[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career...
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: Has anyone successfully started their career over in their
30s?
Quit grad school and spent my 20s at a chaotic startup where I
learned nothing about how to intentionally build a business. I
spent years running around like a headless chicken to satisfy
sales-type execs who had no interest in leveling me up. I was a
moron for staying on as long as I did. I was eventually let go,
and for the past few years have been doing on-and-off menial gig
work. Feel like I've wasted my life. No marketable skills.
Unimpressive resume. No network. No mentor. No confidence. No
motivation. And I'm in my mid-30s. -Is there any hope for someone
like me? -Is there any reasonable path to starting over? -Where
do I even begin? -Will tech co's ever consider hiring someone like
me?
Author : confoundcofound
Score : 169 points
Date : 2023-01-20 16:33 UTC (6 hours ago)
| subpixel wrote:
| I re-started my career later still. No matter how low you feel
| you have sunk, I sank that low, or lower.
|
| In my experience it was friends and connections that I mistakenly
| thought were lost and cold, respectively, that helped me land a
| role that changed my career trajectory. I also had to clear a
| major mental hurdle about what I intended to do with my life.
|
| For context, look at photos of yourself from 15 years ago.
| Remember how old you felt? You were so young! This pattern
| repeats.
| chresko wrote:
| Your question is less about restarting your career, and more
| about mental health. I would suggest:
|
| 1 - See a therapist. What you wrote is what you believe about
| yourself, and that belief may be false.
|
| 2 - Understand your previous and current behavior. It will follow
| you, regardless of career.
|
| 3 - Be kind to yourself. Others will criticize your career path
| without understanding your background or history. HN might not be
| the best outlet to ask for support in this area.
|
| Yes there is hope. Yes you can 'start over.' Begin with asking
| for help. When you yourself believe tech will consider hiring
| you, tech will consider hiring you.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I went from bare metal/OS stuff to cloud in my 30's. It felt like
| starting over.
| weatherlite wrote:
| Interesting, I've always wanted to go over the opposite
| direction (probably won't happen). What made you do it ?
| Somehow high level programming feels not as good as low level
| to me.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Didn't have a choice. For my particular niche skillset, the
| work dried up, and the company I was at pushed me to start
| doing cloud stuff.
|
| So I started learning cloud stuff, and eventually someone
| came along and said, "Hey we like your mix of skills which
| include some cloud stuff". That job ended up being all cloud
| stuff, which required a massive amount of learning to get up
| to speed.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Learn how to sell. Read 10 books about selling and by next year
| you'll be running a business that makes money. If that business
| is any good, you'll be a millionaire between year 5 and 10
| ...maybe sooner.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| My wife just graduated from nursing school at 44 years of age.
| Plenty of her graduating class were in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
| She was a social worker until we had our first child - she's been
| home with the kids for 15 years. There's plenty of hope: decide
| to do it and let nothing stop you.
| exabrial wrote:
| Yes. My girlfriend became a Trauma Nurse at 40. She's incredibly
| successful.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Always knew I was a good developer since I started with a C=64,
| but school was an issue. Graduated HS but didn't go to college
| because I was so bored at school, like severely bored. Worked non
| tech jobs through my twenties. Finally sucked it up and started
| going to college PT in my late 20s. PT so I could pay for it as I
| went. Graduated mid 30s and have been a dev ever since.
|
| Moral: Sometimes you have to slog through what you don't want to
| do to get to what you want to do. I do not recommend this,
| however.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| I quit my PhD in English at age 30, when my first wife left me.
|
| Did a lot of low-rent freelance media work, video and audio ad
| production, and started doing websites. That's just gotten better
| over the last 12 years.
|
| Stuff takes time. 5 years is a lot longer than you'd think if
| you're 35.
|
| Also, while I don't think I could get a gig at a bigco, that's
| okay- there are a lot of boring, okay paying jobs out there in
| small companies. For me the entry was doing shit websites at an
| agecny for $12/hr to build a resume, and then 5 years of
| freelancing at ever increasing rates. That's a shitty hustle and
| I'd probably just go get my journeyman electrical if I had to do
| it over again.
|
| But it can be done.
|
| One of the best things to happen to me is to start playing music
| with 60 and 70 year olds in my mid 30s. The reality it showed me
| is that 35 is quite young and 5 years is a long time.
| ElfinTrousers wrote:
| Sure. My career didn't really pick up speed until my last job but
| one, which I started when I was a few months shy of 40. At that
| point in my life, I was also in other ways in a comparable
| situation to how you describe yours. The best advice I can give
| is to think hard on what's really important to you in this world,
| and how you can use software to promote that. That will point you
| in the right direction, and passion will give you boldness.
|
| Best of luck. I like your odds.
| mter wrote:
| I did, I was in the army in my early 20s, used the gi bill +
| parents help to get a psychology degree in my late 20s, worked
| minimum wage for 2 years then went back to school in my early 30s
| to get my cs degree with the remainder of my gi bill + savings.
|
| Became a software engineer, that was 8 years ago. It's going
| pretty well now. Highly recommend if you enjoy problem solving
| and can tolerate writing code.
|
| The most reasonable paths are to go to your state college and get
| a degree in computer science while trying to get a paid
| internship every summer then apply for jobs everywhere.
|
| If you don't want to code, get an apprenticeship with a union
| shop if you want to do the electrician/plumber route although the
| housing boom is also coming to an end. There's always a market
| for good electrians/plumbers/contractors.
| ghaff wrote:
| Depends what you mean by "start over." I've had three 10ish year
| careers in adjacent but really pretty different technology
| related roles since my late 20s. (And another different one for a
| few years before that which I switched from by going back to grad
| school.)
| uptownfunk wrote:
| What do you want to do?
| bonecrusher2102 wrote:
| Yes I did this. It was pretty tough but there is a way.
|
| I was fired from a job in the media industry and decided to start
| over in tech. It was really a low point for me honestly; I can
| empathize I think with your post.
|
| I found an entry-level job as a Scrum Master. The role gets a ton
| of hate, and some of the criticism is justified, but it helped me
| learn the tech world from the very bottom.
|
| I spent about 4 years doing that. I did a lot of _listening_ and
| learned an incredible amount from the development team. It was
| probably the most important thing for me -- whatever career you
| choose, find a way to start in the trenches with the folks doing
| the real work.
|
| Then I became a Program Manager. That was really good because it
| helped me learn the delivery aspect, and get me plugged into the
| strategy aspect of the techbiz.
|
| I should note here by this time that I had been really lucky in a
| couple of respects:
|
| 1. I found a company that was VERY good at developing their
| employees into new roles.
|
| 2. I found mentors and sponsors within that org that helped me to
| grow and sponsored me for new roles.
|
| But after a few years learning the Program side, I transitioned
| to PM, where I am very, very, happy, and to be honest have a leg
| up on some of my peers because of my deep experience embedded
| with dev teams and understanding their struggles day to day, but
| also having to service the needs of the leadership/exec team as a
| PgM.
|
| I guess I would sum this up by saying, it sucks, and it takes
| time, but it is 100% doable. I'm not exceptional in terms of
| brains or skills, which I don't mean as a knock to anything or
| anyone, but rather as a way of saying, "If I can do it, I really
| do believe others can too."
|
| The thing to focus on are my 1 & 2 points above. Those are
| absolute game changes and IMO must-haves.
|
| And LUCK again plays an unfortunately large part in all of this,
| I feel I must repeat. But I wish you the best of luck, and hope
| that my note gives you an amount of hope.
| sthu11182 wrote:
| I was an engineer and then I went to law school. There were tons
| of older students in law school looking to change their careers,
| from housewives to Ph.D. grads. In intellectual property, it is
| not unusual to find lawyers whose prior careers was an engineer
| or scientist for many years. I've seen a few who graduated law
| school in the mid-to-late thirties, early forties and still go to
| big law, some eventually becoming partners.
|
| I wouldn't go to law school unless you really want to do it, but
| the point is there are plenty of people out there looking to
| change their careers all the time. Some are more successful than
| others in achieving it (due to luck or other reasons), but it is
| not as uncommon as you may think it is. It's never too late. Good
| luck.
| NiagaraThistle wrote:
| 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.
| Neil44 wrote:
| https://theoatmeal.com/comics/plane
| slavoingilizov wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this! It's quite the motivational kick for
| me and more people need to see it.
| omginternets wrote:
| In the general spirit of "getting up and helping someone", I
| remade my career in my early 30's. I'm happy to have talk to
| you on Zoom/Jitsi, if you think it might be helpful.
| kamikaz1k wrote:
| that was great, thank you for sharing
| frankus wrote:
| Not quite the same situation and probably not reproducible, but
| maybe I can give you a glimmer of hope:
|
| Throughout the 2000s I was in a unrewarding PHP-coding job with a
| company that was going nowhere and I (extremely foolishly) stuck
| around out of loyalty to my team, only to be laid off around the
| beginning of the 2008 crash. I was 33 and felt tied down, stuck
| in a smallish city with no real tech industry and a bunch of
| debt.
|
| (I need to interject here that I'm something of a long-time Apple
| stan, so this might seem unrelatable if you're not).
|
| I was able to find a job with a _much_ better company locally,
| but it wasn 't the most engaging work, and my boss managed my
| team more like a McDonald's shift than a tech company.
|
| I had done a bit of Mac programming on a hobby project in the
| late 2000s, and some of that turned out to be applicable to
| iPhone programming, so I picked some of that up on the side, both
| some very basic apps and a couple of contract gigs doing iPhone
| development that in retrospect I wasn't remotely qualified for.
|
| The company I was working for had a product that was a natural
| fit for the iPhone and moreso the iPad, so I was able to get them
| to send me to WWDC in 2010, which as a long-time Apple stan was a
| bit of a dream come true for me.
|
| Later in 2010 I was contacted out of the blue by a company
| looking to hire a full-time iOS developer to take over for the
| contractor that had built the iPhone part of their product. I
| worked there for a few years through an acquisition (that paid
| off a lot of my debt) and then switched jobs a couple of times.
|
| Anyway, I'm now nearing 50, earning 3-4 times what I was when I
| got laid off, working remotely from a place I still really like,
| and (mostly) really enjoy the tech stack that I get to work with.
|
| Again, with the iPhone being the most successful product in
| history, this may or may not be replicable.
|
| I don't know that I have any super clear takeaways, but:
|
| 1. Don't lose hope, because while that may be productive for
| specific initiatives, it's almost never productive for life in
| general.
|
| 2. If you have the free time/energy, I would recommend playing
| around with a few different kinds of tech that you genuinely
| enjoy, either as a user or as a developer (For example I was also
| playing around with a Mac app project, a Ruby/rails project, and
| a micromobility project that ended up not leading to paying
| work).
|
| 3. If you feel like you're starting from a place of very little
| specific knowledge of anything, you might consider looking more
| at new technologies where everyone else is also starting from
| very little specific knowledge.
| [deleted]
| TnRHL wrote:
| [dead]
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Feel like I've wasted my life. No marketable skills.
| Unimpressive resume. No network. No mentor. No confidence. No
| motivation. And I'm in my mid-30s."
|
| I have a "successful" career as a dev at a financial company. At
| least successful as in i was a high performer at one point and
| ive held the job for 10 years. I feel the same way you do, and
| similar age. I feel like I could lose my job and never get
| another tech one. I'll never get back to being a high performer.
|
| The only way to answer your question is the apply/try. I hope I
| never have to find out for myself.
| rmjacque wrote:
| I was a process engineer for Intel until 28, got burned out,
| taught myself a bunch of backend dev & architecture skills and
| went and worked for Accenture (who will underpay you to learn on
| the job as long as you have competencies) I got to expertise in
| many domains by about 35 years old.
| superdisk wrote:
| Colonel Sanders started KFC in his 60s.
