
Ask HN: I will quit my job as a PM to join a coding bootcamp. Am I crazy? - tigertheory
I have an MBA from a top 3 school and have a high-paying job as a PM at a top 3 tech company. But I don&#x27;t feel like I am building tangible skills as a PM, it is more about project management and coordinating. I think about the future and get excited about technology and the types of things you can build and contribute to if you know how to code (e.g. block chain, deep learning, etc.). I have a feeling tremendous opportunity will be available over the next 10 years to software developers while other disciplines such as management become less and less important. Am I crazy to make this career switch?
======
tschwimmer
Yes you are. I'm a PM and researched this decision myself a few months back.
Most of the "well regarded" bootcamps teach basic front skills (HTML/CSS/JS).
You're going to struggle to get a job in any of the the exciting technologies
you've listed with this skillset. It's also not widely talked about, but I get
the sense that there's a bit of negative signal associated with these boot
camps a la ITT/University of Phoenix. I'm not saying this is justified, but I
do believe the association is there.

I think your general premise (that management is becoming less relevant) is
true, but you're approaching the problem incorrectly.

If I had your goalset, I would cram hard on EdX, OpenCourseware, etc. You need
a good first principles education starting with Algorithms, Data structures,
etc. I'd also start to learn how to do SWE interviews, which are a whole other
skill set.

One last note: even if you do all of the above, the best way to ensure you're
working with cool technologies is to start your own company. I work for a
major SF tech company, and our ML team is two orders of magnitude smaller than
our monetization team. At the end of the day, companies exist to make money
and a lot of the stuff you've highlighted is currently speculative/nascent.
There's just not going to be many jobs until these technologies prove their
financial value.

~~~
dilemma
Management is becoming more, not less, important.

Good management is the number one competitive advantage an enterprise has.

Management essentially means running the corporate machine and directing the
efforts of its tens or hundreds of thousands of employees. If poorly directed,
effort is wasted.

As the world is seemingly centralizing into a handful of large corporations,
good management is more important than ever because the power of organizations
is so much larger.

~~~
busterarm
This. And if you do end up programming and you demonstrate any experience
managing projects, you will end up in that role again, just with less respect
for it and less money.

~~~
andai
Mgmt > Mgmt + Dev ?

~~~
tehlike
yes. there is a mental cost of doing management on development, and if you try
to keep both, you'll consume yourself. and managers do get more respect, it's
probably universal.

------
noname123
Yes very crazy. I have a anecdotal survey of all coders I know: most of whom
all graduated from only median Tier-2 US & News Report Ranked Nat'l
Universities (>15) and whom have on average, earn only median Fortune
Magazine's Best Jobs annual ranked salaries as Application Developer, and only
very few employed by Forbes' Most Admired Companies list or who are on the
Mattermark's Top 100 Startup Index.

Most don't feel like they're building lasting career skills, as agism persists
in the industry and most people work on web applications to satisfy enterprise
project business specification and project managers. During lunch, I hear
conversations about the future of technology and the type of technology that
we can work on if we only quit to start or work for a cool start up (e.g.,
Tesla, SpaceX). The consensus is that there is a tremendous opportunity for
these emerging technology area's while other disciplines such as closing JIRA
tickets will become marginalized. So I'd advise you to stay away from the
enterprise coding bootcamps and only apply for the specialized tech bootcamp
that emphasizes on these emerging technologies. The few that come to the mind
are, creating new cryptocurrency payment models (for Paypal), writing self-
driving cars hardware/software (for Tesla) and harnessing deep/learning AI
(for Google DeepMind).

~~~
onetwotree
If you're interested in working with cool tech like blockchain and AI, but are
tired of startup culture, a good option might be one of the "Digital
Innovation Lab" organizations that more traditional companies are putting
together. I just started working for one, and it's pretty great - I have
stability, sane hours, solid compensation, and a healthy culture, but I also
get to work with a bunch of really smart people on cool technologies.

~~~
jsemrau
Interesting, I am currently in the process of setting one up here in
Singapore. Could you give me more information about staffing (FTE devs, PM's,
Mentor's, etc). How long is the process from Ideation to Innovation Lab?

~~~
onetwotree
I joined the lab after it had been up and running for about 6 months, so I'm
not sure what setting one up looks like.

However, I can tell you that probably the most important thing we had going
for us in terms of getting of the ground is my boss, our VP of Innovation.
He's been with the company for a many years, and is generally very well
regarded. He also works tirelessly to promote the lab and get the rest of the
company involved.

We also have an HR manager, herself a long time company woman, and that's been
essential for recruiting talented engineers and inters, as well as helping
guys like me with the transition from startup land to an old school
corporation.

Other than that, we're all full time engineers, plus interns from the local
university, especially in the summer.

------
dontJudge
Yes, you're crazy. Keep your high paying job. Learn computer science on the
side.

The really interesting stuff usually requires deeper knowledge and skills. For
problems worth solving, 15 years experience as a CRUD developer is no better
than 15 years experience as a project manager. Making this career change won't
necessarily help you gain the skills you want.

