Interesting. Here I am trying to figure out what I can do to get out of technology at 40+.
Congrats on finishing school!
Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News
21–30 of 140 posts
Re: Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News
#22I am finishing my bachelors in CompSci at Harvard Extension and just got hired by Google. And I've got about 20 years on you. So yeah, absolutely, this can work! It was fun and challenging competing with top computer science students. In the long run, my organizational skills, focus, determination and world experience outweighed their raw brainpower and better memory. It's an ultramarathon, not a sprint.
> just got hired by Google. And I've got about 20 years on you. As impressive as your achievement is, I'm equally impressed that Google finally started addressing their perceived ageism problem.
Google must be doing something right in their candidate triage algorithms. I applied for one job and they suggested another that was a better fit, which I hadn't even considered.
I applied to a bunch of places and only Google seemed to perceive the whole package instead of myopically focusing on my recent education or last job. The whole process was much smarter than any other company in the interview cycle.
Re: Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News
#23I am finishing my bachelors in CompSci at Harvard Extension and just got hired by Google. And I've got about 20 years on you. So yeah, absolutely, this can work! It was fun and challenging competing with top computer science students. In the long run, my organizational skills, focus, determination and world experience outweighed their raw brainpower and better memory. It's an ultramarathon, not a sprint.
> n the long run, my organizational skills, focus, determination and world experience outweighed their raw brainpower and better memory.
Great. Would love to hear more of the story.
Re: Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News
#24Is this age and sex bias a silicon valley problem?
I am nearly 40 and most of the developers I have worked with in the past 10+ years have always been older than me (aside from college new hires). They have also been 20-40% female. I have spent this time working in the Westlake, Irving, Plano technology corridor of north DFW.
I would like to hear what kind of demographics people encounter by geographic location. I always hear about age and sex bias online, but I simply don't see it in my area.
Re: Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News
#25Thanks for coming back and sharing your success! It's very inspiring for me. I just graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree and debating going back for a CSE Bachelor's degree but unsure if it would be worth it.
Re: Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News
#26> it was quite challenging in every sense: time/money management, high drop-out rates (~80% fail or stop studying cs at my university), lack of math skills - school was far far away. This is where a mentor I believe does a great job. I know people that had a hard time learning because they don't have someone guiding them. Some aspects, like say, async programming or memory management could be hard to grasp by yoursel…
Any tips on finding a good mentor?
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Re: Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News
#27I am finishing my bachelors in CompSci at Harvard Extension and just got hired by Google. And I've got about 20 years on you. So yeah, absolutely, this can work! It was fun and challenging competing with top computer science students. In the long run, my organizational skills, focus, determination and world experience outweighed their raw brainpower and better memory. It's an ultramarathon, not a sprint.
> n the long run, my organizational skills, focus, determination and world experience outweighed their raw brainpower and better memory. Great. Would love to hear more of the story.
A lot of it was stuff that is basic to someone with years of work experience:
* Start assignments as soon as they are given out. Stupid, right?
* Don't be shy about asking lots of questions. Don't be egotistical or afraid about asking for clarification.
* Build personal relationships with the professors and TAs. They are there to help. This is not an adversarial relationship. Show genuine passion for the material.
* Find real-world analogies or applications of the theory. An intuitive understanding is far more important memorization. It is also far more motivational. By seeing how a technique can be used to solve a real problem, the value becomes tangible.
* Be curious. You are there to learn, which means digging beyond the provided material. So many students are sadly focused on the grade or assignment, not on the learning.
I could probably write a book about this...
Edit: formatting
Re: Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News
#28Interesting. Here I am trying to figure out what I can do to get out of technology at 40+. Congrats on finishing school!
What's your story?
Re: Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News
#29I am finishing my bachelors in CompSci at Harvard Extension and just got hired by Google. And I've got about 20 years on you. So yeah, absolutely, this can work! It was fun and challenging competing with top computer science students. In the long run, my organizational skills, focus, determination and world experience outweighed their raw brainpower and better memory. It's an ultramarathon, not a sprint.
I’d love to hear more about this. You feel it was worth the cost?
Did you do all classes online or did you go in person for some / all?
Did you work in technology previously?
Re: Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News
#30You did something way bolder but I wanted to share another successful career restart story. I worked in tech startups in business roles (ops & product management) but was always excited about the engineering side. I decided to do a career restart at 32 and taught myself the basics of web development using Udacity and other web tutorials. I then went through a coding bootcamp and joined a mid size company.
It's been a great ride, I've worked for about 3 years on both the front end and back end. I've been promoted twice and have started becoming assigned as lead developer on some projects. Overall, I think I'm about 6 - 12 months away from being promoted to a senior developer. As others mentioned, my strong soft skills (being able to project manage myself, communicate effectively, estimate tasks well and honor my estimates) have made me very attractive in comparison to other candidates who have been programming since they were 12 but are much more difficult to work with. The ability to "get stuff done" is underrated.
Anyways, the main point is I am so happy with my career restart into programming at 32. I would do it again in a heartbeat.