| dejv wrote:
| I had a modest success when I was 19, struck a gold as an early
| employee and got rewarded nicely, quit the company, droped out of
| the school and started to create small side projects. Then when
| 4HWW book appeared I started travel around the world and just
| enjoyed the life, drink beers and did all the digital nomadic
| cliche stuff long before the term become well known.
|
| Then my 30s showed up. Money long gone, pasive income from my
| side projects dried up as I was not paying much attention to
| them. At that stage I was living in 250 square feet appartment
| with my new girlfriend, had about 50 USD in my pocket, resume
| consisting of some small random project, zero team experience
| during past decade and idea that I might become farmer after all.
| Then one day my GF showed up and told me that in couple of months
| we are going to have a baby.
|
| Well, what can you do, right? Big tech was (and probably still
| is) out of question, but I was happy to work with startups and
| just build the resume, going from random line programmer to lead
| developer within few years. At the end, nobody cares what you did
| 15 years ago, current experience is what matter.
|
| I am in my late 30s now, things turned out great after all. Got
| two kids, girlfriend became my wife and I am leading mission
| critical projects for international banks both as an architect,
| tech lead and consultant.
|
| There is no sure and simple way in turning things out for better.
| You might get lucky, you might get not. Take your time and think
| about what you want to do, just be sure that you can always start
| again, just don't give up.
| mrj wrote:
| This. Most (people you want to work for) don't care about
| beginnings or rough years but many will be interested in a good
| trajectory. It's not possible to give somebody direction but if
| they've got that drive already they can be a great hire no
| matter what they previously did.
| sometimeshuman wrote:
| The specifics of anyone's path will not be repeatable.
| Nevertheless I'll share specifics and a general conclusion at the
| end. 10 years ago in my late 30's I had destroyed my previous
| career by being out of the industry for too long. I was living
| off less than $20k a year and lived in the poor area of a poor
| city. I was lost and then heard the following challenge, "YC is
| harder to get into than Harvard". I had no real coding skills at
| the time and the chance of getting accepted were near zero.
|
| I created a youtube video because YC's application asked "what
| have you hacked lately" and I had no answer. Because that video's
| audience was expected to be one or two people and I didn't care
| about the number of views, the DIY-video was authentic. I put a
| lot of time into it out of respect for YC as an institution. No
| one would put that much effort in to their first video since it
| is usually a throwaway. But so many people surprisingly watched
| it that the hack idea transitioned to an actual product and then
| company. That alone has netted me $1M+ in addition to Youtube
| paying me for views (about 1million views).
|
| At the same time I released the youtube video, I taught a class
| at a local tech space just for the joy of it. I was totally
| incompetent but believed that someone in the process of learning
| a skill can teach effectively from the perspective of "here's
| what I found confusing". A manager from a local tech company
| walked into the tech space one day and asked around if anyone
| knew with experience in the framework/library I was teaching.
| They mentioned me assuming I must be an expert. 10years later I
| still contract for that company and netted again $1M+.
|
| So three takeaways:
|
| 1) I had a north star so to speak. I never got into YC but just
| trying for it lead to a purpose and direction.
|
| 2) If the gig jobs are keeping you above water then just work on
| something that you enjoy and that is hopefully useful, and do it
| without any expectations.
|
| 3) Remember your network. The only reason I shared a link to my
| Youtube video was so that it wouldn't have 0 views when YC looked
| at it. But it turns out one of those people in my network cross-
| posted it to reddit and it changed my life. I now live in the
| rich area of a rich city.
| jriot wrote:
| 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!
| w10-1 wrote:
| I'm going to use "skillet" for "skillset" from now on!
| jriot wrote:
| Approved!
| swyx wrote:
| switched from finance to tech at age 30. went thru a bootcamp,
| self studied freecodecamp, the works. i did have a good degree
| but otherwise had to eat crow for a full year retooling myself.
| not regretting it 7 years on.
|
| you can do this, OP. life is too short to spend it living on
| autopilot.
|
| https://mixtape.swyx.io/episodes/weekend-drop-swyx-interview...
| sethbannon wrote:
| Jack Ma considered himself a failure at 30. Failed college
| entrance exam 3 times. Applied to 30 jobs (including fast food
| restaurants) and was rejected from them all. Never wrote any
| code. And then at 35 founded Alibaba. He's now worth $25B. You'll
| be fine!
| sopooneo wrote:
| Yes. I'm living proof. I'd always played with coding, and
| freelanced a little, but was mostly a public school math/physics
| teacher until just over thirty. That job, in that district, was
| not sustainable for me, so I put resumes out listing all the
| things I'd played with over the years and someone took a chance
| on me and I've been at it since, slowly but steadily adding to my
| skills and taking on more responsibility. I'm not running
| companies, but I do lead a couple successful teams now.
|
| One thing that possibly helps but also causes confusion is that I
| look much younger than I am, so if I only tell potential
| employers about my tech job history it lines up, visually, with
| an assumption that I started out of college. If they happen to
| learn my age they do a double take. Hasn't caused issues, but
| it's weird.
|
| I've heard from others on here that, fair or not, it can help to
| ensure you are not "dressing old" by having a hip neice/nephew
| advice on some age/setting appropriate but _current_ clothes to
| wear to interviews.
|
| One important note: I worked _very hard_ on personal coding
| projects for years before making the switch. That probably isn 't
| absolutely critical but helped me a lot.
| yafbum wrote:
| A friend had been an actress for a decade, then became a SWE.
| How? Enrolled in a CS masters program, got a degree, got a job.
| Entry level but much better than mildly successful acting, where
| you have to audition (interview for your job) many many times a
| year. So you're not too old.
|
| The path depends on whether going to school full time will work
| for you. You don't need a degree from a fancy school to start
| over, community colleges have plenty of great classes. But if you
| can't put in some time to get sharp at something, it might have
| to be a different path.
| cess11 wrote:
| It's likely you learned a lot about what not to do. Good leaders
| will find it attractive that you have experience with mistakes
| and failure, both your own and others', just like they'll put
| cushions under their employees when they mess up because they've
| just payed for them being likely to not do the same mistake
| again.
|
| Might take a while to end up talking to one but they're out
| there. Confidence and motivation are likely the bigger problems
| but it's highly dependent on where you live and how what would be
| the appropriate way forward in those areas.
| taylorhou wrote:
| don't discount your experience/knowledge of how NOT to build/run
| a business/startup
| itsautomatisch wrote:
| I was a BA in Japanese graduate during the 2008-2009 recession
| and ended up doing IT for a little bit, took time off to teach
| English, and ended up going back to school for a BSc in Software
| Development. I landed my first software job over 4 years ago in
| my 30's and have been fairly happy with my trajectory. Starting
| at the "bottom" as a junior with people about 10 years younger
| than me was a bit humbling, but ultimately I realized that having
| life experience was a big help in moving up faster than younger
| folks.
|
| Based on your description, it sounds like you have no idea what
| you want to be doing. This will make it hard to find meaningful
| work because you'll just float around to different jobs doing
| whatever is available. I would suggest taking some time and be
| introspective about what motivates you to get better, otherwise I
| would just reconsider your career path and try something new to
| see if it sticks.
| FatActor wrote:
| I restarted mine at 41. I was lucky to have saved money, but I
| just walked out of my 25+ year job with a 2 week notice.
| Decompressed for a year living off savings, and went from
| hardware to software engineering. Still engineering, but
| radically different tasks: I went from designing memory
| architectures (boring as hell) to writing web and mobile apps. (I
| also went from working with creepy old dudes to more exciting
| younger people.)
|
| It took a lot of therapy and coaching and crying and some
| medication, however.
|
| You probably can't do this alone, so definitely get a therapist
| because it sounds like you are depressed.
| wincy wrote:
| My previous team lead started coding at 38. Before that he was
| working at Walgreens. You can definitely start your career over
| in your 30s.
| busboy wrote:
| [flagged]
| orangeplus wrote:
| Harry Truman ran a menswear store well into his late 30s
| orangeplus wrote:
| He was 38 when he first entered politics
| badpun wrote:
| According to Olivier Stone's documentary, Truman was
| nominated to be the Democratic party's president to "prove a
| point that a party is such a well-oiled machine that it can
| push through even a complete nobody". So, in other words, he
| was incredibly lucky.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| If you consider a nobody to be a Judge, Senator, and Vice
| President.
| badpun wrote:
| Sorry, I messed up the story in my original post. It was
| about the vice-president nomination.
| orangeplus wrote:
| Truman had made a big name for himself in the Senate
| fighting war profiteering, he was in the news a lot by
| then
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| Late 20s, but yeah, made the change into tech. Was a government
| analyst beforehand. I hate tech, but the crash of 2008 happened
| and I got into the data center and it was good enough.
|
| Know several folks that made a change too. A parent went back to
| school to get out of engineering and into teaching. Became a
| professor.
|
| Family friend went to law school at 40 -- she's now a judge in
| GA. Know a couple of folks who did law school early and then got
| out; one became a priest, the other got involved in government.
|
| Had a friend who did a PhD in Theoretical Physics at UCLA and
| then went to Canada to teach; he's now a full-time cheese maker.
| He went hard on Insta and networked and has grown his business.
| It's hard work but he sounds satisfied, and his fresh cheese like
| queso fresco are delicious.
|
| Another friend who was a NOC manager who moved to rural WA,
| married a local, and got involved in the local RotoRuter / sump-
| pump business. Literally a shitty job, but he makes his own hours
| and makes almost as much money, while meeting people and living
| on his terms. Being rural means hunting and shooting on his own
| land, him+his wife built a half acre garden, etc. Dokie jokes
| notwithstanding, I ponder if I should make a choice along those
| lines, since he's done at 5pm sharp, and the worst parts of his
| job wash off easily...
|
| My $0.02 -- do some of those career inventories, either online or
| via paid local groups. I did one when I got out of the military
| and their predictions were, 10 years later, fairly accurate IMO.
| Talking about wayyyyy more than just an online MBTI test, too.
| But figure out, somehow, where you want to go, and then worry
| about picking up skills.
| fm2606 wrote:
| Changed careers at 36 y/o and then again at 50 y/o [0]
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33126861
|
| I have no intentions on changing career fields anymore but could
| definitely see myself upskill and pivot to another area, i.e. AI,
| data science, or whatever I decide to do.
| lamontcg wrote:
| I switched from being a System Admin/Engineer to being a SWE when
| I was 40 -- and that was a decade ago for me.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I am in my late 30's. I had been teaching at the high school
| level, but left in June. I had/have complicated feelings about
| exiting that profession, but I knew I needed to commit or I
| wouldn't leave.
|
| I immediately began asking everyone I knew if I could do an
| informational interview about their professional lives. Often,
| their first hand experience helped me know that a specific path
| would be closed or undesirable for me (which is very helpful),
| but I always closed with something to the effect of "knowing what
| you know about my background and interests, do you know anyone I
| should talk to?"
|
| This was a critically important question in my journey because it
| planted a seed. Even if my friend/acquaintance/former colleague
| said 'No' in the moment, I got a number a great follow up emails.
|
| For those secondary connections, it also helped to ask for a
| personal introduction via email rather than just contact info.
| "Hey, Bob - this is my old friend G. He's interesting to blah-
| blah-blah. You two should connect sometime". The secondary
| contact was much more likely to engage vs a cold email.
|
| I probably did two dozen calls/Zoom meetings with people between
| July-Aug.
|
| Eventually, this led me to an opportunity at a small tech
| consultancy. I almost doubled my salary, improved my benefits,
| and have a substantially better work/life/stress balance. I
| probably wont stay in this position forever, but it was a solid
| win for me and my family.
|
| The advice I was given and repeat here: "you wont get a job from
| your friends; you'll get a job from the friends of your friends",
| so start connecting with and talking to everyone you possibly can
| (on LinkedIn, Facebook, at parties, everywhere possible).
| ProAm wrote:
| Manifest your own destiny. What are you going to do if people in
| this thread say no its not possible? What are you going to do if
| they say it is possible? Either way you have to do the work.