~~~
ChuckMcM
This is what I was going to say as well. Don't jump into "boot camp", start
taking night classes at your local community college (or if you have flexible
hours) day classes. Even MOOC/online classes during the evenings will be a
path to adding coding skills to your resume.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Finding problems and learning how to solve them with a tool you want to learn
is a pretty powerful method (IMHO).

------
ageitgey
A coding bootcamp is fine, but it won't get you much closer to doing block
chain or deep learning work.

The analogy is you wouldn't necessarily take the Olive Garden line cook
training class if you wanted to be a French chef. Sure, it won't _hurt_ to
learn how to use a knife and it might be a decent Step 0, but it won't get you
much of the way towards your goal.

You should really consider a more in-depth CS education, whether that's
through a traditional university or something like a Coursera / Udacity nano
degree in your areas of interest.

As a practical matter, it might be better to stay employed while you pursue
that. But that's up to you. Plan on spending some significant time learning
(1-2 years at least) before you can do what you want, not just a few weeks.

You're very smart to consider getting into something like deep learning. The
opportunities will be good over the next 10 years like you said - but only for
those who are really good at it. It's a very technical field that requires
lots of continuing learning. The competition for the best jobs is high. Don't
get into coding unless you are very excited about it and willing to invest in
learning it for the rest of your life.

If you are excited about coding and willing to put years of learning into it,
go for it! But otherwise you could take the impressive skills you already have
and find a way to reinvent yourself and apply them in the deep learning
industry without becoming the actual coder yourself.

~~~
ianbicking
My uninformed opinion on bootcamps here is that they are probably a good way
to learn about finishing a project (something which CS is poor at). Deep
learning or blockchains are cool, but if you can't finish something then you
aren't going to make something cool (even just cool to you), and without that
it's hard to keep going with self-learning.

~~~
ianai
I don't think a PM should quit his/her job to learn how to finish a project.
Your comment has me thinting OP should drill through an online course. That
way s/he can relatively quickly add marketable skills and background to
his/her resume while employed. It might not be as sexy and intense as a "boot
camp", but it's probably way more sane and productive.

------
DelaneyM
I'm a CTO and active developer with a Harvard MBA, and I think you're nuts.

Not because the opportunities you see aren't there; they are. Not because
management isn't losing its lustre in tech companies; it is. But because
coding is _hard_.

I have a great software education (top school, top program), I've had
tremendous opportunities to learn from the best and build amazing things from
scratch, and I've been coding professionally for 20 years next year. I'm only
just now starting to really "get it".

Having a top-3 MBA (I assume you mean Wharton) puts you pretty advanced on the
product/management track, one it will take a decade to catch up with as a
developer. Embrace that, dive in, enjoy it.

Here's an alternative suggestion: you don't need to code to understand
crypto/blockchains/AI/etc. Those are complicated and sparsely understood, and
they are math. Knowing what you can do with them and how to apply them in
products is much more rare than being able to implement the algorithms. Why
not focus on the theory beyond the code?

~~~
tigertheory
Fellow HBSer, thanks for your input super helpful!

------
keeptrying
You're not crazy but your math is wrong.

Calculate the opportunity cost of doing this in dollars. That cost is REAL.

People seem to think opportunity cost is an abstract concept. It isn't. Your
retirement and your personal situation will be less $Oppurtunity cost.

Other false assumptions I see in your thinking:

1\. Underestimating the difference in competition in engineering versus PM

2\. Large error in the number of years of low beginner status in programming

3\. Your personality as a PM puts you at a disadvantage when trying to get
technical buy in from other engineers

Investigate other paths:

1\. Study on the side.

(If you can't do this for 6 months, you won't be able to sustain it full time
either.)

2\. After Work 1-on-1 face to face engineering coaching

Use the money you make now to have a full time tutor who sits right next to
you (I.e. they only have 1 student and thats you and you sit side by side and
code) after work. I think this is a much cheaper and much more effective way
to learn that isn't available even at bootcamps. You keep your optionality but
you also learn more/faster than at a bootcamp.

(Ping me - I'll do it for $150/hour. :)

------
iamben
I avoided replying to this earlier, but I've thought about it a bunch, so
here's my 2cents.

You're crazy to do this. I've been (largely) a developer for years, and I
struggle to get excited about client work now. It's amazing to be able to MVP
something myself, or throw up a project over the weekend, but that's kind of
it. Kids are younger and hungrier than me. Having experience is fantastic and
certainly helps with day-rate, but I just don't have the time or the energy to
keep on top of everything anymore. Now it's time for me to transition to other
things.

In your position - keep the job. But invest time outside of that to learn to
code. Build fun things. Experiment, learn, grow. Having an idea of what can be
done, how it can be done and the time it takes will make you 10 times more
valuable in your roll and moving forwards. You will be better positioned to
talk to clients and talk to developers.

If or when the time comes that you want to run your own business you will be
in a better position to recruit and to muck in yourself.

But for now, spend your spare time learning, and save as much money as you can
to take a chance when and if you're ready.

That said, good luck with whatever you choose. Right or wrong, you can only
learn from your choices :-)

