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I was 36 when I quit my corporate finance job, took a year off and learned to program, so yes, you can. Tips? - Make a plan, when are you starting, what do you want to have accomplished in year 1, 2, 3. Commit to it. - Make a financial plan, I basically lost 65% of my income (ouch), but I knew there were high paying jobs out there. How long can you live on a lower salary or are you good just taking a cut anyway. Do you need to take time off to retrain? What will that cost. For me budgeting that all out really helped. - Figure out your worst case, for me it was "what if I can't get a job" or "what if I do and after 6 months I hate programming professionally". Can you still get back to your old career, do you want to? - What skills carry over, do you have some business or commercial experience? Or some background in a field where those skills would help being a programmer? - Learn your butt off. I've been doing this for 3 years professionally now and I spend most evenings 50/50 coding on pet projects and reading literature/CS books. Its hard but I've managed to make back my lost income and somewhat compensate for the lack of actual programming years. Its also been rough on my social life, but that's the price for me. I figure once I hit the 4/5 year mark I can maybe take a breather. This year though with corona it actually works out fine, nothing better to do anyway. |
I cannot imagine having the mental energy or the enthusiasm to spend most of my evenings doing side projects and reading CS books. I'm happy for you, but is that what it takes to do ok in this career? Hours and hours of unpaid work, even after you've got a job?
It just makes me wish I had focussed on being a product manager or something. I'm pretty sure most of them aren't spending all their evenings reading management books.