
At the age of 38, am I too late to change career to front end dev work? - suaveybloke
I started my career in IT (and dabbled a bit with what was then basic HTML, CSS and PHP), then worked for c. 10 years in accountancy but have longed to switch careers and work as a front end developer.  But I&#x27;m worried that with no recent relevant work experience and my age (38), I will not be able to compete with younger folks just coming out of uni&#x2F;college.  Am I basically too late to switch to this particular career?  I appreciate any thoughts&#x2F;advice you might have on this :-)
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adpoe
It's never too late. What matters most is that you are good at the work and
can produce results.

For me, I went back to school about 5 years after a liberal arts undergrad to
get a BS in computer science, and it has worked out. I was about 27, but there
were numerous men and women in my classes in their late 30's and early 40's,
all making the switch to CS to keep their skills sharp and better support
their families. Some had been lawyers, accountants, and other white collar
jobs--and they decided to make the change anyway.

So, yes, it's common, and employers understand that people are coming to
programming from many different paths/backgrounds these days. (At least the
ones who aren't snobbish.)

Most importantly: use what you perceive as your weaknesses as your strengths.
You know a ton about accounting. Use that!

Doing programming work that overlaps with your previous career will probably
yield the highest immediate pay, since you have domain knowledge in that area
already. (And why waste it?)

That would be my angle to get into programming: find a company that programs
accounting systems/financial software of some sort and offer your skills.
Their end-users are accountants who have the same problems/frustrations as
you. Why not discuss with them and help solve those problems directly? Offer
them what they don't have yet, and only you do.

~~~
orangepenguin
I think this comment is absolutely spot on. The biggest difference between
software development and other careers is that people don't care how you got
to where you are. They only care if you can produce good work.

And there's a LOT to be said for bringing the knowledge you have, and making
something useful with it.

In my opinion, if you decide to switch, the best thing you can do is start
practicing. Whether you learn from online courses, school, friends, or books
matters less than how much time you spend practicing. Preferably, put as much
of your own work as you can in a public repository (somewhere like github.com)
so that people can see that you get things done.

------
finid
At 38 you're still too young to worry about stuff like this. I'd say that's
the perfect age to make the switch, and with your background, you'll be asking
the right questions when you're taking classes or learning on your own.

You'll actually find that you'll be picking up stuff faster than younger
people just starting out.

Since your interest is frontend dev, your main challenge would be wading
through the sea of frameworks and tools.

~~~
adpoe
Yes. It's not any harder to learn this stuff as you get older, in my own
experience, despite what people sometimes think.

Only personal experience, but: I found learning complex technical concepts
_far_ easier in my late 20's than I did as new college entrant at 18-19.
Including all the math.

So, not sure why people like to say that you learn this stuff easier when
you're younger. For me, it was exactly the opposite.

------
saluki
I made the switch from civil engineer to full stack developer in my thirties.

I knew some HTML, CSS and PHP and had been setting up websites for family and
friends. I started freelancing in addition to my day job. Moved to creating
PHP web applications and taking on more and more advanced work.

I slowly picked up larger projects, better clients until I got to the point
where I was freelancing full time. Now I have a few clients that keep me busy
working remotely. I have had a few contract positions 3 to 6 months at a time
but mainly it's been freelance since I made the switch.

It's lots of work, you're constantly learning and trying new things. If you
enjoy that and have a knack for programming go for it.

I have interviewed with some local companies I wouldn't say I was passed over
for younger employees, mainly just not a good fit not enough experience. I can
see where some companies would prefer younger candidates.

I would say GO FOR IT but maybe learn/get back in the game by
freelancing/keeping your day job. Unless you can afford to quit your day job
during the transition.

I would also recommend learning full stack instead of just focussing on front
end, it's becoming more blended anyway. Front end is moving toward React,
Angular, and Vue.js and is as complex more tightly coupled to the backend.

Also I would focus on learning Laravel (PHP) or Rails (Ruby) I think these are
higher paying with more job openings/interesting projects.

Laravel has a great ecosystem, check out LaraCasts.com.

Rails is great as well.

Good Luck with the transition.

~~~
mfalcon
May I ask why you made that kind of switch? I'm a SW Engineer and I always
liked the idea of being a civil eng.

~~~
nashashmi
Going from a civil engineer to computers and programming is an all too common
career path. For some reason, even though I am very knowledgeable of
computers/programming/development, I never made the switch.