~~~
future1979
Agreed. It is crazy. I have a strong dev background and got a PhD. I love to
learn .. any free time I get, I further my knowledge. Since I don't do it to
improve skills, I have freedom to learn whatever I want. For a few months, I
was obsessed with semiconductors and MEMS. These days, I love hacking FPGAs.
Before that, I was playing with deep learning with torch. Point is .. you do
not need to quit your job for learning. Agreed with parent poster .. save
cash, attend meet ups/events to find like minded people ... the coding/hacking
culture is awesome but it is a treadmill. There will always be new stuff
coming out. You need to focus on concepts more than specific software or
middleware. Have you heard of "papers we love"?

------
FullMtlAlcoholc
PURE INSANITY, even if you are TRULY passionate about it You work at a top 3
tech company. You are in the best place in the world to learn exciting new
tech. I'd kill to get a peek at the codebase of a top 3 tech company. Leverage
your job as your coding bootcamp. Maybe you can negotiate 1 day/wk for
learning CS.

If you can, take a sabbatical. If you can't and live in an ethical gray zone,
go to a psychologist and get disability time off of work. Depression and some
other mental maladies are treated as disabilities, at least in the state of
CA.

Otherwise, find time outside of work. I assume you are able to teach yourself
if you graduated from a top 3 school. Teach yourself to code. There's more
than enough resources on the web that show how to go from 0 to capable
engineer. Keep in touch with devs from work. Hang out in dev chat rooms/forums
on IRC, discord, slack, or MOOC forums.

Coding bootcamps and online resources don't teach you truly how to code. The
ultra basics they teach. Only actually coding, failing, refactoring, repeat
teaches you how to code.

~~~
mahyarm
Top 3 code isn't that amazing, a lot of if it's boring stuff. Guy who wrote
the events view controller for example. You can also see most of the good
stuff in their open source projects like another commenter said. Go look at
android or chrome or many others. The API you deal with as a 3rd party
developer is usually code that gets a lot of thought put into it, since it's
used by everyone at the company and outside the company.

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
Not everything is open source :)

------
blacksqr
Bootcamps are for people who need employment quickly. Since you are employed,
you can take evening and weekend programming classes to see if you like it
before taking the plunge.

~~~
dasil003
This is the best comment so far. Bootcamps make sense if you have spare time
and spare money and want to ramp up very very quickly, but they don't provide
anything you can't learn on your own. This is doubly so if you are already
working in tech and interact with working programmers who can help sanity
check what you're doing and help you along in your studies.

I understand how having some social structure helps one learn, but I've often
seen this misapprehension from PMs and MBAs that you either "know code" or you
don't, and if one can just cross this chasm then all of a sudden you can be
the one building things and realize your own vision. But in reality you won't
be a good coder unless you have the tenacity to keep learning continuously
over years and decades. Self-learning is not only free, but it's a good litmus
test for this tenacity, and there's a huge amount of resources out there that
make it trivially easy to get started.

------
ghufran_syed
As someone who has had several 'crazy' career moves over the years, it may
well be crazy to do it, and yet still be the right thing to do for _you_. I
think the best way to do this would be to keep working, but to study part-time
with Udacity. Continuing to work in a good tech company gives you a big
advantage in that your "professional network" (aka "people you know") contains
a lot of smart developers, a small number of whom may have made similar career
moves. It would be worth asking around in person or on your internal work chat
groups etc to see if anyone has experience with Udacity courses, then meet up
for a coffee and a chat. Don't say you want to change jobs, just start by
saying you want to understand better what developers do, and that's why you
want to learn to code. That makes you a more valuable PM, while at the same
time you are building the skills that would let you make a career change.

As you learn more, you should keep in touch with those devs, and you can ask
them for feedback on the projects you work on (clearly, the onus is on you to
not abuse their time, but most people like to help someone who is hardworking,
enthusiastic and respectful). Then, by the time you've developed your skills
to the point you could take an entry level developer position, you will also
have a bunch of developers in the company who know you, know how hard you've
been working, and will often be willing to pass on knowledge of openings, and
put in a good word for you in the hiring process. Also, don't ignore the
possibility of joining a startup once you have sufficient technical skills, a
growing startup is exactly the kind of place that would greatly benefit from
someone who understands team and project management _and_ can deliver good
code. They will hire you for the technical skills, not the PM skills, but that
doesn't take away their value. Email me if you'd like to discuss further, and
best of luck!

