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I dabbled with building personal websites for 20-odd years before getting my first "professional" gig back in 2014 at age 49. The key difference between hobbyi
by rikroots 6y ago
I dabbled with building personal websites for 20-odd years before getting my first "professional" gig back in 2014 at age 49.
The key difference between hobbyist and professional web development, in my opinion, is not so much programming knowledge but rather knowing the tooling that surrounds a project (git in particular, testing rigs, etc) and learning to work as part of a team (how to estimate work, what to do when you blow up the git repo, etc).
On qualifications - there's companies out there that insist on some sort of qualification before they'll go further than your CV. There's other companies that care nothing about such paperwork, but want to hire people who are good at solving problems and eager to learn (quickly!) from colleagues about all the stuff needed to do the job beyond the code base itself.
PS: don't leave the career change too long - ageism does, sadly, exist in the tech industry. It took me over 800 applications to land that first gig!
- WEngeneer 6y agoDid you face any age discrimination, e.g did you suspect that interviewers turned you down mostly because of age. Because I read a lot of stories like this.
- rikroots 6y agoNothing provable in a court of law. However, the look of disappointment in some of the interviewers' faces when we finally met for the face-to-face interview told me everything I needed to know about their expectations even before they said hello.
- WEngeneer 6y agoThis is what scared me off from career switches in general not just coding, and still gives me air of uncertainty. I've read too many stories like this for my own good or bad. Sending 800 applications is like full time, unpaid labor in itself.
- burntoutfire 6y ago> The key difference between hobbyist and professional web development, in my opinion, is not so much programming knowledge but rather knowing the tooling that surrounds a project (git in particular, testing rigs, etc) and learning to work as part of a team (how to estimate work, what to do when you blow up the git repo, etc). For me, the biggest shock was transitioning from ownership of the project into being an insignificant cog in a Scrum machine. It took me a couple of years to learn to not be very frustrated by it.
- olnluis 6y agoProps on your perseverance through 800 applications... at age 25, I can't imagine going through something like that.