
Ask HN: I am 30, I want to change my career - ZenoSchool
Currently I am English teacher. I want to change my career and want to be web developer.
Edit: Guide me whether or not it is the right path.
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gigatexal
In another HN post "what I learned from 3000 technical interviews" it showed
that Udacity and other quality MOOCs are the most significant when getting a
job. That might be a good way to bootstrap your abilities at design and
creation. I find the structure of these classes helpful. But I think go for
it!

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byoung2
I studied English and I was a test prep instructor and manager for Kaplan
before switching careers to be a Web developer at age 27. It was the right
decision for me because the hours and pay were better.

At Kaplan, especially as a manager, I had to work long hours since we opened
early for self study and classes were often late at night. The salary was also
low...I started at $30k in 2004. In two years I had gotten promotions and
raises and ended up at $47k. Everyone told me that was unprecedented, since
most raises are capped at 3% to 5%. I knew that long hours and low pay
couldn't be a long term solution.

I quit and took a year off to teach myself web development. I had prior
experience doing this in college so it was easy to pick up again. I did
freelance for about 6 months, finding clients on Craigslist before getting a
full time job paying $55k in 2007. By 2011 I was making $110k, and by 2015 I
was making $175k as director of engineering at a startup.

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quincyla
I'm a former English teacher and school director, and I created
FreeCodeCamp.com two years ago specifically to help people transition into web
development as a career. We have a large community of career-changers, more
than 5,000 of whom have now gotten their first developer job.

