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Ask HN: starting a career in software dev in my thirties, am I nuts?

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Re: Ask HN: starting a career in software dev in my thirties, am I nuts?

#11

Post by grannyg00se »

How did you end up spending 5 years in tech support after gaining an electrical engineering degree? Shouldn't you have been working as an electrical engineer?

The question may seem unhelpful, but I suspect that in the answer may lie a problem that is going to persist throughout any type of career change that you attempt.

Re: Ask HN: starting a career in software dev in my thirties, am I nuts?

#13

Post by patio11 »

dmillar wrote: post #3

You're not nuts, if that's what you want to do, then do it. However, the truth is 30 is not young for an entry level developer. Most 30 year-olds are accustom to a higher income than a 22 year-old CS grad, and this might make some employers adverse. Keep pounding the pavement. With your engineering background you should be able to find a good job. It might take some time in this job market, but keep at it, and try to…

Most 30 year-olds are accustom to a higher income than a 22 year-old CS grad

Having some familiarity with both fields, entry level programmers in the United States routinely make twice (or more) what L1 tech support workers get.

Re: Ask HN: starting a career in software dev in my thirties, am I nuts?

#14

Post by gexla »

Sounds like you are already there if you are making money building Wordpress sites. Just keep doing that and scale up to a point where you are able to make a living from it. When you feel comfortable, expand into taking freelance Ruby / Rails work as well as your Wordpress work. Keep going along this track until someone offers you a full time gig, by then maybe you don't even care to take one.

Re: Ask HN: starting a career in software dev in my thirties, am I nuts?

#16

Post by julsonl »

noodle wrote: post #9
patio11 wrote: post #5

I don't have enough experience to get started, and I can't get started without experience. Horsepuckey. Can you FizzBuzz? If so, you're experienced enough to get a job as a developer. What you need to work on is not your programming ability -- that is what professional experience is for -- but your competence at marketing yourself. You will probably not be hired to fill a hole labeled "I need a developer who does RoR…

i agree with everything, but i especially agree with this: > Make stuff you can show off. if you have a good portfolio and can convince someone to look at it, they will care much less about your experience, grades, etc..

If you could also show some open source work, it would be a tremendous help. I have been job hunting for well around 2 weeks already, and from what I have noticed is that half of the companies I'm getting interviews with placed a huge emphasis on my open source contributions (however paltry those are). I'm just quite unlucky that my kryptonite has been the combination of a.) These shops all use RoR while I'm a Java guy (currently remedying that), and b.) My SQL experience (or the apparent lack of it, no pun intended, quickly remedying that too).

Re: Ask HN: starting a career in software dev in my thirties, am I nuts?

#17

Post by iworkforthem »

I suggest you contribute to an open source project, if people like your work there, freelance project is a possibility. Also it looks good in your CV. But seriously, if you intend to be a s/w engineer, why build an app and sell it yourself? With Android, iPhone and Ruby on Rails, it is easy to make something and sell.

Re: Ask HN: starting a career in software dev in my thirties, am I nuts?

#18

Post by davidamcclain »

>> I don't have enough experience to get started, and I can't get started without experience.

Sounds to me like you probably have bucket loads of experience compared against a recent grad. You've held down a job, traveled, went to school twice. Your current skill-set includes a lot of soft skills (people skills) that many experienced developers lack. I'd suggest putting that foot forward.

Re: Ask HN: starting a career in software dev in my thirties, am I nuts?

#19

Post by kyro »

patio11 wrote: post #5

I don't have enough experience to get started, and I can't get started without experience. Horsepuckey. Can you FizzBuzz? If so, you're experienced enough to get a job as a developer. What you need to work on is not your programming ability -- that is what professional experience is for -- but your competence at marketing yourself. You will probably not be hired to fill a hole labeled "I need a developer who does RoR…

Can you FizzBuzz? If so, you're experienced enough to get a job as a developer.

I am always so surprised when I hear that, and have a difficult time believing that's true. With only an extremely beginner's level understanding of Python, I can solve FizzBuzz. Can I get a dev job?

Re: Ask HN: starting a career in software dev in my thirties, am I nuts?

#20

Post by patio11 »

kyro wrote: post #19
patio11 wrote: post #5

I don't have enough experience to get started, and I can't get started without experience. Horsepuckey. Can you FizzBuzz? If so, you're experienced enough to get a job as a developer. What you need to work on is not your programming ability -- that is what professional experience is for -- but your competence at marketing yourself. You will probably not be hired to fill a hole labeled "I need a developer who does RoR…

Can you FizzBuzz? If so, you're experienced enough to get a job as a developer. I am always so surprised when I hear that, and have a difficult time believing that's true. With only an extremely beginner's level understanding of Python, I can solve FizzBuzz. Can I get a dev job?

This would put you ahead of literally half of software engineers at or below my level of seniority at least one Japanese megacorp. While I have very little experience with working in the United States, anecdotally, many programmers can't program there, either.
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