|
| No network is odd since you have been working for the past 10
| years. Do you not have a linkedin or still communicate with any
| of those people? It's your best bet. Or if you want an easy route
| to employment find a technical recruiter. It's still a very good
| job market for tech workers.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Jumped a string of IT work which lands me as Data engineer after
| 35 with no relevant work experience.
|
| But I was lucky to enjoy the previous IT gold rush since 2015. I
| probably won't be able to do it now.
|
| Luck is the determining factor in my case so wish you good luck.
| A lot of people are going to share the same zero to developer
| after 30 but you need to read carefully.
|
| As an old saying, an elevator takes 3 people up to the top floor.
| People ask how they managed to move to top, one says he was doing
| pushups in the elevator, another says he was jumping and the
| third says he was reading some books.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Yes.
|
| I was 30 when I took a major step back to reevaluate. I had some
| positive professional experiences that I was able to use as
| building blocks, but I was severely underpaid and
| underchallenged. I was on the road to nowhere, and certainly not
| retirement.
|
| I gave myself a year to explore new things and not be an
| employee. I traveled, lived outside my home country for the first
| time, learned about startups, taught myself new tech, explored
| small business ideas and went on a lot of long walks. It was me
| time and it was glorious.
|
| When I came back to the working world, I found I had a pretty
| radically changed perspective and I pivoted into a tech career. I
| have built it up over the past 7 years and now am in a fantastic
| niche!
|
| You are never too old to redefine yourself and the world has no
| shortage of problems to solve, but a huge shortage of people
| willing to really solve them.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| HN gets this question like once a week. There is nothing stopping
| you. You're asking this because you're either looking for a
| reason not to start or something to attribute failure to because
| you're afraid of failing.
| larsrc wrote:
| My father-in-law went from rancher to engineer to salesman to
| minister to writer, the final change in his 60ies. It's never too
| late.
| nyarlathotep_ wrote:
| I was a mess most of my 20s.
|
| Got the cheapest, fastest BS CS degree I could from an affordable
| State school while working menial jobs from ~28-32 (mid-late 30s
| now), had a few crap internships and have been mostly employed
| (at times well compensated) since--writing code and working in
| adjacent roles and with related skillsets (Ops type crap).
|
| I've worked with bootcampers and self-taught types too-it's 100%
| on the individual.
|
| The practical skills are almost entirely acquired by curiosity
| and experience (job related and personal experimentation).
|
| I'm new in my career, but I've done lots of interviews and I
| personally really like to see/hear about the latter, even
| casually, FWIW.
|
| With that said, make sure you have the energy in the tank to do
| it, and commit to it. I spent a lot of my reserve doing this and
| couldn't do it at this point in my life again (e.g something like
| a Grad Degree or Med school or a legit career change with a
| requisite re-skilling would be difficult for me again, if not
| infeasible).
|
| If you're going to do it, mentally commit, and move forward
| relentlessly and do not stop, stutter, or hesitate.
|
| EDIT: Frankly, if you have passion for working in "software
| roles" broadly and let your interest (I'm not using the silly "p"
| word here) carry you, you'll often find you're better in a lot of
| practical ways than folks just putting in the bare minimum in
| your average role at $AVERAGE_CORP.
| intrasight wrote:
| My GF went back to school to become a layer in her 30s after
| having two kids.
|
| My M-I-L went back to school to become a teacher in her 40s and
| retired with a fat pension.
|
| First, decide what you want to become.
| JonoBB wrote:
| Yes, you can change your career if you have the passion and you
| work hard. More than a little bit of luck also helps.
|
| I studied corporate finance at university (including to Masters
| level part time while working). Did well in the investment
| banking arena over a 10 year period (including being a Director
| of a subsidiary of a listed company).
|
| Went travelling for a few months, came back and whilst
| contracting decided to build a SaaS. I had almost zero
| programming experience outside of VBA. This was at the age of 38.
|
| I ended up with 5 SaaS companies (some more successful than
| others), plus started my own software consulting business (grew
| to 8 employees). Also had 2 kids in the meantime.
|
| I'm now head of Engineering at a ~100 person company.
| elhudy wrote:
| I'm in my 30's and currently using an MBA from a top program to
| pivot into a field unrelated to my previous tech-heavy work life.
| It's an expensive way to "start over", but it's worth it for the
| near-guaranteed cushy outcomes.
| VLM wrote:
| You need to read the wikipedia article on the "Cursus honorum"
| from the roman empire. Everything old is new again, not just in
| computer science.
|
| You step one foot off the path, and the pyramid means there's a
| zillion people in line clamoring to take your place, your old
| spot is already gone, already filled.
|
| Its like asking how you become a pro football quarterback if
| you're starting in your 30s. That's easy, you don't.
|
| You CAN however, have an enjoyable and successful career and
| happy life doing something else. Just not on the old path. Which
| wasn't working for you anyway, so you're not losing much.
|
| > I spent years running around like a headless chicken to satisfy
| sales-type execs who had no interest in leveling me up.
|
| I got bad news for you if you think hopping from a startup to a
| megacorp will avoid that, LOL. Its kind of like travel, where you
| eventually learn its the same everywhere and you can't run away
| from yourself.
| aeyes wrote:
| My mom switched careers multiple times.
|
| - Degree in Chemistry, led a production plant for a couple of
| years.
|
| - Left that job and went to law school, worked at a law firm for
| 20 years until the boss retired.
|
| - Then she studied to become an accountant and started working in
| the family business.
|
| I know many people with similar "career paths" often doing
| something completely unrelated to what they did before. You only
| have to get up every morning and start.
| neilv wrote:
| Mid-30s is fine. Pay attention to all aspects of your health,
| because it's super-important. Also, while you're in or working
| towards "the best shape of my life", as they say, that might have
| the bonus of another lifestyle/relatability point in common with
| some of your younger health-focused new colleagues.
|
| What kind of work do you want to do? Software? If you already
| have some software experience, picking up a popular Web framework
| is very doable, and you can grow from there.
|
| Too discouraged to imagine anything you want to do? If you
| weren't discouraged, what would you want to do, and how would you
| start working towards that? Why not start that, and get out of
| the discouragement trap?
|
| Once you have some career traction going again, you might find
| that your prior experience has a silver lining. For example, you
| might see a pattern happening in a company, which you've
| previously seen not work out well, and can help nudge the
| company/person away from a pitfall.
| yboris wrote:
| I had BS in Math, MA in Education, 2 years of Ph.D. in
| Educational Psychology, and I was a math teacher for about 5
| years. Around 31 years old I became a "full stack web dev" and
| have been happy ever since.
|
| I _did_ have background in programming (various WordPress work,
| some personal learning at PHP, minor projects like a 2D game for
| myself). I discovered I was able to do it after my wife finished
| a half-year full-stack bootcamp during which I kept helping /
| answering all her questions. So I realized I could do it too.
| pksebben wrote:
| Absolutely. I just did this myself (37, hired at first tech job
| about a year and a half ago). I was a bartender for a decade. I
| have a GED and went to college but didn't finish.
|
| To answer your questions:
|
| | Is there any hope for someone like me?
|
| See above
|
| | Will tech co's ever consider hiring someone like me?
|
| I can't speak for bigco. I work right now at a small company, but
| I love it here. The focus is on the work. What's going to matter
| more than anything when you start applying again is your git and
| your grit. There are places out there where what they want is
| someone who can learn, who cares about the work their doing, and
| who's honest.
|
| My interviewing strategy has been to be completely up-front about
| what I lack. This means a lot of interviews end quickly - which
| is a good thing! Once you're up to scratch on what you need to
| know to get into working in tech _in the way you want to_ (like,
| you 've built a thing or two of the type that you're applying to
| work on), you'll want to find the right fit, and you must resist
| the urge to upsell yourself on interviews. That way leads pain.
|
| | Is there any reasonable path to starting over? / Where do I
| even begin?
|
| This is going to depend on what you want to do, and how much
| runway you have to focus on teaching yourself to do it. For me,
| coming out of bartending / no tech experience at all, it took 4
| years. I got SUPER LUCKY that covid hit when it did - it forced
| me to cloister and do nothing but learn for a year, which is what
| made the difference. You can choose to do this on purpose. It's a
| commitment and you have to make it a priority.
|
| I would also recommend taking a look at the recurse center (1) -
| they were instrumental for me, and in many ways still are. It's a
| community that is good to be a part of - you will need help along
| the way and this is one place to get it. Do a full batch if you
| can.
|
| Be extraordinarily wary of bootcamps. I've been told some are
| good - but I almost spent 10k on what looked totally legit (it
| was in the UC system) but on closer inspection was definitely not
| (they refused to provide a syllabus or list of instructors before
| I paid them half, turns out because they didn't actually know
| either of those things at the time).
|
| For god's sake, pick something to learn / get in to _that you
| love doing_! This is tech, you can find someone to pay you to do
| it and you 'll be better at it if you like what you do! Which
| means better everything - pay, satisfaction, culture. Don't just
| default to the one with the most jobs or the best pay.
|
| Build stuff. Get your git packed with projects. Don't worry about
| curating them - if you get an idea start working on it and get it
| in there, it doesn't matter if you don't finish it. The point is
| to always be building and always be learning and to have a git
| history that reflects this.
|
| Don't get stuck in a language, either. Play with rust and python
| and go and lisp and anything else you can get your hands on. Make
| programming a joy to _do_ , not just a way to get the job done.
| Also, use an editor that makes the experience of programming fun
| / enjoyable. I love emacs for this but that's a matter of
| opinion.
|
| Starting right now, make a monthly habit of checking the HN
| whoishiring posts, they drop on the first every month. I've found
| Kenny Kilton's whoishiring browser (2) to be really useful for
| this. Just to get a sense for what is out there and what you
| could be doing.
|
| Stay the hell away from recruiters and places that have a
| byzantine beaurocratic approach to hiring. Those places are for
| folks that look good on paper, not the likes of us. You want your
| first round interview to be with an engineer or CTO or someone
| who's actively involved in running the ship - those folks can
| make the decision to take a risk on people in your position, and
| the other places will typically waste your time by filtering you
| out with an automated resume reader.
|
| Find community. Keep coming back here. Engage until you
| understand. Ask dumb questions. Seek to understand.
|
| I feel your pain. I know what it's like to feel like you missed
| the bus and everything is fucked. Trust me when I say that it's
| not. If you still have questions reply with them, I'll keep an
| eye on this thread. Good luck and happy hacking.
|
| 1 -https://www.recurse.com/
|
| 2 - https://kennytilton.github.io/whoishiring/
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| I just went through something similar. As a result of my (then)
| undiagnosed ADHD, I failed out of college three times, couldn't
| hold down a decent job. Early on, I stumbled into a good gig as a
| game programmer and did that off and on for a few years. Because
| I didn't know then that I'm autistic, I got myself into some
| situations and ended up self-sabotaging my career and wrecked my
| entire life. Ruined my relationship with my boyfriend, along with
| most of my friends and I lost everything. I moved to a new city
| and started over.
|
| I managed to figure my shit out (and get medicated) and found a
| decent menial corporate job. Over the next 2-3 years I sent out
| _hundreds_ of applications for boring enterprise programming
| because programming is the only thing I 've been moderately
| successful at.
|
| Worked my way up to assistant manager at the corporate job and
| immediately, deeply regretted it. Job applications increased in
| desperation, but no interest from anyone that seemed legitimate.
|
| There's no moral about perserverence here, I got stupid lucky. A
| startup found my resume on Indeed and emailed me out of the blue.
| I had just recently updated my resume to include every skill I
| was even passingly familiar with, and they picked up on my
| experience with electronics.
|
| Now I am more or less a R&D engineer. I develop hardware and
| firmware for current and new products, innovate new types of
| hardware and generally get to dick around and explore whatever
| field I like.
|
| This kind of role has been the secret hope in my heart of hearts
| since I was a kid. Something I'd always assumed was unattainable
| and never let myself think about too much.
