Ask HN: I am 30, I want to change my career

7 points·ZenoSchool··3 comments

Currently I am English teacher. I want to change my career and want to be web developer. Edit: Guide me whether or not it is the right path.

View on HN

In another HN post "what I learned from 3000 technical interviews" it showed that Udacity and other quality MOOCs are the most significant when getting a job. That might be a good way to bootstrap your abilities at design and creation. I find the structure of these classes helpful. But I think go for it!

I studied English and I was a test prep instructor and manager for Kaplan before switching careers to be a Web developer at age 27. It was the right decision for me because the hours and pay were better.

At Kaplan, especially as a manager, I had to work long hours since we opened early for self study and classes were often late at night. The salary was also low...I started at $30k in 2004. In two years I had gotten promotions and raises and ended up at $47k. Everyone told me that was unprecedented, since most raises are capped at 3% to 5%. I knew that long hours and low pay couldn't be a long term solution.

I quit and took a year off to teach myself web development. I had prior experience doing this in college so it was easy to pick up again. I did freelance for about 6 months, finding clients on Craigslist before getting a full time job paying $55k in 2007. By 2011 I was making $110k, and by 2015 I was making $175k as director of engineering at a startup.

I'm a former English teacher and school director, and I created FreeCodeCamp.com two years ago specifically to help people transition into web development as a career. We have a large community of career-changers, more than 5,000 of whom have now gotten their first developer job.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com