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Comment by marlowe221 | Hacker News Reader

I started at 37 and got my first full time job a couple of months after I turned 38. I was a lawyer and hated it - now I love going to work every day.

But it wasn't easy. I was working full time in a demanding profession and I'm married with two kids under 5 years old. So basically I spent every free moment I had working on learning HTML/CSS/JavaScript. If my kids were asleep, I was coding. I basically had to burn the candle at both ends to make a career change happen but it's been worth totally worth it.

I got hired to write React but I work for a very small company so we all wear a lot of hats around here. Since I started in June of 2020, I've already learned Java and now I'm working on a new ML/AI project (so Python, here I come).

My only regret is that I didn't do this 10 years earlier.

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I always coded since I'm 12 (softwares on AOL Chatrooms for those who remember!) but after my high school diploma, I decided I wanted to explore arts, especially music and cinema. I thought I was spending way too much time on screen and I didn't want to turn my passion to a job.

I got a master's degree in cinema, a few jobs in the industry but I hated the atmosphere there. I still love everything related to arts but at 30, I thought I will go back to what I love: coding (even if I was terrible at it, just a script kiddie with a few personal projects).

After a few trainings, I'm working on ML/AI projects at 33 years old, doing what I love.

I don't regret doing different things during my 20s. All my studies and jobs made me learn so many things, I would not be the same as today if I didn't take this path or If I went studying CS right after high school.

Don't regret doing this only now. You built a family and I'm pretty sure you have learned a lot during your career as lawyer even if you hated it.

> My only regret is that I didn't do this 10 years earlier.

It's not a bad thing to have a professional career before programming. I'd imagine that you'll have developed some non-technical skills that some developers lack, to be blunt about it.

Not only that, but developing websites 10 years ago kinda sucked. Browsers were wildly inconsistent, it was common to have another CSS stylesheet for IE only, JS was so fragmented that jQuery was an instant hit.

On the other hand pages were much smaller, you'd rely on HTML much more than on JS which meant you'd rarely be working with bundlers and such.

But still, if you take the state of the web for what it is, the sheer productivity with today's tools is unparalleled. I think the best time to start coding is tomorrow.

How difficult was it to transition into the job market? I have always wanted to make the jump (in finance & accounting now) but the most daunting thing seems like convincing someone to hire you.

That is the hardest part. Certain professions give a kind of boost. If you switch from being a lawyer or some type of engineering background managers will assume you are smart. Much harder if you move from being a waiter or actor where the assumption may go the other way.

I’ve known a lot of people that had a hard time breaking into tech, even very “smart” highly educated people. The key is persistence. If someone tells you that you can’t code because you were a waiter or an actor, they weren’t someone you wanted to work for anyway.

Your first point is correct. It is hard to break into tech. For almost anyone. That does not make the fact that having a background that on paper makes one appear "smarter" makes it easier to break into tech any less true.

Your second point is also true. But when getting your first job is the hardest part many people would rather do 3 months to a year under someone they wouldnt want to work for and then move to a better role than continue being a waiter or actor for the rest of their career while they hold out for a first job that is ideal.

I agree that persistence is the key but it is easier for some backgrounds than others.

It's good to see someone on the same path. I was a corporate lawyer for a couple years before dedicating all my time to learning programming. I got really excited with it and got back to university to get a compsci degree. I'm on my second year and I still love every minute I spend learning algorithms and other technologies.

Congrats on the transition! I'm making a similar transition but from management back to individual contributor and also changing tech stacks.

That puts things into perspective. I sometimes worry about my ability to become a software engineer just because I never finished my degree and I'm in my late 20's.

But I already know java fairly well and a few other languages like python as well, maybe its just a matter of making some more side projects and selling myself better.

As someone in my late twenties who started a little later than the people who went through CS in college w/ internships, etc., you can do it!

It takes a bunch of persistence - just keep chugging at applications and learning.

If you don't jibe well with the leetcode interviews (I certainly don't, I just don't do well and I think it has to do with my anxiety), aim for smaller companies or really just any that ends up having a laxer interview process. They do exist though!

I'm convinced the leetcode stuff selects for something largely orthogonal to ability. My major was practically the same as CS, if not harder in many ways (EE) - I can understand any of the concepts in their full math and theory, etc., I generally just don't have them at at my fingertips to perform on demand, aside from basics. This stuff belongs in books to be referenced as needed.

Do they use you as GC too? ;)

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