|
| Needless to say, I never expected to get here, but I couldn't be
| happier.
|
| I don't really have any advice. I got here through sheer luck and
| the ability to seem like I know _much_ more than I do. I
| massively impressed during my interview and my varied skills
| turned out to be precisely what the company needed at the time.
|
| I padded my resume with every skill I thought I could confidently
| bullshit my way through. Total hail Mary, but it worked. Dunno if
| I'd recommend this strategy, but I was desperate
|
| ETA: I got the new job just before my 30th birthday. Most of the
| disaster was in my late 20's. I still feel like I wasted all of
| my 20's and I don't know if I'll ever be okay with that. Just
| have to move on
| cehrlich wrote:
| At age 31 I was was working as a part-time university lecturer in
| a non-stem field plus constantly struggling to find any
| additional freelance work, couldn't really see a realistic path
| forward in that career. Had also just become a father, so being
| broke felt even worse than before. I spent about 18 months
| learning web dev (just free resources online), and successfully
| made the career change. Required a lot of sacrifices in that time
| period though as well as a bit of luck, and I don't think my path
| is representative of the average person who tries this.
| [deleted]
| zerohp wrote:
| Yes there is hope.
|
| I started college at 34, took 6 years to get two bachelors and a
| masters. Now I am a hardware engineer at a big tech (FAANG)
| company. I was an intern at 39 years old. That is not to say that
| you should go back to school. I'm just using myself as an example
| of someone that started their career over.
|
| So to the first and fourth question the answer is yes. The others
| can only be answered by you.
| DustinBrett wrote:
| I was in IT out of high school for 8 years, then gave it up to
| travel for 4 years. Moving to Vancouver at 30 I started from the
| bottom with aspirations of getting into software development. 6
| years later and 3 foots in doors later, I got an offer at
| Microsoft to start as the level right below Senior. I've been
| there for over a year now. It's always possible to start over,
| but it helps to start doing something you love.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I moved from tech recruiting to swe at ~29 so pretty close to 30.
| Wife transitioned to a new career around the same age. I know a
| ton of people who have done it between 25-40.
|
| > No confidence. No motivation.
|
| This is your biggest issue. You need to do some research and
| figure out what you are interested in doing/learning about.
| djaychela wrote:
| You totally can. I've taken multiple right-turns over my 'career'
| (I'm now 51). I think it's a myth to believe that you're stuck in
| one path, and TBH I think most people now won't have the same job
| for a long period (when I was at school, I knew plenty of people
| who thought they'd have a job for life in a particular trade or
| profession).
|
| However, I've been self-employed since 1/1/2000. There's NO WAY I
| would be employed by a company full time now unless they were
| well off the beaten track. So I don't have job security, but that
| has allowed me to be multiple different things over the last 20
| years, and I'm enjoying the freedom and interest of what I do
| (and I'm better at programming (Python) and music production than
| I ever have been). I've bought and sold cars in the meantime, and
| also written a couple of books and taught guitar.
|
| I think the main thing is to play to your strengths, not the
| strengths you think you should do, or that other people will
| want.
|
| And there is no such thing as wasted experience. If the chaotic
| startup was as bad as you say, there will be plenty of stuff
| you'll have learned from it - even if it is "never do this,
| EVER!".
| [deleted]
| uptownfunk wrote:
| You can do it, it all starts with what you want to do. Depending
| on that there is absolutely a path to get there. All you are
| limited by is your will and your effort. Assuming you are able
| bodied and of average intelligence.
| honkycat wrote:
| Where to start? Pick a career. Set a goal. Make it SMART[0]. Put
| effort into it every day. See results.
|
| Education and training will help you get your foot in the door.
| That is where I would start.
|
| There was a MASSIVE wave of retirements the last few years. Lots
| of openings.
|
| 0: https://www.ucop.edu/local-human-
| resources/_files/performanc...
| anthomtb wrote:
| (Disclaimer: USA-centric advise)
|
| I advocate the formal education route here. Figure out the least
| expensive path to getting yourself a technical undergrad degree.
| Meaning a BS in Engineering or Computer Science, from an ABET-
| accredited university.
|
| For my BigTechCo, you are not going to get hired without a
| technical degree. Any Engineering degree with some Computer
| Science emphasis will work, or straight Computer Science. This
| assumes a software engineering role. There are other technical
| disciplines, of course, but you are likely to need a graduate
| degree. An internship will be the best route to getting hired
| full time.
|
| Your age will not matter. One of the best engineers I worked
| joined my company as a mid-30's intern after finishing his second
| undergrad. His first undergrad was non-technical, second one was
| technical. He also had a healthy GitHub and spent a lot of time
| doing hobbyist programming before taking the plunge into formal
| education.
|
| If nothing else, it sounds like you have a lot of experience in
| what _not_ to do. And for school, you should have a serious
| advantage on your fellow students in terms of time management and
| social skills.
| dboreham wrote:
| > technical undergrad degree
|
| OP stated they were in grad school, implying they have some
| degree. I'm not sure it would help to take another one now?
| anthomtb wrote:
| I think it would, assuming they want to work for an
| established tech company. They do not say what field their
| degree was in. If it is non-technical, even a hard science,
| getting an additional undergrad in an Engineering field would
| make them much more employable.
|
| If they do have a technical degree then I agree that an
| additional undergrad would not help. But I certainly think
| returning to graduate school would help them get hired.
|
| An aside, they OP is not really stating what they want to do.
| I am interpolating from:
|
| > Will tech co's ever consider hiring someone like me?
|
| That they want a role like my own (senior software engineer,
| 15 YOE). But I am not certain.
| [deleted]
| whoknew1122 wrote:
| I didn't find it necessary to go back to school to get a
| technical undergrad degree. I taught myself IT and got certs
| instead. I was able to use those certs to break into the
| industry, and eventually get hired by AWS.
| anthomtb wrote:
| A technical undergrad is definitely not the only path to
| employability. But it is a well-traveled and straightforward
| path.
| jimbo99912 wrote:
| ABET accreditation isn't really very important in Computer
| Science, tons of good schools forego it or offer a separate
| Software Engineering degree that has ABET accreditation.
|
| CS isn't like Electrical Engineering where a university is
| either ABET accredited or a diploma mill. ABET imposes a lot of
| controversial requirements on CS programs that many top
| programs don't agree with. It's a young field and the
| curriculum hasn't been set in stone to the same extent it has
| in the rest of the engineering school.
|
| That being said, the school itself being properly accredited is
| still important, and obviously going to a highly regarded CS
| program is an advantage (although it doesn't need to be ABET,
| for instance last I checked Stanford CS is not ABET
| accredited), although it's not the end of the world if you
| can't.
|
| Edit: I just noticed you said ABET accredited university and
| realized I may have misinterpreted what you meant. I would
| agree that the university having an ABET accreditation in it's
| Engineering programs in general is important, i.e. it's a bad
| sign if the school you are going to for CS has a non ABET
| accredited E.E. program (although those are few and far between
| due to it being essentially mandatory and much less
| controversial in more traditional engineering programs).
| markbnj wrote:
| Sure. I was 32 and freshly married, working as a field sales rep
| for an optical inspection equipment oem and programming for fun
| in my off time. Hated the day job, loved the hobby, and when the
| oem was acquired I took the opportunity to bail out and look for
| a full time software gig. It was a month or so before Christmas,
| 1992, and my wife was pregnant with our first child, and when I
| told her I wanted to leave the sales position and write software
| for a living she said yes instantly. It was a very good snap
| decision on her part :).
| PhaedrusV wrote:
| Go office space, and work construction. Maybe you'll get
| motivated to do something less menial, and who knows, maybe
| you'll like it.
| entrepy123 wrote:
| I haven't done this, but I'm thinking about doing it, being
| mid-30s and wanting to restart career. While I've had meaningful
| bursts of career, where it lead was entirely hollow and I want
| pretty much none of it.
|
| (I also feel like I've done a shitton of stuff at times, with not
| much marketable to show for it. Some grounded but pie in skyish,
| some in tech but really just knowing how to use a computer really
| well and not so much deep programming knowledge.)
|
| IMO now (2023+) is a fantastic time to re-start. There's a lot of
| change and a lot of opportunity. Maybe there has never been a
| better time to start new.
|
| Look at everything that is broken, that everyone (or at least
| many--maybe half) know is broken (at least subconsciously).
|
| I think maybe going out there and KEEPING AT MAKING/DOING
| SOMETHING PUBLICLY no matter how small, to add value (solve real
| problems) in one or more of the broken spaces, has got to turn
| into being profitable (trade value for value, put a price on a
| thing).
|
| These are my random thoughts. I actually think I pretty much know
| what to do, and just need the courage/motivation to do it. So
| maybe motivation is a thing to look at, too.
|
| This is high level. I could probably make a list of the broken
| areas, and so could you probably. I think if one gets started on
| solving them, there are plenty of people to hire and who would
| find the work meaningful and to grow. And plenty who know the
| fixes are needed, and not enough people making and providing the
| fixes.
|
| There are also more obvious/traditional ways to restart, I guess.
| The same applies; a lot of things are new or newly matured enough
| to be really obvious/useful, so starting now as an experienced
| person (even not in the domain) in something different will have
| its advantages.
|
| I doubt this helps much, but hang in there and believe in
| yourself. Sounds silly, I know. I think we can be realistic
| optimists here.
|
| [Addendum: What I really want at present though is to find
| something that just needs me to be a really good computer user,
| and can help someone's business with that, to make ends meet,
| while I try to start the loftier stuff on the side. That has to
| be valuable, right? Seriously, IME most people cannot do that,
| and it's like it almost does not even matter. I do not want to
| learn all the programming things, but I'm still extremely
| proficient other than I guess what people actually need. Open to
| input along these lines. Thanks for asking this question. I might
| sound stupid, if so please just ignore.]
|
| </.02>
| Dudelander wrote:
| I was stuck in a dead end job in my late 20s, did the 2 years in
| a community college and 2 years in a "real" college thing, and
| began a career as a computer programmer when I was 34. It's
| actually easier to do in your 30s because you're more mature.
|
| A good friend of mine left his career as an auto mechanic and
| became a CPA in his mid 40s. He had no trouble finding work.
|
| You can get federal student loans as a second degree student, and
| some programs are exclusively offered to students with an
| existing degree (Accelerated Nursing for example).
|
| You are younger than you think.
| indymike wrote:
| -Is there any hope for someone like me?
|
| Yes. Lots. Best job market ever (well, maybe slightly worse than
| last year, but still virtually best ever).
|
| -Is there any reasonable path to starting over?
|
| Find what you love, learn it, and start do.
|
| Degree requirements are out the window for many jobs. Companies
| can't find enough people.
|
| -Where do I even begin?
|
| It's hard to start if you don't know what the end is. Figure out
| what you want to be when you grow up (I'm 50 and still haven't
| grown up).
|
| -Will tech co's ever consider hiring someone like me?
|
| Yes. Some of the best people we have hired at my company changed
| careers in their late 20s and 30s.
| emrah wrote:
| I have. I studied EE, did that for a little shy of a decade, but
| didn't like the work culture in general. I wanted to do research
| but not get a PhD, so I got hired at a research lab at a
| university. After several years, I was done with that too and
| switched to SWE.
|
| It's certainly doable especially if you go into adjacent fields.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Just don't pivot into the wrong field
| rand846633 wrote:
| Went from devops/SRE to pentest/code auditing in my 30s.
|
| Best decision ever.
|
| Took about a thousand hours of refreshing my offensive hacking
| skills. Maybe 2.5 years of intense work. This and two
| intermediate security jobs until I landed the dream job in the
| dream team.
|
| There is hope for you. The effort alone is rewarding. If I had
| not reached anything with my struggle, it still would have been
| worth it.
| krisroadruck wrote:
| I switched from network administration to SEO around 30ish. Took
| a couple years to get my footing but honestly it wasn't much
| different than starting career path first time around. A few
| years of suck, followed by plenty of years reaping rewards of
| early efforts.
| goolz wrote:
| Absolutely! One of the smartest people I know did, and works for
| Google now and even landed a YC interview. Not only is it
| possible but it could end up being a boon. Best of luck.
| misterjensen wrote:
| -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.