Part of the reason Civil Engineers go into Civil is because they are excited
by the idea of making things (especially with computers). Part of the reason
they leave, is after they see how frustratingly slow-paced it is, how poor
communication is, and how ridiculous the number of times your project or work
gets axed (not shelfed, axed!).

There is a concept in software engineering called reusable code. That concept
is completely absent from CE. The entire industry works that way. And it seems
backwards.

I am still holding out hope that one day this field will improve, and I may
have a hand in it. But in all honesty, I see architects, surveyors, and
software engineers doing a better job of revamping this industry than civil
engineers ever can.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
To be honest I think you can find those sort of criticisms in just about any
industry, you can certainly find them in the software world.

~~~
sidibe
Also CE->SWE here, if you are criticising these issues in the software world
you will hate being a civil engineer. While they are in some corners of
software development, it's basically all there is in civil engineering.

Civil engineering is already figured out. In the first world, what you are
supposed to do for most situations is not only almost entirely mapped out but
is actual regulations. That's great for society, but there is just no
stimulation for CEs. In the first world, being a civil engineer is mostly
about knowing and keeping up with the the rules (which is a feat in itself
considering how many organizations are involved and how scattered the
information is), applying them, sending drafts to clients/regulators/etc. and
waiting for weeks for responses.

~~~
nashashmi
Wow! You just brought back memories of a line in a paper I wrote my first week
in Civil Engineering college ... "a boring field that is 1000 years old where
all opportunities of innovation has already occurred". But when I was thinking
of going into CoE or CS the dot com bubble burst and I had to reconsider.

------
bobbytherobot
If you want to do front-end, don't worry about those coming out of
uni/college. Front-end is a specialization that very few places teach.

There is a huge range for front-end. You have people doing basically cut-up
for marketing sites to people building front-ends that can scale up.

My four big buckets I look for from a Front-End are:

* Technical, can you make it work

* Maintainable, can someone else keep it running and update it

* Scalability, can you scale the solution up to millions of people (to be honest, most front-end don't need to worry about this)

* "Precog", can you anticipate the issues that arise from users and their wide range of browsers + OS + hardware

------
mamcx
Do you have a solid business career in accountancy, and wanna switch to grunt
js work?

Is excellent if wanna do development, but why not apply your experience
instead? Also in all this 10 years you have build some contacts to get your
foot in.

I know that accounting and crud apps are not "sexy" and boring.

But you know what is worse and more boring?

Using js!

Jah, sorry, I can't resist.

But honestly most "front-end" work is not amazing at all.

Maybe building visualizations, charts and stuff like that. But pages and apps
in front-end is alike build forms, but harder, more complicated and with less
performance than native code.

\---

I'm in the process of build a point-of-sale app, and I will envy to have you
background instead, or have a partner with that skills.

So, I'm telling you:

You have valuable skills that are higher than Js. Js/html/css is just a tool
(that pay, because the front-end work have become more crazy and requiere more
effort triying to be somethings is not made for), but in itself not become
yet-another-front-end-dev when you already have a better position to offer.

~~~
usingpond
I always ask this of full-stack/backend devs who shit on frontend: show us
what you've managed to build with that attitude.

------
kisna72
I would highly highly recommend you to find problems you have seen in
accountancy world that you can solve with programming. You could get both of
both world, satisfaction of work you want to do while benefiting from your
industry experience. No programmer (not in accountancy world) here knows about
the issues and inefficiencies about it than you do, and you probably have a
bunch of contacts you can test your ideas on. That way you keep your
advantages of being in the accountancy world, while solving the issues they
have by using programming which is what you want to do.

whatever you do, good luck.

~~~
zhte415
This. With 10 years in accountancy you have embedded within you a deep
understanding of business problems that a tech person outside your field
simply doesn't have.

So seek synergy. Pick a small problem, and solve it. Something useful is far
more impressive than something flash, and can be quantified on a CV pretty
well. Set a goal, and that should be something where multiple skills are
combined.

Could be tough balancing time and conflicting needs, that's probably your
biggest challenge. But you have your advantage of knowing something in-and-
out, and learning as you get older gets faster and faster.

Don't forget backend. Also seek some understanding of creating RESTful APIs
using a related framework, like if you're interested in front-end, probably
JS, learn a JS back-end. I picked hapi on node, and really liked it.

------
davelnewton
Never too late, but you'll need to prove yourself. That's hard since you don't
have a work history or things to talk about.

You'll be competing with younger folks for entry-level positions. I'd consider
a portfolio of code or personal projects on Github/etc. that show your style,
coding and otherwise.

