Yes. I'm living proof. I'd always played with coding, and freelanced a little, but was mostly a public school math/physics teacher until just over thirty. That

Yes. I'm living proof. I'd always played with coding, and freelanced a little, but was mostly a public school math/physics teacher until just over thirty. That job, in that district, was not sustainable for me, so I put resumes out listing all the things I'd played with over the years and someone took a chance on me and I've been at it since, slowly but steadily adding to my skills and taking on more responsibility. I'm not running companies, but I do lead a couple successful teams now. One thing that possibly helps but also causes confusion is that I look much younger than I am, so if I only tell potential employers about my tech job history it lines up, visually, with an assumption that I started out of college. If they happen to learn my age they do a double take. Hasn't caused issues, but it's weird. I've heard from others on here that, fair or not, it can help to ensure you are not "dressing old" by having a hip neice/nephew advice on some age/setting appropriate but current clothes to wear to interviews. One important note: I worked very hard on personal coding projects for years before making the switch. That probably isn't absolutely critical but helped me a lot.