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| I didn't even finish education until 30s.
|
| You need two things, a focus, and a real hunger to do the thing
| you focus on. The time for half measures is probably over. But
| you have time to dive head first into something.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Will tech co's ever consider hiring someone like me?_
|
| There is near infinite demand for tech skills. Maybe you can't go
| work for Google (most of us can't), but there are 1000x as many
| "non-tech" businesses, big and small, that need tech skills.
| alar44 wrote:
| Yes. I was a musician until 30. Kept up with tech and always had
| projects going. Worked my way up the ladder from contract help
| desk to Director of IT in 10 years. I just kept applying for help
| desk jobs until I got one and absorbed everything I could.
| shawndrost wrote:
| I cofounded Hack Reactor, the coding bootcamp. (I'm no longer
| involved.) Your story is extremely typical, it's very normal to
| successfully do what you want to do, and you have way more
| marketable skills than you think. I recommend doing a bootcamp if
| you don't know what else to do; do a sales or recruiting bootcamp
| if you don't like code.
| suprjami wrote:
| Whenever anyone in their 25s or 30s or whatever, I'm always
| reminded of a blog about a guy's grandpa who retired then pivoted
| to consulting on construction projects, and ended up being
| responsible for some of the biggest bridges built in China. He
| quoted his grandpa as saying "My career didn't really pick up
| until my 60s" or something like that.
|
| So don't worry, you've got plenty of time.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| > No motivation
|
| You typed all this, so clearly you show some motivation.
| aspergsadd wrote:
| [dead]
| w10-1 wrote:
| 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.
| Bud wrote:
| [dead]
| surprisetalk wrote:
| In directionless periods of my life, talking to the right person
| for 20-30 minutes was sometimes what I really needed.
|
| For you, or anybody that feels like this, schedule a phone call
| with me!
|
| I don't have all the answers, but I love chatting with strangers
| about setting goals and learning skills :)
|
| https://calendly.com/taylor-town/30min
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| My best friend was thoroughly unhappy in a research gig. So she
| took out a massive loan and went to med school. It was a
| _STRESSFUL_ period for her and her family. She 's out now and
| makes 10 times her previous money and is a fair bit happier at
| her job.
|
| My wife was a store manager, wanted to slow down for family, took
| hr courses and is now an hr manager.
|
| So there are success stories in fairly radical career changes.
|
| On the other hand it sounds like you want to stay in the field,
| just get some traction? I work for a big tech technically in
| technology, and would hire "someone like you" depending largely
| on other qualifications and aspects,especially on something
| adjacent - I. E. (spit balling) if you have a decade of average
| or below average technical experience, you might make an above
| average incident manager, release manager, service delivery
| manager, etc - depending on other skills and circumstances. If
| you are willing, diligent, detail oriented, have good comm
| skills, have good troubleshooting skills, or any combo of above,
| there are jobs with upward mobility (not saying it's trivial
| finding them).
| thrownaway561 wrote:
| you have to understand that age is becoming not a thing nowadays.
| almost all tech and office jobs are moving to remote so no one
| cares about how old you are as long as you can do the work.
|
| that being said. i started over at 45 with a consulting company
| and i'm doing VERY well with it. i'm now 47 and can tell you that
| i love my job and wouldn't trade it for the world.
| danesparza wrote:
| Yes. My wife became a nurse in her mid-40's. She had to go back
| to college to make sure her prerequisites were completed, then
| she had to apply to, get in, and complete nursing school. She
| discovered there were all sorts of scholarships that she
| qualified for that greatly reduced the financial burden.
|
| She's an awesome nurse.
|
| You can do this.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Yes. Anthropology/archeology/teaching to software development and
| data analysis in research lab.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| 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 natural "1% better" progression. I stopped
| hanging out with bad folks, got out of a junk relationship, got
| into a _good_ relationship with someone who encouraged me and was
| more conscientious than I was, started exercising, meditating,
| studying, taking measured risks, practicing, and keeping track of
| my accomplishments so I had good talking points when pushing into
| a new opportunity. I also have to acknowledge the "home court
| advantage", because I stuck near my family and friends until I
| moved to the west coast for my first big job after graduation.
|
| Believe me, I still feel like I wasted the years from age 16 to
| age 25, but I no longer feel like I've wasted my _entire life_.
| owlglass wrote:
| Lived the same "pile of poop" lifestyle 20-23, slowly crawling
| out of it with many of the same techniques you mention. I'm
| glad to see things have looked up for you.
| icebergonfire wrote:
| Adding to the polite pile of plus ones, I wasted my 20s in
| directionless ways. I spent 28-30 ramping up into tech and
| managed to kickstart my career began two months before I turned
| 30.
|
| > I still feel like I wasted the years from age 16 to age 25,
| but I no longer feel like I've wasted my entire life
|
| I shall steal this turn of phrase, can relate so much.
|
| To the fine OP: success is not guaranteed but I've met so many
| people that have pivoted their entire careers and lives later
| than you'd think. If you have the drive and privilege to give
| it a real try, you have a chance to join the ranks.
|
| If you don't... you won't.
| jxramos wrote:
| I like that age range bounded failure recognition. I can
| relate, I call them the wasted years of my life.
| dwmbt wrote:
| even jesus had his lost years.
| sibeliuss wrote:
| 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!
| throwaway9191aa wrote:
| More plus one :) The secret is, once all us wayward youths find
| each other, we are more interesting than the typical advanced
| high school => ivy league => enterprise developer. I work with
| so many people who have never had a job outside of software
| development. It is all about work, except for that time they
| brewed their own beer for a couple months.
|
| Kinda judgemental I know. Just know that you should never be
| afraid to re-invent yourself. There are more of us out there!
| Find us!
| javajosh wrote:
| As an aside, the traditional term for being a pile of poop is
| "living a dissipated life".
| shoenix wrote:
| I got out of the military and started my career in IT at 30. I
| went from fixing fighter jets to being a sys/net admin. It helps
| I always had a passion for networking and technology.
| lycopodiopsida wrote:
| I finished my PhD at 34 in biology and switched to a big software
| company as a consultant. You can do whatever you want as long as
| you are not dead, you still have decades of work life before you.
| And what of a life goal is an impressive resume or a network
| anyway?
| revskill wrote:
| You need to hire a mentor to guide you in correct way to improve
| yourself in correct direction.
| confoundcofound wrote:
| Where do I find one?
| revskill wrote:
| Don't worry much about ages. You can always start whenever
| you want, but of course, the sooner, the better.
|
| You can find some good programming Discord groups for
| programmers and join to discuss there.
|
| But be cautious with your goal: Money first, or Long term
| career path to be a good software engineer. There's
| difference between the two based on your choices.
| throwaway092345 wrote:
| Strange suggestion. Have never heard of "mentors for hire".
| phlipski wrote:
| It's never too late to start over. The key is to just START! Find
| something you're interested in and dig in and work towards it
| every day!
| guestbest wrote:
| I worked with 3 DBA's that took a semester community college
| course in database administrator paid for certification in Oracle
| and started working as full time DBA's shorty thereafter. They
| all were over 40 when they started as DBA's and one had a
| background as a Disney animator
| maCDzP wrote:
| You still have at minimum 30 years of work in you. So I would say
| mid thirties is still young. I've read it takes around 10 years
| to become an expert in a field, so you could become expert in
| three different fields.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| I worked in food service for like 10 years, followed by 7 years
| as a licensed massage therapist. During my time as an MT, I broke
| a metatarsal, and while I was able to work through the recovery,
| it wasn't lost on me that working with your body (vs your brain)
| has some downsides. A slightly different injury would have meant
| months of not working. I knew I needed to get into a field where
| I could work through a more serious injury.
|
| The nature of the work meant that I often had 1-2 hours breaks in
| my schedule. Sometimes a slot wouldn't get booked, or someone
| would cancel. So I started learning to code, first Ruby on Rails
| then JavaScript. I took a couple of freelance clients, but didn't
| really start looking for work until I was 35. By then I'd been
| hacking on my own for almost 4 years.
|
| Now I'm 40 and my title is Principal JavaScript Engineer. It's
| only really been like 5.5 years of working full-time in tech, but
| I love what I do and I'm damned good at it. I'm so grateful this
| worked out, because I _did_ end up having that hypothetical worse
| injury in 2021. Between that and the COVID pandemic, if I had
| stayed in massage or (worse) food service, I would have been
| seriously screwed.
|
| > Is there any hope for someone like me?
|
| Yes
|
| > Is there any reasonable path to starting over?
|
| Yes
|
| > Where do I even begin
|
| Pick a starting point. I can only speak for the software world,
| but the fundamental principals are generally the same regardless
| of your domain or tech choices. Pick a popular language and just
| start learning to build. Keep building and keep learning until
| you are able to recognize that you've reached a level of basic
| competency.
|
| > Will tech co's ever consider hiring someone like me?
|
| I mistakenly assumed that being self-taught would make it harder
| to sell myself, but the opposite has been true. I'm not saying
| getting that first job wasn't challenging, but in general, I
| think my story makes me an attractive hire. Software development
| typically involves a lot of autodidactic learning, so someone who
| taught themselves is doubly prepared.
|
| The first job is hard to get, but if you aren't picky and you try
| hard, you'll get it eventually. It's worth it. Once you're in,
| you're in.
| netman21 wrote:
| I was 33 when I left a successful automotive engineering career
| to start an ISP. It was a steep learning curve but in 12 months I
| learned a lot about networking. Then I went into network
| security. Have not looked back in the last 25 years.
| gensym wrote:
| 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 love hiring
| career switchers. They've demonstrated the ability to learn and
| adapt rather than just let momentum carry them on.
|
| As someone who hires software engineers, here's my perspective on
| this question:
|
| > -Will tech co's ever consider hiring someone like me?
|
| Based on your description right now, I probably wouldn't hire
| you. You sound like you are directionless. I love mentoring new
| engineers and cultivating their growth, but I need them to have
| the focus and the drive to do that growth, and the description
| you have here doesn't paint a picture of someone who would likely
| be successful at that.
|
| However, if I were to see the resume of someone who spent their
| early 30s directionless and then 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,
| along with developing the beginning of the technical skills
| needed for the role, I'd be really excited to consider them.
|
| I suggest you hire a career coach to explore your options; you're
| younger than you think. I wish you the best in figuring this out.
| imjqz wrote:
| > but I need them to have the focus and the drive to do that
| growth
|
| This is really important. I just spent the last couple of
| months helping some people transition to the tech industry, and
| I'm seriously reconsidering whether I want to continue. It's
| demotivating when people don't have the drive to take
| initiative or follow through when you're volunteering your time
| to help them.
|
| So OP, there's definitely people out there willing to give you
| a chance, but you need to show concrete proof that you are
| worth considering. Like the parent comment said, a record of
| goal-setting and progress would really help, maybe in the form
| of non-trivial personal projects or contributions to open
| source projects.
|
| As far as the motivation aspect, talking to a therapist or
| career coach is a great idea. It's possible that your lack of
| motivation is not inherent, but rather a result of
| disillusionment from the bad experiences you've had. You
| created this post, so while not a huge step, it's a sign that
| you want to change. Build on that.
| soiler wrote:
| I've had a similar experience. I was really excited to tutor
| at my bootcamp after graduating, but after enough people no-
| showed for tutoring, or turned up with blank homework
| assignments and making no effort to look things up, I just
| stopped. It was a waste of my time - I wasn't doing it for
| the pay, I was doing it for the experience and the
| connections.
