At the age of 38, am I too late to change career to front end dev work? | Hacker News Reader

At the age of 38, am I too late to change career to front end dev work?

39 pointssuaveybloke35 comments

I started my career in IT (and dabbled a bit with what was then basic HTML, CSS and PHP), then worked for c. 10 years in accountancy but have longed to switch careers and work as a front end developer. But I'm worried that with no recent relevant work experience and my age (38), I will not be able to compete with younger folks just coming out of uni/college. Am I basically too late to switch to this particular career? I appreciate any thoughts/advice you might have on this :-)

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It's never too late. What matters most is that you are good at the work and can produce results.

For me, I went back to school about 5 years after a liberal arts undergrad to get a BS in computer science, and it has worked out. I was about 27, but there were numerous men and women in my classes in their late 30's and early 40's, all making the switch to CS to keep their skills sharp and better support their families. Some had been lawyers, accountants, and other white collar jobs--and they decided to make the change anyway.

So, yes, it's common, and employers understand that people are coming to programming from many different paths/backgrounds these days. (At least the ones who aren't snobbish.)

Most importantly: use what you perceive as your weaknesses as your strengths. You know a ton about accounting. Use that!

Doing programming work that overlaps with your previous career will probably yield the highest immediate pay, since you have domain knowledge in that area already. (And why waste it?)

That would be my angle to get into programming: find a company that programs accounting systems/financial software of some sort and offer your skills. Their end-users are accountants who have the same problems/frustrations as you. Why not discuss with them and help solve those problems directly? Offer them what they don't have yet, and only you do.

I think this comment is absolutely spot on. The biggest difference between software development and other careers is that people don't care how you got to where you are. They only care if you can produce good work.

And there's a LOT to be said for bringing the knowledge you have, and making something useful with it.

In my opinion, if you decide to switch, the best thing you can do is start practicing. Whether you learn from online courses, school, friends, or books matters less than how much time you spend practicing. Preferably, put as much of your own work as you can in a public repository (somewhere like github.com) so that people can see that you get things done.

At 38 you're still too young to worry about stuff like this. I'd say that's the perfect age to make the switch, and with your background, you'll be asking the right questions when you're taking classes or learning on your own.

You'll actually find that you'll be picking up stuff faster than younger people just starting out.

Since your interest is frontend dev, your main challenge would be wading through the sea of frameworks and tools.

Yes. It's not any harder to learn this stuff as you get older, in my own experience, despite what people sometimes think.

Only personal experience, but: I found learning complex technical concepts far easier in my late 20's than I did as new college entrant at 18-19. Including all the math.

So, not sure why people like to say that you learn this stuff easier when you're younger. For me, it was exactly the opposite.

I made the switch from civil engineer to full stack developer in my thirties.

I knew some HTML, CSS and PHP and had been setting up websites for family and friends. I started freelancing in addition to my day job. Moved to creating PHP web applications and taking on more and more advanced work.

I slowly picked up larger projects, better clients until I got to the point where I was freelancing full time. Now I have a few clients that keep me busy working remotely. I have had a few contract positions 3 to 6 months at a time but mainly it's been freelance since I made the switch.

It's lots of work, you're constantly learning and trying new things. If you enjoy that and have a knack for programming go for it.

I have interviewed with some local companies I wouldn't say I was passed over for younger employees, mainly just not a good fit not enough experience. I can see where some companies would prefer younger candidates.

I would say GO FOR IT but maybe learn/get back in the game by freelancing/keeping your day job. Unless you can afford to quit your day job during the transition.

I would also recommend learning full stack instead of just focussing on front end, it's becoming more blended anyway. Front end is moving toward React, Angular, and Vue.js and is as complex more tightly coupled to the backend.

Also I would focus on learning Laravel (PHP) or Rails (Ruby) I think these are higher paying with more job openings/interesting projects.

Laravel has a great ecosystem, check out LaraCasts.com.

Rails is great as well.

Good Luck with the transition.

May I ask why you made that kind of switch? I'm a SW Engineer and I always liked the idea of being a civil eng.

Going from a civil engineer to computers and programming is an all too common career path. For some reason, even though I am very knowledgeable of computers/programming/development, I never made the switch.

Part of the reason Civil Engineers go into Civil is because they are excited by the idea of making things (especially with computers). Part of the reason they leave, is after they see how frustratingly slow-paced it is, how poor communication is, and how ridiculous the number of times your project or work gets axed (not shelfed, axed!).

