Comment by hunter23 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hunter23 | Hacker News Reader

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You did something way bolder but I wanted to share another successful career restart story. I worked in tech startups in business roles (ops & product management) but was always excited about the engineering side. I decided to do a career restart at 32 and taught myself the basics of web development using Udacity and other web tutorials. I then went through a coding bootcamp and joined a mid size company.

It's been a great ride, I've worked for about 3 years on both the front end and back end. I've been promoted twice and have started becoming assigned as lead developer on some projects. Overall, I think I'm about 6 - 12 months away from being promoted to a senior developer. As others mentioned, my strong soft skills (being able to project manage myself, communicate effectively, estimate tasks well and honor my estimates) have made me very attractive in comparison to other candidates who have been programming since they were 12 but are much more difficult to work with. The ability to "get stuff done" is underrated.

Anyways, the main point is I am so happy with my career restart into programming at 32. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I am someone who has been 'programming since they were 12' and I worry about perhaps not being as well-rounded as you describe yourself. What kind of experiences that taught you the soft skills you mentioned would you recommend to someone like myself to become a more attractive engineer?

My suggestions would be to:

* take as many opportunities as you can in presenting to others. Public speaking skills are important * refine your skills in creating good product demos of your work * spend time writing concise and well structured documentation * Do some self reflection every time you get into a heated argument with a co-worker. Think about what you could have done better to prevent emotions from flaring up. The best engineers at my company are the ones who are really good at managing discussions * Make sure that any meeting you attend flows well. If people (including yourself) are meandering from the main point of the meeting then lead the group back to the main point. Take good notes. Make sure the meeting has an agenda. If it ends early then tell people they can leave rather so you can give back attendees time. If you have a shy person in the group pro-actively ask their opinion. On the same end if you have a verbose person in the group make sure to end their discussion if they are meandering. * Put yourself in your user's shoes as much as possible. Don't just evaluate a feature from a technical standpoint, but also a user standpoint. Your product manager will be happy that they can trust you to wear a "product manager" hat

Really great points here! Really liked the points about public speaking and dealing with meetings and asking questions to shy engineers.

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