------
eagsalazar2
If you want to become a dev via this route, right now that is a risky move and
a long road to real expertise that would carry you through an economic
downturn where very junior people are let go. If it is your passion to be a
dev, maybe, but expect it to be difficult. Maybe just consider going back to a
proper university for that CS degree you probably should have gotten to begin
with?

If you want to become a _much_ better PM and have the tools to start building
apps on your own, then yes DO IT! Right now the economy is great, if in 3mo
you are back on the job market saying "I'm an awesome PM and I did a coding
bootcamp to increase my understanding of the products I manage so I can be an
even better collaborator" you will just have increased your value
significantly. Probably you could just go back to your old job with a
promotion.

------
zoom6628
You have a MBA and you are a PM shows you have the skills to reserch, and put
in some deep thinking. On that basis it would be folly to think you havent
given seriously analytical thought to this i.e. you know what you are doing.
But is this question a confidence crisis or you want some support?

My 2c is that if you dont have any dev skills right now then work night and
day in your own time to get it. Choose a language, any one will do because you
need to learn the fundamentals soundly. Do not be swayed by the tech-du-jour
or you will never finish anything nor learn anything in depth. tschwimmer
advice is sound. However know your learning style first - i got more out of 3
months messing with C on Arduino then i ever got from a textbook because i
like learning stuff with sleeves rolled up and the coffee strong.

And lastly, follow your heart. npostolovski did it. It is far more important
to enjoy what you do than much anything else (practical considerations of food
and housing aside). Happy and comfortable is a whole lot better than miserable
and wealthy.

Disclaimer: Im a PM, have an MBA, and dabble in C# at work, Python/C on home
projects. Experience: Im a much better software PM because i can also
code/hack some of my own ideas. Have been co-founder of a corporate
restructuring company and my ability to code meant i could get the data and
calculations needs to make turnaround decisions while others just drowned in
their spreadsheets. Im now 53 and learning new things - currently IPC and mesh
networks(home) and cost accounting(work).

------
ivan_gammel
Yes, you are. The best opportunities are in cross-field expertise, so keep
working as a PM, but learn coding and other software development disciplines
in parallel. Don't underestimate the management contribution to the quality of
the code and to the final result: through building the right process, through
the deep understanding of development team needs, weaknesses and strengths you
may influence the resulting product much more than one of the coders. Everyone
can code or learn to code - it is much harder both to possess the coding
skills and manage people at the same time.

------
soneca
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
startups and some years as social project manager on the resume.

I decided to quit my last job and study full time to become a developer. Not
through a bootcamp, but through cheap or free resources online. I chose
freecodecamp.com to go for now.

I did an Ask HN too and I did not receive much support either from the HN
crowd. I don't know if people here think being a developer is not a good
career path, or they are tired of wannabes and impostors, or they consider a
developer career is just for a few selected ones; but I was expecting much
more support here for people wanting to learn to code.

My answer to your question: I think you should go for it. Just consider very
carefully if a bootcamp is the best way. But if you have the cash reserve to
use, I think might be a good first step. After that, keep searching for
knowledge in other places. And follow with laser focus the exact field that
you consider interesting.

If in one year you regret this decision, it is not too late to reverse the
career change and go back with your great resume as a PM, with more added
value by your experience learning to code. Go for it, it is _not_ a path of no
return and it will be a valuable experience either way.

~~~
CarpetBench
> 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
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
> 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.

~~~
aetherson
I think that there are a number of relatively more rosy scenarios for current
bootcamp grads' salary outlooks:

* Maybe pent up demand will keep salaries high for quite a few years.

* Maybe salaries will fall off the cliff for people who graduate a bootcamp in a few years (3-5), but by that time current or near-future grads will have gotten far enough away from the glut of very junior people to have some salary stability.

* Or maybe the wages of all software devs (or a large majority of them) will fall off a cliff and that will lower cost of living in the Bay Area and it won't be such a big deal all told.

As to Google: It's a big company, it's hired a lot of people. But I guarantee
you that all else being equal, a person who got a traditional university CS
education has several big legs up over that person's identical twin who was
self-taught or who did a bootcamp, for a junior dev position, without
extensive industry experience in any of their cases.

------
furyofantares
I'd think the answer would depend on which of the top 3 tech companies you
work for: Apple, Samsung, or Foxconn.