There is a concept in software engineering called reusable code. That concept is completely absent from CE. The entire industry works that way. And it seems backwards.

I am still holding out hope that one day this field will improve, and I may have a hand in it. But in all honesty, I see architects, surveyors, and software engineers doing a better job of revamping this industry than civil engineers ever can.

To be honest I think you can find those sort of criticisms in just about any industry, you can certainly find them in the software world.

Also CE->SWE here, if you are criticising these issues in the software world you will hate being a civil engineer. While they are in some corners of software development, it's basically all there is in civil engineering.

Civil engineering is already figured out. In the first world, what you are supposed to do for most situations is not only almost entirely mapped out but is actual regulations. That's great for society, but there is just no stimulation for CEs. In the first world, being a civil engineer is mostly about knowing and keeping up with the the rules (which is a feat in itself considering how many organizations are involved and how scattered the information is), applying them, sending drafts to clients/regulators/etc. and waiting for weeks for responses.

Wow! You just brought back memories of a line in a paper I wrote my first week in Civil Engineering college ... "a boring field that is 1000 years old where all opportunities of innovation has already occurred". But when I was thinking of going into CoE or CS the dot com bubble burst and I had to reconsider.

I always enjoyed programming, was fascinated with startups, technology and SaaS so it was something interesting so I started building websites and then web applications while working as a civil engineer.

I enjoyed civil engineering too, but there wasn't a lot of room for innovation, lots of things are cookie cutter in civil engineering, there is some room for creativity but not like developing web applications.

I did develop two software add-ons for Civil 3D that were released by Autodesk that gave me a taste of software development.

Oh yeah there was also the slight economic collapse where all development and construction stopped, civil engineering firms cut 75% of their staff and salaries stalled and shrank. So it wasn't really a choice I was just lucky I had the skills in place to make the leap over to software development. It wasn't easy but I'm much happier as a developer.

If you want to do front-end, don't worry about those coming out of uni/college. Front-end is a specialization that very few places teach.

There is a huge range for front-end. You have people doing basically cut-up for marketing sites to people building front-ends that can scale up.

My four big buckets I look for from a Front-End are:

* Technical, can you make it work

* Maintainable, can someone else keep it running and update it

* Scalability, can you scale the solution up to millions of people (to be honest, most front-end don't need to worry about this)

* "Precog", can you anticipate the issues that arise from users and their wide range of browsers + OS + hardware

Do you have a solid business career in accountancy, and wanna switch to grunt js work?

Is excellent if wanna do development, but why not apply your experience instead? Also in all this 10 years you have build some contacts to get your foot in.

I know that accounting and crud apps are not "sexy" and boring.

But you know what is worse and more boring?

Using js!

Jah, sorry, I can't resist.

But honestly most "front-end" work is not amazing at all.

Maybe building visualizations, charts and stuff like that. But pages and apps in front-end is alike build forms, but harder, more complicated and with less performance than native code.

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I'm in the process of build a point-of-sale app, and I will envy to have you background instead, or have a partner with that skills.

So, I'm telling you:

You have valuable skills that are higher than Js. Js/html/css is just a tool (that pay, because the front-end work have become more crazy and requiere more effort triying to be somethings is not made for), but in itself not become yet-another-front-end-dev when you already have a better position to offer.

I always ask this of full-stack/backend devs who shit on frontend: show us what you've managed to build with that attitude.

I would highly highly recommend you to find problems you have seen in accountancy world that you can solve with programming. You could get both of both world, satisfaction of work you want to do while benefiting from your industry experience. No programmer (not in accountancy world) here knows about the issues and inefficiencies about it than you do, and you probably have a bunch of contacts you can test your ideas on. That way you keep your advantages of being in the accountancy world, while solving the issues they have by using programming which is what you want to do.

whatever you do, good luck.

This. With 10 years in accountancy you have embedded within you a deep understanding of business problems that a tech person outside your field simply doesn't have.

So seek synergy. Pick a small problem, and solve it. Something useful is far more impressive than something flash, and can be quantified on a CV pretty well. Set a goal, and that should be something where multiple skills are combined.

Could be tough balancing time and conflicting needs, that's probably your biggest challenge. But you have your advantage of knowing something in-and-out, and learning as you get older gets faster and faster.