|
| I'd love to go back with the confidence to be more selective
| about who I take on, but I'm not sure if there's a structure
| for that. And it's okay if someone is really struggling to
| understand code, but I'm not interested in working with
| someone who is struggling to understand _effort_. That 's
| something they should develop before starting to learn
| programming.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Were you helping people specifically transition into
| technical/engineering roles?
| imjqz wrote:
| Yup, teaching people how to code with the goal of
| eventually getting a technical role.
| legerdemain wrote:
| Where did you end up placing them? How did that go?
| jollofricepeas wrote:
| Nice response!
|
| I agree. As someone who has also done a great deal of hiring,
| having sincere interest is just so important in the big, wide
| world of software engineering.
|
| So now I tell people this...
|
| 1. Live for yourself not your mom or dad or societal
| expectations.
|
| 2. Provided you don't have any responsibilities besides
| yourself, do whatever you want for a profession.
|
| 3. It's completely OK to have a job that you can stand and hang
| out with friends. If you're not motivated by money or the work
| itself that's perfectly OK (See #1)
|
| 4. Don't become a developer because someone said you could make
| a bunch of money. Do it because you love building things. (See
| #1)
|
| 5. If you don't know what to do then do everything and you'll
| find out what you don't like eventually. (See #1)
|
| 6. Life is not a race. Literally none of it matters except how
| you treat yourself and others. It's your life. You're allowed
| to change your mind but be kind to those who love you and take
| care of your dependents. (See #2)
| notesinthefield wrote:
| Where do people actually find career coaches that arent a sham?
| not_a_shill wrote:
| >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?
| rvba wrote:
| 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.
| gensym wrote:
| > What would this actually look like to you on a resume?
|
| That's a great question, and I wish I had a great answer. I
| think this is the sort of thing where a cover letter could be
| useful. Personally, when I'm reviewing resumes, I usually get
| a bit of background context from our recruiting department to
| go along with it.
|
| When evaluating candidates, I'm generally looking for things
| that often don't line up with a line item on a resume but can
| sometimes be inferred from the collection of items - I'm
| looking for curiosity, a drive for improvement, a willingness
| to take risks, etc. So if I saw someone whose resume
| indicated a directionless period but then also had items that
| showed a change in trajectory (education, relevant
| volunteering, relevant projects, etc), it would cause me to
| take notice.
|
| I hire for a small company, but we have high standards, so a
| lot of hiring involves finding high-performing folks who
| might be overlooked by FAANGs. Someone who doesn't have
| obviously great job experience but who does have signs that
| they've taken initiative and followed through to become an
| excellent engineer is exactly the sort of person that I work
| with our recruiting team to find.
| slavoingilizov wrote:
| If you look at this moment 10 years from now, you'd be surprised
| how early it is for you.
|
| Eric Yuan founded Zoom at the age of 41.
|
| David Baszucki was 41 years old when he created Roblox with
| cofounder Erik Cassel, who was 36 at the time.
|
| Stan Lee created his first hit comic, "The Fantastic Four," just
| shy of his 39th birthday, in 1961.
|
| Samuel L. Jackson has been a Hollywood staple for years now, but
| he'd had only bit parts before landing an award-winning role at
| age 43 in Spike Lee's film "Jungle Fever" in 1991.
|
| I don't know how many of these examples you need, but all I can
| say is you can ignore the past. Do what you need to do, have some
| faith and just look forward.
| trynewideas wrote:
| These are big-break stories, not career-switching stories.
|
| Yuan had been working on online teleconferencing since 1997 and
| was managing a team of 800 at Cisco when he left 13 years
| later. He didn't career-switch, he doubled down on his career.
|
| Baszucki graduated from Stanford in computer science in 1985
| and had been working on physics simulation software since the
| late 80s, with Cassel. He sold that simulation startup in 1998
| for $20 million. Roblox didn't ship for two years and didn't
| take off for almost 10 years, by which point Cassel was dead of
| cancer.
|
| Lee worked in comics at the same company since he was 17 in
| 1939, had his first writing credit on a Captain America book
| two years later, and was named interim editor the same year and
| never left the role. He was considering switching careers _out_
| of comics right before writing the Fantastic Four, but he
| started working in pulp and comic fiction as a teenager and
| never left.
|
| Samuel L. Jackson graduated from Morehouse in drama and founded
| a theater in 1972 at 24 years old, and had been a professional
| stage actor since he was 32; his first feature film role was in
| the same year. Morgan Freeman was his mentor. "Jungle Fever"
| was his fourth Spike Lee film; his performance as a crack
| cocaine addict came after exiting rehab when his heroin
| addiction turned into a coke addiction.
| Lio wrote:
| I always like the example of Ray Kroc, who founded McDonalds at
| the age of 64.
|
| Well I guess technically he licenced the idea from the McDonald
| brothers single restaurant but he founded what we think of as
| McDonalds.
|
| Whatever you think of their "food" it's still a great example
| of an older founder.
| codegeek wrote:
| Ray Croc, Colonel Sanders and others as well.
| All4All wrote:
| > Is there any hope for someone like me?
|
| YES! There is always "hope" for nearly everything and everyone.
| The first step is to actually try to define what type of "hope"
| that you're looking for. Set goals, aspiration, and a clear
| vision of what you want so that you have an attainable mark. It's
| okay if this changes over time, but to light that fire you have
| to have something to strive for, even if it feels unobtainable at
| the moment.
|
| > Is there a reasonable path to starting over?
|
| Well, what do you define as "reasonable"? Everyone's path is
| different, and if you're comparing yourself to peers who have
| never veered off the straight and narrow path then you own path
| might seem unreasonable to you. Your path might make you the 30
| year old intern or apprentice, and that's okay! Success and
| satisfaction doesn't always come from taking the "reasonable"
| path.
|
| > Where do I even begin?
|
| For lack of a better vocabulary, you need to find some way to
| "spark the fire." I was in a similar position to you. I spent
| years dragging out a degree that I wasn't passionate about, felt
| less than my peers who had moved onto successful and fulfilling
| careers, and felt down on my luck. After a series of poor
| decisions I finally found my spark while sitting in the dirt
| after a long day of landscaping. No car, no ride home, could
| barely pay the bills, I finally realizing exactly where my life
| was headed and I knew I needed to change direction. I spent weeks
| researching jobs that I wanted to aspire to but that I knew were
| unattainable at the moment. But I bit the bullet, applied to
| schools, completed a degree related to the roles I was passionate
| about, and have gone on to work in roles that I couldn't have
| even fathomed just a few years prior. So for me, it was the
| realization that life is short and what I contribute to it is up
| to my that really sparked my fire, but you have to find some way
| to get out of the mindset that's dragging you down. It's not
| easy, and you will face significant challenges on whatever path
| you take, but find that spark and commit to your goals.
|
| > Will tech co's ever consider hiring someone like me?
|
| Someone like you now, lacking passion, down on your luck, self-
| loathing, and without a direction? No. But you won't be
| presenting who you are now to these employers. It's your life-you
| can be whoever you want to be! As someone who comes from a less
| than favorable background, the imposter syndrome is always
| knocking at the door in my head. At the end of the day, you are
| who you choose to be, so choose to be the person that those tech
| co's will hire if that's what you desire.
| [deleted]
| filipfilm wrote:
| In a word yes. I worked in the film industry for 20 years from
| 20-40. The hours were killing me. My wife and I moved from
| Vancouver to Barcelona. I got a crap job at a call center. The
| company had courses in excel available. I took those. I then
| applied internally for a business analyst position. After getting
| that I learned SQL and JavaScript from LinkedIn learning and
| YouTube. I applied for a Security Analyst position at a different
| company. Got the gig and have since learned python and am working
| as a SOC analyst. I 44 now. Never had any higher education for
| the film gig nor the analyst jobs. I went to school for audio
| recording and have always had a way with computers.
| SillyUsername wrote:
| Do some open source work in your part time this will
|
| - Improve your skills.
|
| - Teach you to work on a dev team (assuming you join another
| project rather than start your own).
|
| - Stand out against other candidates on your CV (open source is
| like the sleeper car of qualifications).
|
| - Provide concrete examples of your work to new employers (many
| _backend_ candidates don't give examples of their work).
|
| - Provide a talking point to help deflect or defend against areas
| where you have lack of experience.
| waffletower wrote:
| Definitely, I was a college professor through my mid-30s. I spent
| 3 years as a stay at home father, and then built an iOS app
| startup. The startup wasn't quite financially sustaining, but I
| bootstrapped my iOS app work to become a professional software
| engineer just as I was reaching 40. I developed in the Apple
| ecosystem for about 5 years and then migrated to cloud services.
| I am now a data engineer and very happy and fortunate to work for
| an enthusiastically Clojure-friendly company.
| marcusverus wrote:
| I didn't start over at 30, but I did start my first career around
| then!
|
| Our stories sound familiar. I dropped out of grad school,
| delivered pizzas, dropped out of law school, worked a menial job
| for awhile. Before I knew it I was approaching 30 and I could
| barely pay my bills.
|
| If you've got no idea where to start, consider taking a job as a
| recruiter. I doubt you're interested in that as a career path,
| but in that role you'll gain a HUGE amount of insight as to how
| the whole hiring process actually works, as well as a ton of
| information about what jobs are out there, what the day-to-day
| looks like for someone with a given job title, and what your
| resume would need to look like to get that job.
|
| That's the path I took, anyway. I recruited for a year, plotted
| out a career path, and five years and three (progressively
| better) jobs later I had the exact job title that I'd set out
| for. Now I'm on to the next one :)
|
| Getting a recruiting job should be pretty easy. Just make a list
| of all of the third party recruiting shops in your area and hound
| the absolute hell out of the hiring managers. Most recruiting
| managers I've met are "Always Be Closing" types who love high
| energy and tenacity. Call them once a week and pitch yourself. If
| you find one who says they're hiring, be friendly but don't take
| no for an answer. Tell them they're making a mistake. Tell them
| to give you a chance. Push through "no" until they hang up on
| you. One will take this as a sign that they can't live without
| you.
|
| Good luck!
| jedberg wrote:
| You were already in grad school? Seems like a great time to go
| back! Now that you have work experience the grad program will be
| more meaningful, and after you finish, you will have a whole new
| set of jobs open to you.
| 9erdelta wrote:
| I did mechanical engineering undergrad, then started and almost
| finished mechanical engineering grad school but dropped out and
| got a job. Then I started studying programming at night, then co-
| founded a startup with some friends, and quit my mech eng job.
| After the startup flamed out, I went to another startup.
| Throughout the whole time of startups, I continued studying
| programming and especially started dialing in on computer
| graphics. Now I'm a graphics dev at Unity. This whole switch from
| mech eng to graphics was all in my 30s, and has taken about 9
| years, I'll turn 40 in 2024. It's not easy, and there are a lot
| of challenges. For example I'm basically a junior graphics
| programmer as I enter my 40s--which sucks. But when I think about
| it, there's basically nothing else I'd rather be doing, so that's
| cool.
|
| The general thing I've learned is: there are no short paths, only
| long paths. Figure out what you want and start the long path to
| get there, because there aren't short cuts. How to figure out
| what you want? Well that's a long path too.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| I learned to code (properly) at around 29, got a Software
| Engineering degree at 32. I'm 36 now, and I run a solo consulting
| business. It's a business in the sense that I serve some really
| large customers (up to Fortune 500), hire people per project,
| have a sales pipeline and other structures built, but it's just
| me.
|
| If I've learned one lesson throughout these years, it's that the
| skills that truly buy your freedom are persuasion and sales. Your
| technical skill or the product you sell are somewhat relevant
| (there needs to be good demand/supply dynamics, etc.) but
| secondary.
|
| I am a technologist at heart and have thousands upon thousands of
| hours of learning ahead of me but if I had to pick one skill
| essential for my survival, it would be sales.
|
| Selling is human, universal, and potentially lucrative. There's a
| lot of potential for turning into a fucking weasel, but one can
| simply avoid that by not being a fucking weasel.