Edit: Let me try a more helpful response (though I did intend to make a point
there). You seem very focused on what you have: a good salary, a top 3
education, a job at a top 3 company. Things you expect should make you happy,
basically, but you aren't, and this is confusing, and it's always scary to
give it up if you haven't figured out _why_ those things don't make you happy.
But IMO, if that interpretation is correct, it's more important to attempt to
find things that do make you happy rather than dwell too much on why the
things you have, which are often equated with success in our culture, are not
doing it.

------
RandomOpinion
> _e.g. block chain, deep learning, etc._

Most bootcamps that I'm aware of are for training web developers, with a few
going into mobile app development. That will give you some basic coding skill
but is probably not going to get you very far in the direction you want to go.

You'd most likely be better off seeking an online CS degree.

~~~
sndean
>> e.g. block chain, deep learning, etc.

> Most bootcamps that I'm aware of are for training web developers, with a few
> going into mobile app development.

Yeah, I'd actually be pretty interested in a bootcamp that teaches deep
learning. AFAIK that doesn't exist, but it should (?)

~~~
Recoveringhobo
I don't think there's enough time to teach. My machine learning class at
Berkeley only felt like we were getting our feet wet.

~~~
sndean
Looking some more, the closest I can find are some "Data Science" bootcamps
(like Insight and DataIncubator). But they require PhDs.

So yeah, maybe the only way it could work is if you already know it. They just
give you a refresher and find you a job.

------
throwthisawayt
Sounds like we are of similar backgrounds. I was a well paid PM, I've worked
at a top tech company, and I had strategy consulting experience before that.

I quit my job went into a bootcamp and have been a software developer for a
year plus. I've been pretty happy with the decision. My reasons were
completely different though and were more about understanding what I was good
at and passionate about.

I think I can help. Ask me anything.

~~~
tigertheory
Thanks super helpful. Had a couple of followups: (1) Which boot camp did you
attend if you don't mind me asking and in what city? (2) How you find the job
interview process? (3) What kind of work are you doing now? (4) Do you feel
that today you could learn anything you wanted to learn for example deep
learning if you put in time or do you feel webdev is extent of what you can
do? (5) What do you enjoy most about it? (6) Enjoy least? (7) What was
different than you expected going in? (8) Where do you see yourself going in
the future as a software engineer? -- Thanks a ton for your help.

~~~
throwthisawayt
1) app academy San Francisco 2) it was challenging you get rejected a lot, you
get tons of homework projects, and you end up having to practice skills that
are useless for your job. I am dreading when I have to do the next job hunt (a
lot of engineers hate the process). On the plus side most companies will want
to interview you because of your background. 3) I am doing full stack web dev.
Started mostly on the front end moving more towards the back. I just got moved
to a search team. 4) Mostly not. I feel capable of doing web dev, mobile, and
possibly embedded stuff. I do see myself able to get into machine learning
within 4 years but that's because of my stem and math background. It is true
though that by being a web dev many large companies will let you work on a
team with machine learning guys so you can hustle your way in. Just don't
think a bootcamp will give you the knowledge. 5) I like building things. I
don't care that most of the things I build are crud apps, I have so much pride
in being able to see something I built in the real world. 6) I feel lost and
dumb a lot of the times. I realize now this feeling will never go away as an
engineer - it's a part of the job. 7) I don't enjoy programming as much over
the weekends. Before being an engineer I used to work on small coding projects
on the weekend and loved it. Now that's it's my job I look forward to doing
other stuff. It's kinda like how some NBA players probably don't want to play
basketball in the offseason even if they love basketball. 8) I plan to move
past web dev and go into something like computer vision or embedded systems.
This will take several years but I think I can do it because I have a strong
math background.

FYI I agree with many of the commenters that your reasons for doing a bootcamp
seem a bit misguided. I did one because I'm genuinely excited by building
things. I feel like I could be building boring crud apps for the next 5 years
and I'd still be happy. If you don't feel that I would reconsider.

------
vamsinator
Strongly discourage this move.

I've made the transition from developer to PM over the last 7 years and it's
enabled me to work on progressively larger projects and to set direction.

Being a PM is about making sure the right thing is built at the right time.

Admittedly my technical skills have gone stale and to do any of the really
interesting technical things would require 6-12 months of intensive learning
if I were to do it on my own. This is with undergrad degrees in Comp Sci and
Physics too.

So I decided to hack the problem and join a startup in SF thats doing novel
hard tech !(business process automation, ecommerce, apps, small marketplaces
etc). Here in Sydney they're few and far between.

I'm pretty excited to be working with them, its an opportunity to work and
learn with a smart tight team.

So advice to you would be to is find a smaller business unit in your current
company where you are closer to the coal face or go join a 100 person company
working on a hard problem. Usually they'll have a team of 5 PM's supporting a
tech team of 30.

------
ioda
As someone who runs a startup,here are some personal observations.

I would say, a PM has to understand the user needs, and drive the product. The
former has got two parts 1\. Understanding the user needs which the user can
articulate 2\. Understanding the user needs which the users cannot articulate.

I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best coders. Though I
greatly admired their intellectual capability, I was not a big fan of their
ability to think from customer's shoes. I have figured out that "Common sense
is not so common". Now, having an MBA does not guarantee common sense, but if
you think that, you can communicate effectively with your users, understand
their needs, empathise with them, and can comfortably put yourself in their
shoes, your are definitely adding value as a PM on Point No 1

Understanding the user needs which the users cannot articulate - This is where
innovation begins. Now, if you are a PM without the ability to code, you may
be at a slight disadvantage here. The ability to code, or perhaps the
understanding of the fundamentals, would help you to structure your thoughts.
It gives you a clear picture on what is possible and what is not possible at
the present, from where, you can start to innovate.

To me, Quitting the job appears certainly crazy.