------
davismwfl
It all depends on you. I hear a lot of people in the tech industry that are
40+ complain about the difficulty in getting a job, finding a team etc. But
the reality is I am in that category and yes, startups can be a bit harder
cause in general the older we are the more likely we have a life, kids and
obligations outside of work. And yes, there are a lot of interview techniques
are lacking in finding quality people and focus on the wrong things, but that
isn't everywhere and it isn't honestly new.

Can you make the switch? It just totally depends on you. You will need to be
aggressive in looking for work, you'll have to demonstrate you are qualified
and you'll need to show people samples of work. The samples can be personal
sites, little things you built, open source you contributed to whatever. You
would be essentially a junior web dev, so your expectations of pay and
position should be in line with that, if you accept those things and can do
the work, absolutely you can make the switch.

------
angelomichel_nl
I can assure you, you are not too late, at least if you are living in the
Netherlands. :-)

What you do need is a passion or interest in this field. Age and/or work
experience in other fields brings allot of advantages towards employees,
something every 'totally new to working' all have yet to find out.

Frontend nowadays is very awesome, it is my day to day job as well (31 yr
old), and I really enjoy it.

------
iampoul
I wouldn't say its too late, you might have a rough start with learning and
everything, but there is a lot of new technologies you can specialize in and
come out on top if you invest enough time into it. Keep in mind there will be
uni/college folks starting at the same time as you, regardless when you start.
It's just about getting things done and get started. :)

------
taternuts
No. In fact, a guy on my team is a 45/46 year old guy who had been in
management his whole life while dabbling with programming and decided to
switch careers to being a front-end dev. He's certainly not the best dev we
have, but he also shoulders a lot of managerial weight so that we don't have
to and I enjoy having him on the team.

------
dnautics
On hiring:

I'm currently 35 and spent many years in biochemistry, and did a lot of coding
on my own personal time (and am doing contract work currently). One of the
frustrations is that going through the hiring process, I get a lot of
accolades from the interviewers, and seem to do well to extraordinary on
coding challenges - but there's something that I'm not "matching right". In
several cases, I've been told that they were seeking "senior devs" even though
I've been referred via an agency that should have filtered out all but "junior
dev" positions.