|
| You saw terrible sales-type executives, it doesn't need to be
| like that. You can choose to pick a humanist stance towards it;
| at its heart it's about learning about people's deepest problems
| and finding solutions for them. You can find good people, good
| teams and good products or services to sell, even if they're
| modest to begin with, and build from there. Yes it's hard to find
| those conditions, but nothing is easy in life - a lot of
| technology, for example, is an absolute tire-fire.
|
| If none of this jibes with you, maybe project management could
| also work. Reframe _all_ your experience as "project
| management", find a domain that you find palatable and is
| somewhat accessible. Get a PMP certification. Congrats, you're
| now officially a project manager. It sounds bad because of how
| easy it can be to intrude the profession (and I'm being
| particularly facetious about it), and some PMs get a terrible rep
| because they truly are terrible, but _precisely_ this is a
| possible aspect of differentiation for you: you will take your
| job seriously and display the utmost professionalism. You will be
| the total opposite of a terrible project manager. Your earning
| potential will not be as high as in sales, but in some domains,
| six figure salaries are feasible, and you could build a long term
| career with a progression for the thirty plus working years you
| have ahead of you.
|
| These are just a couple ideas... Maybe others in the thread are
| better suited for you. The only thing I'm absolutely certain of
| is of your ability to turn things around. You're much younger and
| capable of a quick turnaround at your age (and later, but start
| now!) than you seem to realize.
| eddsh1994 wrote:
| I'm on a FB group for people interested in flying planes and saw
| a ~45 year old stay-at-home mother who went through a divorce
| train and become a pilot for a major airline. I know a ~60 year
| old who just got his blue belt in BJJ having started two years
| ago. It's never too late :)
| RagnarD wrote:
| Not merely careers, but entire large companies have been founded
| from scratch by individuals over age 50. See:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-started-middle-age...
| [deleted]
| Ccecil wrote:
| First, You learned a lot about how to "not intentionally build a
| business" which IMHO...is way more valuable than having
| everything work out perfect. Remember the lessons that were
| taught by every experience and interaction...being able to spot
| the issues (or people who will cause issues) is very important.
|
| Second, 30 is still very young. You are barely 10 years into the
| cutoff society deems as "adult". I know it doesn't feel that way
| when you are in it...but you still have a lot left in you.
|
| I started my current company when I was over 30...my only wish is
| that I would have done it when I was 19. I listened to naysayers,
| which, BTW never go away. No matter what you do or how well
| things are going...someone will always be around to tell you how
| close failure is behind.
| blahblah1234567 wrote:
| "- Where do I even begin?"
|
| With logic:
|
| - Pick a goal (AKA a destination)
|
| - Find a map to achieve that goal (AKA a Roadmap)
|
| - Ask a question regarding the above two points, to a search
| engine, such as "Roadmap to becoming <XYZ Occupation>"
|
| For example, perhaps it's "Roadmap to becoming a Civil Law
| Attorney" or "Roadmap to becoming a Web App Developer"
|
| If it's the latter, here's a good resource: https://roadmap.sh/
|
| If you intend to educate yourself, search for "Resources for
| <learning to become XYZ Occupation/Learning XYZ Skillset>
| gorjusborg wrote:
| It's easy to let the feeling of being overwhelmed make things
| seem harder than they need to be. This is an excellent way to
| view the problem (or any problem, really).
|
| I'd emphasize that 'I guess I'll go back to school' is probably
| not a constructive thought. It is fine to go back to school,
| but it should be a tool to get to your goal. If you have no
| goal, school (and more debt) probably isn't going to help.
| blahblah1234567 wrote:
| I totally agree.
|
| I'd also extrapolate on "If you have no goal, school (and
| more debt) probably isn't going to help." because I agree
| with that.
|
| Instead of making school the goal, recognize that School
| leads to a goal of a "Skill set" / "Knowledge base"
| Therefore, the Skill Set & Knowledge Base are actually the
| goal. And both can be had without school.
|
| As can credentials-- in the form of certificates, rather than
| school. I am a software developer at a "Fortune 1000" company
| and my company likes employees to have certifications. I am
| currently studying for a Kubernetes certification for
| example.
|
| Anyway, to get back to the idea of a goal--
|
| I'd pick a goal based on what is in demand in the economy.
| For this, you can check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics --
| such as by googling: "BLS Fastest Growing Occupations" and/or
| checking this page to get a sense of projected job openings
| vs. salaries: "Visualize it: Wages and projected openings by
| occupation"
| https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2019/article/wages-and-
| ope...
|
| I recommend picking a goal of a developing skillset for an
| occupation which doesn't require a degree, but which focuses
| on the skill set instead. But that said, a degree is OK
| too... it's just that: 1. it's expensive (in the US at
| least), 2. it takes years, 3. many classes in most degrees
| aren't applicable to jobs.
| atum47 wrote:
| I kinda do. I was a 3D artist for about 7 years, the
| architectural firm I worked for went out of business out of the
| blue, they let me go without a dime of compensation. I went back
| to college and took a second graduation as a SE. I consider
| myself successful cause I got to land a pretty good job in a
| pretty good company. Also I'm pretty proud of my new set of
| skills (being able to create software out of a blank text file)
| beej71 wrote:
| 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!
| paulusthe wrote:
| Yes.
|
| You can absolutely remake your career in your thirties. You can
| even do it in your forties, and I suspect we'll see people in
| their fifties doing it too.
|
| We just don't live in a world where everyone gets a job at 22,
| stays in that field and job for thirty years, then retires with a
| pension. Tech moves too fast, and macro economic forces basically
| necessitate that workers become flexible. Gig work, or 2-3 year
| duration contract work, is going to be the future of most
| employment.
|
| If we accept that, then the idea of changing your career at
| basically any age makes sense. The anxiety you're feeling comes
| from unrealistic expectations - that you'll have a stable career,
| chosen at 22, from which you won't depart. Not only is that
| untrue in today's world, it's also profoundly boring. I can't
| imagine doing the same thing for more than a couple of years; I'd
| get so incredibly bored
| russdill wrote:
| My mom remade her career in her 60s. She now does QA, test, and
| manages the scrum for a dev team. I really don't think there's
| a limit.
| shepardrtc wrote:
| Yes, I went from a poorly-paid tech support manager at a
| University to working at a startup on machine learning. Took me
| 10 years though. But I worked my way up and constantly worked on
| improving my knowledge.
|
| Responses to your questions:
|
| > Is there any hope for someone like me?
|
| Yes, of course. Unless you decide you want to build a fusion
| reactor in your backyard, I'm sure you can level up and get a
| good job.
|
| > Is there any reasonable path to starting over?
|
| Yes, rewrite your resume. Make your great accomplishments stand
| out. Gloss over the past few years with some bullshit. No one
| cares that much. They care that you're hungry and you're willing
| to work hard.
|
| > Where do I even begin?
|
| What do you know? What do you want to do? Figure out the path
| from the former to the latter. Rewrite your resume. Get online
| and start researching. Every day. Apply to jobs. Eventually
| you'll find someone willing to give you a chance.
|
| > Will tech co's ever consider hiring someone like me?
|
| Are you hungry? If so, yes. Save the pity party for your
| throwaway accounts. If you want to learn and build and excel,
| make sure everyone knows it. Even if inside you're completely
| unsure of yourself. Most people are, anyway. Just keep showing up
| every day.
| pleb_nz wrote:
| I see these posts on hackernews quite often. I'm assuming some it
| is due to cultural differences in certain parts of the world
| because to me these questions silly especially for someone in
| their 30s. Maybe if you were on your 60s or 70s these questions
| would seem more reasonable to me.
|
| I restarted in my late 30s, now late 40s I've my own SE business
| and have team members and it's non-stop opportunities.
|
| And I'm just one of many I know that have changed careers or
| direction in 30s, 40s and 50s. I've read about plenty who have
| done it later in life.
|
| IMO and IME, If you want to do something, and you have drive,
| desire and believe you can and you want to, go for it, don't let
| age, disabilities, gender, or other people stop you.
| theonething wrote:
| > my own SE business
|
| Is SE software engineering?
| theideaofcoffee wrote:
| I feel the same when I consider some of the people in my life
| that aren't originally from the US. The general sentiment there
| is that once you graduated or trained for something once then,
| well, that's it. You're done and shouldn't try to break into
| anything new, you're just not cut out for it. That feeling
| seems to spill over into our interpersonal relationships when I
| mention things like "oh, it might be interesting to one day try
| <X>" with their response being "you'll never be <X>".
|
| > IMO and IME, If you want to do something, and you have drive,
| desire and believe you can and you want to, go for it, don't
| let age, disabilities, gender, or other people stop you.
|
| 100% agree
| yareally wrote:
| My wife did. She was a doctor and burned out during the pandemic.
| She misses it, but not the baggage that came with it.
|
| Now she's a software engineer at a large non profit. Only had
| minimal experience writing code with me on hobby projects before
| that, but she learned quickly.
| chiefgeek wrote:
| I've run my own successful database consulting business, been a
| sales rep, development engineer and product manager for a Fortune
| 50 company, ran a startup that I left, was VP ops for another
| startup, digital sales support rep, digital photo lab owner and
| photographer. I'm 53. Anything is possible. Agree with
| suggestions to hire a career coach. Mine was great when I went
| through a terrible patch in my early 40s. DM me for his contact.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| 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.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >Is there any hope for someone like me? >Is there any reasonable
| path to starting over? >Where do I even begin? >Will tech co's
| ever consider hiring someone like me?
|
| Frankly, that reads like a recruitment poster. If you are asking
| yourself such questions, have you considered the military? There
| are all sorts of tech-related jobs in the military that are way
| more interesting than the civilian equivalent. Whatever you do,
| the military would give you a clear path for advancement and
| improvement. Even if you don't stick with it, a few years of
| military experience doesn't hurt a resume.
| soitgoes511 wrote:
| Twice since 30. I screwed up my entire younger years, went back
| to University after 30 to get a degree in Electrical Engineering
| and worked hard during university. I was hired on as an engineer
| making semiconductors for one of the largest analog semi's in the
| world. During the pandemic, I decided to start yet another career
| in another country.. Now I work as a technical electronics expert
| in the automotive industry...
|
| So, yes.. It is very possible to do this. Like most things in
| life, you will have to work hard and make sacrifices.
| Random_Person wrote:
| Twice. At 31 I left the Automotive field to start working in IT.
| It was a low paying government job without a lot of applicants. I
| started college at 32 and got an AA in IT. At 38 my state
| legislature shut down my agency and my wife and kids moved out. I
| lost everything in resetting my finances and digging myself out
| of the hole she created.
|
| I had spent the past few years of my IT life learning PHP and at
| 39 I landed a job as a developer at another state agency. Not
| only was it a career reset, but an entire life reset. I turned 40
| with absolutely nothing. I'm about to turn 44, and am flirting
| with 6 figures between my state salary and my side gigs. I have a
| savings for the first time in my adult life and a stable home
| life.
|
| it's absolutely possible and I didn't even try very hard.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I moved from (rail) engineering to finance (tech work) at 28. The
| first job was a bit of a disaster so I really got going at 30ish
| if that helps. I also was a moron for stating as long as I did at
| my medium engineering firm.
|
| I am gay and a bit of a late bloomer so I didn't have kids, a
| partner or an overly abundant social life to stop me really
| working at it...
|
| I think there is hope. I am on 6 figures in fin tech now.
|
| I started with small companies: you (a lot) learn more, they hire
| more easily (less HR people requiring things the actual team
| don't care about) but the money is not normally as good. I'd
| recommend the same.