~~~
ivan_gammel
Generally, PM does not need to understand user needs and drive product. It's a
job for other people (product management, ux/cx analysts etc). The PMs primary
function is to facilitate communication in the extended team, so that it will
achieve the desired goals in given time, and this means his focus is internal,
not external.

~~~
alonmower
I believe PM in the context of the original post was referring to product
management, not project management

~~~
p4bl0
Thanks, I had to grep "PM" on the whole page to make sense of this discussion.
For me "PM" was either "private message" or "prime minister"…

------
fullshark
This is like a construction foreman deciding to take a step down and become a
construction worker because he's insecure about not getting his hands dirty
building. It's a bad career move.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>It's a bad career move. //

But might be a good life move!?

~~~
fullshark
True, if you don't like spending 40-60 hours a week doing your job, money/job
security is a weak comfort.

------
theflork
_I think about the future and get excited about technology and the types of
things you can build and contribute to if you know how to code (e.g. block
chain, deep learning, etc.)_

You will learn none of these things at a coding bootcamp. If you are really
interested in going deeper, check out Georgia Tech OMSCS - you can do it while
you are holding your current job (employer may even pay for it for you if yr
lucky) and more importantly the courses are relevant to what you state
actually interests you about future of tech.
[http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/current-
courses](http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/current-courses)

 _I have a feeling tremendous opportunity will be available over the next 10
years to software developers while other disciplines such as management become
less and less important._

I disagree, solid managers and leaders will always be important. Perhaps you
are focusing on the negative, rote aspects of yr job too much?

------
jupiter90000
No, not crazy, people change careers all the time. My suggestion would be to
go over your reasons with someone like a counselor to determine if they are
true for you or not. What I mean is, you said some things that are made up
meanings. If you're cool with what you made up, then no worries, it's just
something to look at, that you may be convincing yourself that "if I do this,
then I'll finally feel fulfilled." (Not sure if this is true for you)

Like "I don't feel like I am building tangible skills as a PM, it is more
about project management and coordinating." Perhaps you are learning many
tangible skills (just not ones you prefer). Also, "I have a feeling tremendous
opportunity will be available over the next 10 years to software developers
while other disciplines such as management become less and less important."
That could be true, but maybe it won't be.

My 2 cents

------
shoefly
If you've ever done a job search in tech, there are always 10x more software
engineering jobs than PM jobs. There is that.

A thought... I have worked at monoliths, a mid-sized corp, a hatchery, and my
own. At a monolith, your job is very narrow. I was bored out of my mind and
left. At a smaller company, the role of a PM is much more interesting.

I was a PM but I had a coder's heart. I took the route you are thinking about.
I would never go back to being a PM.

Two words: software architect

------
NetStrikeForce
I'm surprised you dismiss serious skills like "project management" and
"coordinating" like if anyone could do it at all, not to speak of doing it at
a top 3 tech company (we're talking Google, Facebook, Apple level).

They either come very natural to you, hence why you think they're easy, or
you're not good at your job and oblivious about it or you have a very junior
position and someone else makes the difficult decissions.

Either way, I would love to be a PM with an interesting product, not to
mention being in a top 3 tech company. The money must be really good and the
feeling of fully conceiving and creating a product has no equal. Coding it is
fine and feels good too, but steering the ship is where it's at.

------
maxtudof
Do whatever the fuck you want. It's your life and your career. Opinions are
divided here as voters in the USA so no one will help you make a decision in
this better than yourself. :)

------
mifeng
No, you're not crazy. While I disagree that managers will be less important, I
think that you're making a good decision because technically differentiated
managers will be more valuable.

Even if you go back to PM, the ability to code will help you communicate with
engineers and identify the right solution for a given problem, enabling you to
transcend the project management aspects of PM.

Also, many executives struggle with strategies that entail deep learning or
blockchain, because they simply don't understand them. To position for a
future where those technologies are critically important, it's a good idea to
invest time today to learn how they really work.

------
mrborgen
Nope. But you should make sure you actually enjoy coding. I did the switch
like you (from running a small startup to doing a bootcamp and becoming a
developer).

Several of the people in my cohort didn't become a developers though, as they
didn't seem to have the proper motivation to put in the necessary work (at
least not to manage it in a 3-5 month period).

You can read about my experience going from non-technical to technical here:
[https://medium.com/learning-new-stuff/from-non-technical-
to-...](https://medium.com/learning-new-stuff/from-non-technical-to-hired-
in-5-months-d010f601b1bc#.5etuq0hrb)

------
bluebeard
If my PM was interested in improving coding skills and went through a code
bootcamp I think at the very least it would foster some mutual respect and
understanding. Also in my limited experience using ML and deep learning
frameworks the tools aren't about knowing how to code, they're more about
"turning the right knobs" to achieve desired results. That said I think if you
