realized that my hobby-become-job, programming, was what I was truly passionate about.

At first, I tinkered with useless online courses (they were much more useless ten years ago). I finally put life plans in motion so that I could study CS at a university. I began studying CS in 2006 with the goal of becoming a security expert. I got my undergrad degree in CS when I was 30.

While an undergrad, I got involved with research and decided to go to grad school. To give me more experience, meet more people in my field, and generally improve grad school options, I took an extra year doing research in a CS department before applying to grad programs. In that time I published a research paper with people I'd admired from before I went back to school. I got my choice of top research programs and went to grad school in 2010.

In 2012, I realized academia wasn't for me and had a startup idea I wanted to pursue. Now, two years and a huge amount of learning and new experiences later, I've got a quickly growing startup with amazing people on our team. I no longer write much code, but I love my new challenges every day.

You don't know what you'll end up doing, but if you know you want to study CS, then start as soon as you can. Life's too short to delay doing what you know you should do.

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