Don't forget backend. Also seek some understanding of creating RESTful APIs using a related framework, like if you're interested in front-end, probably JS, learn a JS back-end. I picked hapi on node, and really liked it.

Never too late, but you'll need to prove yourself. That's hard since you don't have a work history or things to talk about.

You'll be competing with younger folks for entry-level positions. I'd consider a portfolio of code or personal projects on Github/etc. that show your style, coding and otherwise.

It all depends on you. I hear a lot of people in the tech industry that are 40+ complain about the difficulty in getting a job, finding a team etc. But the reality is I am in that category and yes, startups can be a bit harder cause in general the older we are the more likely we have a life, kids and obligations outside of work. And yes, there are a lot of interview techniques are lacking in finding quality people and focus on the wrong things, but that isn't everywhere and it isn't honestly new.

Can you make the switch? It just totally depends on you. You will need to be aggressive in looking for work, you'll have to demonstrate you are qualified and you'll need to show people samples of work. The samples can be personal sites, little things you built, open source you contributed to whatever. You would be essentially a junior web dev, so your expectations of pay and position should be in line with that, if you accept those things and can do the work, absolutely you can make the switch.

I can assure you, you are not too late, at least if you are living in the Netherlands. :-)

What you do need is a passion or interest in this field. Age and/or work experience in other fields brings allot of advantages towards employees, something every 'totally new to working' all have yet to find out.

Frontend nowadays is very awesome, it is my day to day job as well (31 yr old), and I really enjoy it.

I wouldn't say its too late, you might have a rough start with learning and everything, but there is a lot of new technologies you can specialize in and come out on top if you invest enough time into it. Keep in mind there will be uni/college folks starting at the same time as you, regardless when you start. It's just about getting things done and get started. :)

No. In fact, a guy on my team is a 45/46 year old guy who had been in management his whole life while dabbling with programming and decided to switch careers to being a front-end dev. He's certainly not the best dev we have, but he also shoulders a lot of managerial weight so that we don't have to and I enjoy having him on the team.

On hiring:

I'm currently 35 and spent many years in biochemistry, and did a lot of coding on my own personal time (and am doing contract work currently). One of the frustrations is that going through the hiring process, I get a lot of accolades from the interviewers, and seem to do well to extraordinary on coding challenges - but there's something that I'm not "matching right". In several cases, I've been told that they were seeking "senior devs" even though I've been referred via an agency that should have filtered out all but "junior dev" positions.

I suggest getting insight into the "unwritten rules" of hiring, which is what I'm going to start to ask about. There is a myth that the valley (or indeed the world) is a meritocracy, but in reality, you have to 'figure out the game'. Good luck!

Wise words, I think I need to 'figure out the game' myself. Currently on the inside of the tech industry.

Everything people say is correct, you can reinvent yourself. I hit 40 this year and was looking to make a career move but depending on your home situation may not be feasible. If I were to start again in a different field it would mean a dramatic pay cut to start at the bottom. There was no way to make a lateral move in a new field at the same pay I was making, so in the end I had no choice but to stay in my same field even though my passion was somewhere else. I do agree it's not too late but remember you'd be starting at the bottom again and do you have the time and patience to make it back to where you are now

This just popped up on HN, might be worth a read. :)

https://medium.freecodecamp.com/yes-im-56-and-learning-to-co...

Never too late. It's something you can do by simply getting to work learning and building stuff yourself. A front end dev is only a sliver over the full-stack developer you were before in PHP in having to deal with back end stuff, etc.

Like other said, the answer is no. But think twice! You might have the most lucky career. I dream of a job like accountancy where you do the same thing every day. In IT you solve a new problem every day, and I don't know about deadlines but ask them.

The way I see it might not be how you see it. Your question reminds me about the joke with the writer who said he wants to become a doctor after retirement. - The conclusion of the joke was that to start a new career takes time.

Ara you joking mate? As long as you are/get good enough (I don't mean Facebbok/Google/etc good, just able to develop usable stuff) in a relevant field, you'll find good jobs and good pay in IT in most developed countries. Not sure of how the pay compares to accountancy, but if really want to change career....

I've coded my first "Hello World" at 26yo and now at 36 I'm working as an iOS contractor and making 6 digit figures (in £) and couldn't be more thankful to past me!