find the right code bootcamp it will teach you how to use the tools you're
interested in. And yes you're crazy. But it helps to be crazy to do this kind
of work.

------
wanderr
As a hiring manager who has interviewed many many bootcamp grads and
supervised a couple, I don't think they're are worth it. They're vastly
overpromising what skill level you will be at when you graduate and how easily
you will be able to find a job.

Because they are trying to compress a lot into a short period of time, and
because they are trying to keep it interesting and give students early wins,
they seem to not spend nearly enough time on the basics, and jump straight in
to using frameworks that do everything for you, the end result being that a
bootcamp grad can quickly whip up an ok looking app that has basically no
functionality but as soon as you ask them to do something complicated, they
get stuck. Sure, that's not true of all grads, but I'd argue that the ones who
come out of a bootcamp with serious skills are the passionate ones who
would've done just as well or better on their own, so at best they wasted a
bunch of money.

You are much better off going the self taught route to start off, maybe take
community college classes on the side. If dabbling like that doesn't inspire
you and give you the fuel you need to learn what you need to know on your own
then software engineering may not be the ideal career for you anyway, what you
know is a small part of the job, what you can figure out and learn are also
huge factors.

------
20andup
Quitting your job isn't the problem. It's takes courage to do what you do. The
problem is coding boot camps. They promise things they can't deliver. As a
programmer I can tell you all the things you learn in those three months can
be learn from any beginner textbook you download from amazon. $50 versus
$10,000.

Some of the problems I deal with in programming can take months of thinking to
solve and any course that says yo can become a professional programmer in
three months is a joke. What happens when you stumble a problem that doesn't
have a ready made answer for you or you encounter a bug take days to discover.

If you want to become a professional programmer, just start coding. You don't
need certificates to tell you who you are. Programmer is an occupation based
mostly on meritocracy, It's a well known understanding in the industry that
the best programmers are self taught.

Start by learning some text books and doing side projects. Try and get a job
from there. It will take you 4-5 years of hard work to get to the level you
mentioned. And note. There are many bad programmers out there that stop
learning after 6 months and just accumulate time. Don't fall into that trap.
Learning is hard but the personal reward is great.

------
dwaltrip
You can do it, but it will most likely be very difficult. Learning how to
write software well is quite hard. On a fundamental level, we still don't know
exactly how some people write much better software than others -- there are no
perfectly objective measuring sticks to compare two pieces of code.

Boot camps are like dipping your toe in the water. Most people are not
qualified after only a few months of learning. It might take a year or longer
to become skilled enough to get hired . A small number of very talented and
lucky folks can get there in 6 months with no prior experience.

Before quitting, it seems important to validate the assumption that you will
actually like programming and have some success in it. Try building a few
toy/example applications on the nights and weekend for a month or two.

That being said, after much consideration, if you want to do it and feel
strongly it is the right path for you, go for it. I personally love writing
software. It feels like magic sometimes -- you type some words into a file,
and very cool things happen :)

------
guifortaine
Hi,

Definitely go for it. Especially, please have a look at my previous comment in
the thread entitled "Sorry, developer bootcamps: I was wrong" :

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11445582](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11445582)

To resume: to my knowledge, the best training to start your journey as an
aspiring Software Developer is the one suggested by Founders & Coders :

[http://www.foundersandcoders.com/apply/](http://www.foundersandcoders.com/apply/)

(Note: Codewars is just so awesome...
[https://www.codewars.com](https://www.codewars.com))

By the way, if you can get into it, I would strongly advise you to apply to
FullStack Academy, they seem to have the best teaching around there (at least
their students have very high rankings on Codewars) :

[http://www.fullstackacademy.com](http://www.fullstackacademy.com)

Good luck :)

Très cordialement / Best Regards,

------
pfarnsworth
You'll become an experienced coder just in time for you to be old enough so
that no one will want to hire you anymore.

Then you will think "Fuck if I were a PM, I would be a VP at this point, and
my skills would be more sought after as I got older, not the opposite for a
coder."

Stick with being a PM. If you like technology read up on it or program on the
side.

------
tigertheory
Thanks for the responses guys. A few more points of clarification. PM means
product manager. Top 3 tech think Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple. In terms of
my motivation I think today we are where the internet was in 1994-95, at the
cusp of the next big technology wave. I think technologies like deep learning
and AI more broadly will fundamentally change every single industry and the
next big tech companies will be created during this period. Not knowing how to
code I think places me at a big disadvantage when it comes to the software
jobs that will open up and at a disadvantage if I want to take a stab at
starting a company using these technologies. It is a risky bet for sure, but
if I think long-term I have a feeling learning to code and being immersed in
engineering by working as a software engineer will be a very smart move. But I
could be completely wrong lol :)

