A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science • Hacker News Board

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#161

Post by kmoser » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 11:50 PM UTC

lisp2240 wrote: post #130

Nobody else will tell you the truth: nobody will ever hire you as a software developer. You will never get past the filter. I tried to enter the field at 35. I couldn’t get an interview with a CS degree. I did everything right. Good GPA. Portfolio. Professional resume help. Sent applications for two years and heard nothing. Now I’m 45 with nothing to show for it. All those late nights studying coding interview questi…

I'm sorry it didn't work out for you. Sometimes it's luck of the draw. It also depends a lot on which industry you're in (finance, gaming, etc.). As an extreme example, if you're any good at COBOL, you can probably get a job working on legacy systems regardless of your age. Gaming, probably not so much.

You may have more success getting smaller freelance jobs at first and building a reputation as a can-do developer, which might be easier to parlay into a full time job. But at the end of the day, connections are sometimes the most important factor, so I would encourage anyone in your shoes to work on not just their technical chops but also their people-meeting skills.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#162

Post by gosub100 » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 1:07 AM UTC

kmoser wrote: post #160

gosub100 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the keyword there is "design". systems engineers/architects design those things, not coders. And they are made safe by entire teams of academics, clinicians, engineers, testers, scientists, and even lawyers.

I would argue that even if other people have designed an entire system and "all" that is left to do is to write the code, things can go very wrong if the coder isn't good at designing their code well (e.g. to be efficient, robust, etc.). It's "design" all the way down; there is no imaginary line where design stops and coding starts.

thats true, if there were one sigle "coder" who was cloistered away from the team and came back when s/he claimed the requirements were met and the task was complete. Whereas, in FDA (and presumably FAA/DoD) regulated designs, a massive team is following a rigid SDLC including code reviews for best practices.

Now, technically the FDA doesn't force that, all they specify is that some standard procedure must be followed, and written evidence must be produced upon demand showing that the procedure is followed. So you could contrive an example where a cowboy coder made his own sqrt() and completely broke it, and that somehow led to the death or injury to a patient, or an elevator going into free-fall. or a fuze detonating. sure. Is that likely to happen? absolutely not.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#163

Post by yupitsme123 » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 1:20 AM UTC

lisp2240 wrote: post #130

Nobody else will tell you the truth: nobody will ever hire you as a software developer. You will never get past the filter. I tried to enter the field at 35. I couldn’t get an interview with a CS degree. I did everything right. Good GPA. Portfolio. Professional resume help. Sent applications for two years and heard nothing. Now I’m 45 with nothing to show for it. All those late nights studying coding interview questi…

An often forgotten field that's adjacent to programming but much easier to get into is network engineering. If you're smart enough to program then you're smart enough to to architect and configure a network. Salaries are comparable to programming jobs, and college degrees generally don't matter much.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#164

Post by kmoser » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 2:36 AM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #99

finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #87

If you want the most job opportunities I would bet on the web and database backend. Almost all mid to upper size businesses has some custom made web solutions which stores to an SQL Database. There are lots of sub-areas within this domain like cloud, security, different databases, scalability, authenticatin, front end and the list goes on

I'd say focus on databases, especially as someone nearing middle age. Front end/web work is a treadmill. Web frameworks come and go. SQL and relational databases have been a foundation for applications since the 1980 and that is still the case today. The investment you make in learning something like Postgres won't be something you have to throw away in 5 years when the next hype cycle around a new framework comes ar…

Second your recommendation to learn Linux/Unix command line tools. I learned them decades ago so they come naturally to me but for somebody new them, in addition to plain old RTFM, I'd recommend also using AI/LLMs to learn to build the right command line args for certain tasks, then study its explanations.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#165

Post by Dylan16807 » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 2:48 AM UTC

kmoser wrote: post #161

lisp2240 wrote: post #130

Nobody else will tell you the truth: nobody will ever hire you as a software developer. You will never get past the filter. I tried to enter the field at 35. I couldn’t get an interview with a CS degree. I did everything right. Good GPA. Portfolio. Professional resume help. Sent applications for two years and heard nothing. Now I’m 45 with nothing to show for it. All those late nights studying coding interview questi…

I'm sorry it didn't work out for you. Sometimes it's luck of the draw. It also depends a lot on which industry you're in (finance, gaming, etc.). As an extreme example, if you're any good at COBOL, you can probably get a job working on legacy systems regardless of your age. Gaming, probably not so much. You may have more success getting smaller freelance jobs at first and building a reputation as a can-do developer,…

Getting a freelance job is easier than getting an interview?

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#166

Post by VirusNewbie » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:19 AM UTC

1over137 wrote: post #154

VirusNewbie wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What filter? Why would age matter at all on the filter?

Age matters because ageism is rampant. That’s the filter.

How would they know their age? I only list the last ~10 yoe on my resume. No one knows i’m in my 40s until they meet me in person, unless they are really good at guessing ages from fuzzy video calls.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#167

Post by tkcranny » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 5:08 AM UTC

raddan wrote: post #156

tkcranny wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes” — Edsger W. Dijkstra

I have always found this quote annoying. There are many ways to solve problems, but when you constrain yourself to solving them mechanistically, that is what makes computer science computer science. Virtually every theoretical CS paper implicitly presupposes a specific model of computation. Sometimes they even say it explicitly. Sure, computer science is not about a specific computer. But it is definitely about compu…

Respectfully I disagree. I believe what Dijkstra is getting at is that the specifics of modern computers aren’t “relevant” at all. Ultimately it’s the science of information and whats computable. Be that a modern day silicon processor at X gigahertz, a pen and paper, or a universe sized computer, that’s irrelevant for the science itself.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#168

Post by musicale » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 5:19 AM UTC

VirusNewbie wrote: post #166

1over137 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age matters because ageism is rampant. That’s the filter.

How would they know their age? I only list the last ~10 yoe on my resume. No one knows i’m in my 40s until they meet me in person, unless they are really good at guessing ages from fuzzy video calls.

Probably a good strategy. Though at the interview you could still get "not a cultural fit" or "overqualified" or "we are only hiring recent graduates" etc.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#169

Post by musicale » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 5:24 AM UTC

lisp2240 wrote: post #130

Nobody else will tell you the truth: nobody will ever hire you as a software developer. You will never get past the filter. I tried to enter the field at 35. I couldn’t get an interview with a CS degree. I did everything right. Good GPA. Portfolio. Professional resume help. Sent applications for two years and heard nothing. Now I’m 45 with nothing to show for it. All those late nights studying coding interview questi…

Getting no offers in 2 years seems very possible (it's tough out there - every job seems to have dozens of applicants), but getting no interviews at all is rough.

I wonder if anyone on HN has experience working with a technical consulting or contracting agency. Are there good ones? How hard is it to get hired?

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#170

Post by musicale » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 5:27 AM UTC

tkcranny wrote: post #119

andrew_lettuce wrote: post #110

I see people conflate computer science with computer programming regularly. If you are motivated to build things you probably want to pursue the latter, and dig in to understand how the things you use work. Maybe your want to go deeper academically in certain areas, but do you want to be motivated by real world application or theoretical underpinnings? True comp sci is a lot closer to mathematics than most people's t…

“Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes” — Edsger W. Dijkstra

Yes Edsger, but they don't go around calling themselves "Telescope Scientists" now do they?