I suggest getting insight into the "unwritten rules" of hiring, which is what
I'm going to start to ask about. There is a myth that the valley (or indeed
the world) is a meritocracy, but in reality, you have to 'figure out the
game'. Good luck!

~~~
leavingreddit
Wise words, I think I need to 'figure out the game' myself. Currently on the
inside of the tech industry.

------
spiderman168
Everything people say is correct, you can reinvent yourself. I hit 40 this
year and was looking to make a career move but depending on your home
situation may not be feasible. If I were to start again in a different field
it would mean a dramatic pay cut to start at the bottom. There was no way to
make a lateral move in a new field at the same pay I was making, so in the end
I had no choice but to stay in my same field even though my passion was
somewhere else. I do agree it's not too late but remember you'd be starting at
the bottom again and do you have the time and patience to make it back to
where you are now

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iampoul
This just popped up on HN, might be worth a read. :)

[https://medium.freecodecamp.com/yes-im-56-and-learning-to-
co...](https://medium.freecodecamp.com/yes-im-56-and-learning-to-
code-f33abea6fd4c#.4f92cvkx6)

------
j45
Never too late. It's something you can do by simply getting to work learning
and building stuff yourself. A front end dev is only a sliver over the full-
stack developer you were before in PHP in having to deal with back end stuff,
etc.

------
id122015
Like other said, the answer is no. But think twice! You might have the most
lucky career. I dream of a job like accountancy where you do the same thing
every day. In IT you solve a new problem every day, and I don't know about
deadlines but ask them.

The way I see it might not be how you see it. Your question reminds me about
the joke with the writer who said he wants to become a doctor after
retirement. - The conclusion of the joke was that to start a new career takes
time.

------
otaviokz
Ara you joking mate? As long as you are/get good enough (I don't mean
Facebbok/Google/etc good, just able to develop usable stuff) in a relevant
field, you'll find good jobs and good pay in IT in most developed countries.
Not sure of how the pay compares to accountancy, but if really want to change
career....

I've coded my first "Hello World" at 26yo and now at 36 I'm working as an iOS
contractor and making 6 digit figures (in £) and couldn't be more thankful to
past me!

------
carsongross
Mentally you probably have the tools if you have done accounting, but it will
be difficult socially unless you look the part.

It is not something I would pursue on a whim: the grass is always greener and
I assure you front end is a complete shit show, as sexy as it seems right now.

------
tyingq
You'll find less friction if you look for IT jobs at non-tech companies.
Places like manufacturing, airlines, retail sales, and so forth. Ageism seems
less prevalent in these places.

------
gaspoweredcat
nope, most any programming language can be learned in a relatively short time,
it requires only one thing dedication, as long as you care enough about doing
it theres no upper age limit.

as for not being able to compete that is up to you, as long as you have solid
skills and can prove it you your age wont matter.

------
BillSaysThis
I was older and so far working well for me ;)

------
dba7dba
Few random thoughts as I've gone (and am still going) through same experience.

1\. Zed Shaw of the "Learn Python the Hard Way" said programmers are dime a
dozen. What's really valuable is a programmer who has experience from another
domain such as history, engineering, medicine etc (and accounting in your
case). I cannot recall exactly where he said it but I remember reading it and
chuckling to myself.

2\. Are you sure you want front-end dev work? Why not back-end? Exactly what
skills are in demand? I recommend you watch this video on state of tools
available in web dev including front-end, back-end, and DevOps as of 2016.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBzRwzY7G-k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBzRwzY7G-k)

I should warn that the shelf life of front-web dev skills seems to be much
shorter than IT. In fact here's a list of tech skills, ordered with longest to
shortest shelf life IMHO. Not sure about DevOps but my feeling is it has
longer shelf life than programming...

IT > DevOps > Back-end > Front-end

Going into IT years ago, I knew I needed to keep learning new stuff to stay
relevant. I slacked off a bit (due to family situation) and paid the price.
With dev work, you need to spend even more time to learn new stuff to stay
relevant. Often, you will have to spend your personal time to do so.

3\. You should keep your day job as you try to break into coding. You don't
want financial pressure to stress you out. And that means you will have to
squeeze out every available hour of your life and devote it to
studying/practicing. That means no weekend activities, no TV/video-game at
night, etc. The less you do such things, the faster you can switch into dev
career.

4\. Do you have the environment that will allow you do real productive
studying/coding/studying? If you have kids, can you avoid school
pickup/dropoff? Will you have big chunks of time daily to devote to coding
practice? Personally I need at minimum 30min - 1hr before my brain switches on
and gets productive.

Basically your family around you have to pretend as if you had 2 full time
jobs or you were studying for Bar exam or in med school. And they should
expect what 6 months to a year of this.

Do you have a desk where you can set up 2 x 24" monitors and your laptop with
a comfortable chair? Or maybe a standup desk?

5\. Get github and own web server (DigitalOcean, Linode or Amazon AWS) going
and start posting your work. Curate what you post on Github. I use bitbucket
for personal projects and use github only to post what's reasonably
presentable. You probably don't have contacts in the industry. And that means
finding a job almost exclusively based on job postings. And because of your
lack of prior experience in the industry, you will often get passed over for
others who do. So your secret and only weapon would be examples of your work
that is easily accessible to recruiter/hiring-manager. Especially for dev work
as there's no certifications to get like in Windows or Linux world.

Setting up github/bitbucket means learning Git. Not really coding but you will
need to know it for a dev work nonetheless.

Setting up website on Linux to host your code is another non-coding task but
still valuable skill to have.

6\. Your first job as a dev may not be that dream job. What I've learned is
that jobs posted on jobsites almost always have more negatives than positives.
If it was really a desirable job with good environment, someone would've
referred their friend/ex-coworker. So set your expectation accordingly for
your first dev work. You can either turn it into a better job or move on to a
better job/company. Whether the position is discouraging or not, once you get
in, kick as_. That will open more doors, either more responsibility, or a
different company or even freelance work.

\---

Epilogue

I started down the path of switching from IT to dev because I wanted freedom
of remote work, freelance, start a product/website to make income on the side,
etc. None of that has come to fruition except for remote work but no regrets.
I no longer have to open boxes of laptops, stick on inventory tag and add it
to inventory excel list, get interrupted with help requests every 10 min, or
worry about where to keep spare packing material (because manager wants tidy
work space but not providing adequate storage space) to have available for
overnighting that laptop to replace a broken laptop of a remote worker.

Well there I go, spent another hour doing something else other than practicing
coding.

------
ccatarino
No.

~~~
dgrigg
I mentored a retiree a few years ago who wanted to get back into web
development after taking an early retirement. He was bright, eager to learn
and recognized that at almost 60 he had soft skills that would be valuable
when mixed with development skills. You're never too old.

