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I am on a similar path, if with a much lower opportunity cost. I am 37 years old, one failed startup as a founder, a few marketing roles on other modest startup

• CarpetBench 10y ago
  > I did not receive much support either from the HN crowd I think there's a reason for that, and you touched on some of them. There's undoubtedly an ageism to the tech industry, and being an older junior developer is likely to be a huge uphill climb. There's also skepticism around the coding bootcamp industry for the same reason that there's skepticism around University of Phoenix: The certification isn't really useful or impressive, and the kind of person who benefits highly from a program like that would likely learn just as much through self-study at a severely reduced cost (or free). Compounding that, there's a glut right now of alternative software development education. It's hard to imagine a future where being a software developer isn't significantly less prestigious in the future, except for software development in highly specialized areas (e.g. machine learning). Not that prestige is so important, but the reasons for the loss of that prestige will likely cause salaries to plummet significantly. It's entirely possible (and some would say likely) that most web development will become analogous to traditional trade professions like plumbers in the future, with: * Significantly less initial investment: There's no standard or certification for being a web developer) * Significantly larger pool of competition: Your web developer doesn't need to physically be located near you, unlike your plumber. If you're fine with all of these things, then that's great! Be a software developer. Just be aware that it's likely to experience significant changes in the coming decades, not many of which are likely to be beneficial. You might very well do better for yourself and your family to actually just become a plumber instead.
  • aetherson 10y ago
    I don't know if it makes sense for the OP, but I'll stick up for coding bootcamps as a general concept. I don't agree that most people can just self-study in the same time period and get as effective an education, and I do think that the credential is important. A friend of mine just did a bootcamp -- from a stalled career as a lab technician in which she was making something around $60k/year (in the Bay Area) -- and sure enough, three months later she got a job at $110k coding the consumer website for a bank. Now. Is that the quintessential job that everyone on HN longs for? CLEARLY NOT. But is it pretty impressive to jump your salary up two really solid tiers in three months and at least be in a place where you might see another $50k/year over the next 5-10 years? From where she was? Hell yes. Some people who are amazing autodidacts don't need a bootcamp for the skills, and lots of people who aren't amazing autodidacts could get the skills in other ways (but slower, and almost certainly cheaper). The credentialism is going to be a problem, though -- Google isn't going to hire a bootcamp grad, but they also almost certainly won't hire an autodidact. A big boring enterprisey place apparently will hire a bootcamp grad, and almost certainly wouldn't hire an autodidact. Startups, well, who knows, but they're a crap-shoot.
    • CarpetBench 10y ago
      > I'll stick up for coding bootcamps as a general concept Sure, and similarly there isn't anything inherently wrong with for-profit universities: You can certainly find people who excelled in an environment like DeVry and don't regret their decision to attend. Over time one can expect that the "cream will rise to the top" and good bootcamps will have a certain reputation associated with them. Similar to for-profit universities. Still, I hope it goes without saying that many of the same concerns about for-profit universities also apply to coding bootcamps. > I do think that the credential is important. Why? What does the credential prove in this case? > sure enough, three months later she got a job at $110k coding the consumer website for a bank. That's great! I'm happy for her. Still, I hope that sentence gives you (and her) some pause for concern. If three months is enough time to train someone for a $110k job, I would suggest that job is unlikely to remain paying $110k in the foreseeable future. It's hard to think of other professions that pay so well for so little investment. The supply can (and will) increase precipitously to match the demand, and salaries will drop precipitously. For a recent example, see the recent glut of law students and freshly-minted lawyers making a pittance. There are quite a few parallels between that scenario and the current one facing software developers, except that law school is even more of an investment than coding bootcamps. > at least be in a place where you might see another $50k/year over the next 5-10 years That's my point though: I don't think that's likely. Maybe over 5, but it seems unlikely that 10 years from now she'll be making $160k. I'm suggesting that those kinds of salaries will be reserved for people working in specialized fields, not people doing basic web development. For a more realistic future salary, I'd say look at developer salaries in places like Canada, or much of western Europe (where $60k/year a year is probably much more realistic than $110k). > Google isn't going to hire a bootcamp grad, but they also almost certainly won't hire an autodidact Google absolutely hires autodidacts. I know a few of them. Clichés about "non-Stanford students need not apply" aside, Google just hires smart people. Smart people don't always have degrees or certificates.
• rwallace 10y ago
  > I was expecting much more support here for people wanting to learn to code. I think if you said "my current job is packing bags in the supermarket, I want to learn to program, should I go for it?" there would be plenty of support. The issue here is that OP will be giving up a better job than that of entry-level programmer, which is what makes the proposed career switch irrational. I mean sure, it's your life, at the end of the day you have to do as you think best, but if you already have a good job and you ask for advice, the advice will be to keep it.
• umanwizard 10y ago
  You are conflating "not much support for learning to code" and "not much support for bootcamps". I'm sure everyone here would support you learning to code! Look, teaching yourself programming is not only possible, it's required -- forever. You will never have a job as a programmer where you're not required to learn new things, without anyone else's help, sometimes without even any documentation, and often on tight deadlines. If you refuse to even try to learn extremely well-documented technologies like HTML, JS, and Ruby on your own without paying someone to spoonfeed it to you, what are the odds you'll survive when your boss tells you you need to figure out how to integrate with some obscure closed-source third-party library by Friday? Or even when working on mainstream technologies, will you do to get unblocked in the (very common) situation where you're the first person in the world to encounter a particular bug, and you can't ask your team about it because they don't know? It's not that I'm opposed to people learning to code. It's that I think many of those who need a bootcamp wouldn't have the personality to be successful. Of course there are some successful bootcamp graduates; this isn't an absolute thing. But why not at least try first to learn the way the rest of us did, by tinkering with stuff because you enjoy it?
  • soneca 10y ago
    No, it is not only about bootcamps. People vaguely support "learn to code", but there is no support at all to "change your career to be a software developer" (bootcamp or not). You can see on this thread and I experienced it also (and I never considered a bootcamp).