| celticninja wrote:
| I did, I was a new father, and in my late 30s. Took a paycut at
| the time, became a trainee developer. 6 years later, I'm a
| (proper) dev and they are asking me to apply for senior dev
| positions, I'm making more money, doing more fun work, and with
| less stress and more remote working. Do it.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Well I became a programmer in my 30s by accident, I decided to
| learn all things XML at just the right time, which led me to
| working on Governmental and International standardization. At
| some point in my 40s I switched again to Frontend, just because I
| had some frontend skills and there were some projects that were
| hiring. I would have stagnated then but I helped start a startup
| as CTO which, ended up leaving after a couple years because of
| disagreements with cofounder but hey then I had an impressive
| site and CV to point to so from that point it has been pretty
| simple.
|
| I would like to have a secondary career as a writer, but that is
| harder to get started and anyway it would have to be a fallback
| since realistically money is less.
| pseudostem wrote:
| I'm 45. I run a small ISP. It's a dying business, which will be
| dead in maybe 7 years or so as prices in my geographical area
| drop 10-15 percent every year.
|
| I started an agri commodity trading business in 2015
| (anticipating telecom going down in the future) which did quite
| well for a while. Covid years were ultra bad. And the market
| instead of recovering has gone even worse now. Many small
| companies are closing down (2 of my clients this month).
|
| Learnings from 2001, 2007/8 were to turn to education in a down
| cycle. I had anyway not completed my undergrad college degree. I
| joined one in data science. Found some problem areas for my
| existing clients could be solved with data science. Registered a
| new company last month, and this week got my a miniscule seed
| funding (debt).
|
| Things are not great but they're still looking up for me. I do
| not consider myself skilled at anything except maybe relationship
| building. I too feel that I've faked a lot by just being there. I
| would suggest you leverage your existing experience, join a MOOC,
| network with people - it'll take a while, maybe a year or more,
| but things will work out.
|
| I'll leave you with this cliche - luck is when preperation meets
| opportunity. Be prepared.
| whoknew1122 wrote:
| I started over in my 30s. Here's what happened generally:
|
| 1.) Graduated with a degree that had very limited options post-
| graduation 2.) Worked dead-end jobs 3.) Got tired of said dead-
| end jobs, and started teaching myself Linux and AWS 4.) While
| employed at the last dead-end job, I got LPIC-1 and AWS Solutions
| Architect Pro certs 5.) Used the certs to get an entry-level
| Linux System Administrator/AWS SA job at a startup 6.) Worked my
| butt off for a year at the entry-level job, and then applied for
| a job at AWS (in support) 7.) Got job at AWS, which I'm still at
|
| I went from making like $35k to 6 figures in around 4 years.
|
| Find something you're passionate about, and go about learning it.
| For entry-level jobs, certificates are often a good replacement
| for experience (at least to get hired). Once you have your first
| job, focus on meeting people and learning as much as you can. And
| then pivot.
|
| You won't ever know how good you are unless you take a leap. Only
| reason I thought I was good enough to apply to AWS is a recruiter
| reached out to me cold and I gave it a shot.
| oregoncurtis wrote:
| 34 here, spent a decade as a Project Manager in manufacturing.
| Quit without an idea of what I wanted to do, 3 months later
| decided to learn web development. After a year out of work I was
| hired at a FAANG company. I'm only three months in and the recent
| layoffs may mean I get kicked out, but I've been enjoying the
| work so far and everyone I work with is giving me positive
| feedback.
|
| You need to create some way to keep yourself accountable and to
| make an effort everyday, no matter how small, toward you're goal.
| It takes work and a lot of time, but you can do it!
| rvba wrote:
| Warsaw, Poland, EU
|
| Graduated top university, did internships, landed demanding
| corporate jobs. Career stalled somehow.
|
| I have a career in "boring" part of finance: financial planning
| and analysis (where I make big but simple models in Excel -
| without any statistics or programming involved, just very
| detailed) and do a lot of various user side related work (key
| user, acceptance tests, blueprinting, explaining to consultants
| what broke this time). Is there any way to swich to something
| else that pays decently?
|
| I wouldnt like to be a tester, since those should know how to
| automate tests. I know some SQL and some VBA, but it is primitive
| stackoverflow driven development - good enough to impress some
| junior bookkeepers, but a joke when a real programmer looks at
| the code.
|
| Scrum master perhaps? But how to start. I went to some agile
| meetups, read the manifesto, read some blogs (that mostly sound
| like self promotion...) not sure if I should start applying.
| Especially Im getting old so Im more of a "suit" now.
|
| Consulting is a garbage job it means jumping from client to
| client + constant travel/overtime (I actually worked in
| consulting a small bit).
|
| Will local companies or startups pay for someome without
| experience? Since I speak English some option is working remote,
| preferably to an european start up so the hours are sane -
| constant overtime is a big problem in finance.
|
| I wonder if it is possible to switch to a product owner, or key
| user or similar position. But how.
|
| I saw that some startups want someone who can fill out those EU-
| subsidy forms, but I never did that. Yet?
|
| If someone needs a guy with tons of comments about your product
| (warning those can be negative) I could be that guy. But I have
| this feeling that everyone wants to be the idea guy and obiously
| those who can build stuff are much more preferred.
| spir wrote:
| Today, we know KFC as Kentucky Fried Chicken, a pretty decent
| restaurant as far as fast food goes.
|
| But back in the day, Colonel Sanders didn't actually start what
| became KFC until he was 62 years old. His career was haphazard
| and beset by setbacks until he was almost a senior citizen.
|
| You got this!
| nathias wrote:
| Yes, providing you have a year of free time. Learn to learn
| first, research, decide on what makes sense to you, learn the
| basics, practice the fundamentals every day, do your own
| projects.
| dirtybirdnj wrote:
| I am in the process of doing so.
|
| I can really relate to your naievate that by working hard your
| efforts would be rewarded. It's really disheartening how
| sociopathic and downright evil the people in charge can be. I
| think when you rise up through the ranks you lose your ability to
| be empathetic to the people your decisions affect. Otherwise how
| can you be a strong leader if you aren't afraid to ruin a few
| lives right? /s (just in case)
|
| So rather than giving specific advice, I'm going to give you a
| few pieces of my situation. Feel free to browse my comment
| history to see the depths of a crippling burnout and career
| failure mid-30s.
|
| I did about 10yrs of development before I got to a really sweet
| job in NYC. I got to experience the full startup ride from fun
| spunky group to getting acquired and strip mined for assets and
| personel.
|
| I let the job become too much of my identity and I struggled to
| move on because of this.
|
| I moved to a different state (USA) with less population density
| and more nature. I think this helped a lot. I'm also much more
| isolated which has caused its own problems.
|
| I got into therapy. It took two different therapists, the first
| one when I told her I think I might be on the spectrum she told
| me "well _I_ don 't do that" and we wasted another 2 months
| before I missed a few appointments and things fell apart
| professionally. The SECOND therapist I found is absolutely
| amazing and the work we've done over the past 8 months is more
| significant than I've achieved alone in the past 10 years.
|
| I worked a few menial jobs. I was at a pizza kitchen for a while,
| and I also worked at a kayak store. I felt like I was worthless,
| I couldn't get a technical job or any that I could get I couldn't
| tolerate. I cannot recommend this but sometimes you gotta do what
| you gotta do to pay the bills.
|
| I worked a few contract jobs after my last big fulltime job. I
| have had a really bad stretch of gigs working for uninspiring and
| technically incompetent people. At some point the blame rests
| with me for not vetting these people, or at the very least
| politely delcining the work because it wouldn't be a professional
| work arrangement. You absolutely cannot talk reason into people
| who haven't reasoned themselves into the situation they are in.
|
| I got a stable job with the state I live in. It pays a lot less
| than I'm used to but it affords me time to try to sharpen my
| technical spear and crawl back into the market I used to inhabit.
|
| People will consider hiring you, but not the you right now. You
| might need to take time off from the job hunt and do something
| else. You might need to take work in a different field to get
| some perspective. You gotta find a job that rewards your natural
| behavior instead of exploiting you like your startup experience.
| The jobs are out there but 9/10 are smoke and mirrors bullshit
| liars trying to exploit you. It's a numbers game finding a
| reasonable employer and you just gotta be diligent in applying
| more and also really honest with yourself about whether THE
| COMPANY is up to YOUR standards not the other way around.
|
| A big part of that last thing is self respect. You have to
| actually have it, you can't fake it. Cultivating the value you
| feel in yourself is hard and at times painful work but its the
| only way.
|
| Good luck. "Where to begin" is one step after the other, dont
| give up. Find something that fucks you back even if you have to
| do it yourself with blood sweat and tears.
| glasss wrote:
| We do the more boring part of tech, IT management. One of our
| best hires was someone who went from managing their family bar
| for 20 years to taking a couple of IT course/ programs and being
| introduced to us.
|
| Life is really long and hard and complicated. But most of the
| time you can make it work.
| bsuvc wrote:
| To be honest, your biggest limitation is going to be your
| mindset, not your age.
|
| The fact that you can't see a path forward for yourself and using
| phrases like "execs who had no interest in leveling me up" (hint:
| it's your job to do that) and "I was a moron", does not bode well
| for your chances.
|
| You're going to have a hard time getting hired if this is the
| attitude you project, and you're going to have a hard time
| improving yourself with the negative mindset you seem to have
| adopted.
|
| I know it is cliche, but you need to adopt a growth mindset
| (Google it, it is a thing)
| mindtricks wrote:
| I don't necessarily disagree with you, but coming in with the
| mindset is not always natural. We don't know where the poster
| grew up, their education, their background, etc. It's not the
| worst assumption to believe that a company is going to be
| invested in developing you because some will and do. Sadly, the
| poster was not part of one of those companies.
|
| So instead of beating them down, we should point them to a
| better way of thinking in a more constructive manner.
| bsuvc wrote:
| I guess I came across harsh maybe, but I really am trying to
| constructively help OP.
|
| Rather than enabling that way of thinking and reassuring
| them, I think they need a wake-up call.
|
| You're right, though. I don't know their circumstances and am
| projecting my own experience here.
| q845712 wrote:
| with full agreement re. growth mindset, I've definitely worked
| with people above me who were more, less, and completely un-
| interested in leveling me up. It still makes a difference.
| nicpottier wrote:
| You spent your 20s cutting your teeth on a failed startup. Lots
| and lots of people do that and it's a perfectly acceptable thing
| to have on a resume. I know people who have started in their 30s
| from never having programmed professionally at all and are now
| working at a FAANG company. The world is your oyster, go get it.
| highwaylights wrote:
| I think this is the right answer.
|
| It sounds like you've maybe seen your resume in front of you
| and you're reflecting on how it didn't go the way you'd hoped,
| rather than the value in it.
|
| Talk to a career coach who can help you write it from the
| perspective of focusing on your wins.
|
| I don't know you or your background but I doubt the story of
| your career is "I did a startup and it failed and I should've
| seen that coming and now I'm lacking confidence".
|
| Get the resume rewritten:
|
| - Job functions. - Tech/skills learned. - Explanation of how
| eager you are for the next challenge.
|
| Buddy, if you're old in your 30's then I'm _ancient_ and I
| refuse to accept that. If you went to grad school then you're
| probably at most 15 years out of school. That's means you still
| have two thirds of a typical working life ahead of you. More if
| you're lucky.
|
| Make a plan and get yourself back out there.
|
| By the way, I'd _absolutely_ hire a late career switcher,
| because you've likely got more responsibilities than someone
| straight out of college. This might sound counter-intuitive
| (you can't be easily exploited with 60 hour work weeks the way
| a starry-eyed grad can), but you also likely can't afford to
| _waste anyone's time_.
| Justsignedup wrote:
| My friend started training to be a programmer at 32. She's 39 now
| and is enjoying her very successful programming "early" career.
|
| Prior to this she was a pianist.
| tin7in wrote:
| Yes, I know a few good examples.
|
| A friend went to university in her mid 30s during/after her
| maternity leave and switched the industry completely, then
| started her own company in that industry.
|
| Another friend made his hobby a career and switched from sales to
| UX design in his 30s.
|
| I suggest you start meeting people and network. You don't know
| where opportunities will come from in the future.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-20 23:02 UTC)