Mentally you probably have the tools if you have done accounting, but it will be difficult socially unless you look the part.

It is not something I would pursue on a whim: the grass is always greener and I assure you front end is a complete shit show, as sexy as it seems right now.

You'll find less friction if you look for IT jobs at non-tech companies. Places like manufacturing, airlines, retail sales, and so forth. Ageism seems less prevalent in these places.

nope, most any programming language can be learned in a relatively short time, it requires only one thing dedication, as long as you care enough about doing it theres no upper age limit.

as for not being able to compete that is up to you, as long as you have solid skills and can prove it you your age wont matter.

I was older and so far working well for me ;)

Few random thoughts as I've gone (and am still going) through same experience.

1. Zed Shaw of the "Learn Python the Hard Way" said programmers are dime a dozen. What's really valuable is a programmer who has experience from another domain such as history, engineering, medicine etc (and accounting in your case). I cannot recall exactly where he said it but I remember reading it and chuckling to myself.

2. Are you sure you want front-end dev work? Why not back-end? Exactly what skills are in demand? I recommend you watch this video on state of tools available in web dev including front-end, back-end, and DevOps as of 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBzRwzY7G-k

I should warn that the shelf life of front-web dev skills seems to be much shorter than IT. In fact here's a list of tech skills, ordered with longest to shortest shelf life IMHO. Not sure about DevOps but my feeling is it has longer shelf life than programming...

IT > DevOps > Back-end > Front-end

Going into IT years ago, I knew I needed to keep learning new stuff to stay relevant. I slacked off a bit (due to family situation) and paid the price. With dev work, you need to spend even more time to learn new stuff to stay relevant. Often, you will have to spend your personal time to do so.

3. You should keep your day job as you try to break into coding. You don't want financial pressure to stress you out. And that means you will have to squeeze out every available hour of your life and devote it to studying/practicing. That means no weekend activities, no TV/video-game at night, etc. The less you do such things, the faster you can switch into dev career.

4. Do you have the environment that will allow you do real productive studying/coding/studying? If you have kids, can you avoid school pickup/dropoff? Will you have big chunks of time daily to devote to coding practice? Personally I need at minimum 30min - 1hr before my brain switches on and gets productive.

Basically your family around you have to pretend as if you had 2 full time jobs or you were studying for Bar exam or in med school. And they should expect what 6 months to a year of this.

Do you have a desk where you can set up 2 x 24" monitors and your laptop with a comfortable chair? Or maybe a standup desk?

5. Get github and own web server (DigitalOcean, Linode or Amazon AWS) going and start posting your work. Curate what you post on Github. I use bitbucket for personal projects and use github only to post what's reasonably presentable. You probably don't have contacts in the industry. And that means finding a job almost exclusively based on job postings. And because of your lack of prior experience in the industry, you will often get passed over for others who do. So your secret and only weapon would be examples of your work that is easily accessible to recruiter/hiring-manager. Especially for dev work as there's no certifications to get like in Windows or Linux world.

Setting up github/bitbucket means learning Git. Not really coding but you will need to know it for a dev work nonetheless.

Setting up website on Linux to host your code is another non-coding task but still valuable skill to have.

6. Your first job as a dev may not be that dream job. What I've learned is that jobs posted on jobsites almost always have more negatives than positives. If it was really a desirable job with good environment, someone would've referred their friend/ex-coworker. So set your expectation accordingly for your first dev work. You can either turn it into a better job or move on to a better job/company. Whether the position is discouraging or not, once you get in, kick as_. That will open more doors, either more responsibility, or a different company or even freelance work.

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Epilogue

I started down the path of switching from IT to dev because I wanted freedom of remote work, freelance, start a product/website to make income on the side, etc. None of that has come to fruition except for remote work but no regrets. I no longer have to open boxes of laptops, stick on inventory tag and add it to inventory excel list, get interrupted with help requests every 10 min, or worry about where to keep spare packing material (because manager wants tidy work space but not providing adequate storage space) to have available for overnighting that laptop to replace a broken laptop of a remote worker.

Well there I go, spent another hour doing something else other than practicing coding.

No.

I mentored a retiree a few years ago who wanted to get back into web development after taking an early retirement. He was bright, eager to learn and recognized that at almost 60 he had soft skills that would be valuable when mixed with development skills. You're never too old.

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