~~~
npostolovski
No, you're not crazy. Source: I quit a six-figure job as a PM to do a bootcamp
and am now working as a software developer at ThoughtWorks.

If you're viewing the decision purely in terms of $$$ (as many other
commenters here seem to be doing), it's true that in 10 years you will have
earned less money on this path than you would have earned while remaining a
PM.

But will you be happier day-to-day? I certainly am. Both careers are well-
paid, so why would you pass up a net gain in happiness to earn 15% - 20% more
over 10 years? Your happiness is unlikely to change materially because of the
extra money, but it could change materially if you start to love your job.

I think a lot of the people giving advice here are software developers who've
forgotten what it's like to be unable to build something, with their own
hands, that they want to exist in the world. That's such a powerful feeling,
especially if you want to start a startup one day.

I did a bootcamp at the beginning of 2013. At that time there were no
bootcamps in Australia, so I moved to Chicago for 3 months to do the Starter
League (now part of Fullstack Academy). Being in a different city meant I
could focus all my energy on the bootcamp. I think this is main advantage of a
bootcamp: forced focus for a long period of time, so you learn much faster
than you would if distracted by your full-time job.

When I finished the bootcamp, I probably could have been hired as a Junior
sometime after an extra month or so of filling gaps on my own, leaning things
like TDD and various computer science concepts (algorithms, data structures
etc.) My journey personally took longer because I got distracted by travel and
other stuff.

As some of the other commenters pointed out, you're probably not going to be
able to work on blockchain and machine learning on day #1. You won't have
those skills coming out of a bootcamp. You'll probably need to get a job doing
Rails or something - don't expect the big 4 or anything like that - and learn
that stuff on the side. I would expect you will spend 1 - 2 years doing
general software development before you can start working on cutting-edge
tech.

But keep in mind that the organisations that do cutting-edge tech are going to
be strongly biased toward people with a CompSci degree. Unless you're willing
to do a degree, you'll need to learn this stuff really thoroughly on your own
and then build some kind of project to demonstrate that you know it. For
example, a cool machine learning project. Your bootcamp alone isn't going to
get you into these kinds of companies.

You're not going to be able to do a bootcamp and then stop learning. The
learning is never going to stop for you. But I think what you're planning to
do is doable in a few years. In a few years I went from writing requirements
as a PM to writing software to help scientists count mosquito eggs in a lab
using image processing. Guess which one was more rewarding?

Feel free to ask me any more specific questions.

~~~
GFischer
I suspect the salary difference will be a LOT more than 15 to 20%. More like
50% at first, and tough to close that gap (he might get on a fast track, but
he'd also have gotten raises as a PM).

According to Glassdoor, Product Manager at Google is something like 200K/year
(an MBA should be making more), Facebook is similar, and Apple a little less.

A bootcamp graduate shouldn't be making more than 100K/year from what I know
of the U.S. (might be wrong).

Maybe his credentials make him hired at a higher salary, but nowhere near his
former one.

------
cocktailpeanuts
First of all, "crazy" is a good thing if you're trying to make a difference.
Think about that for a moment. It's not that obvious. When I realized this, I
felt extremely liberated.

Anyway, one good way to do this may be to:

1\. Take a hiatus. You may either tell your employer that you want to learn
coding, or you may decide not to. Either way it's fine. Even if you tell your
employer, if they are really top 3 tech company, they will understand and even
encourage it. You can spin it as "I want to be a better PM and want to
understand coding."

2\. Learn coding

3\. While you're learning, you may feel the urge to really jump in and become
a professional programmer. Then be so.

4\. If no spark comes during your time at those bootcamps, come back to work
and continue. But even in this case, the world will be a completely different
place for you than now.

Don't worry about people telling you that's crazy. Crazy is good.

------
ChemicalWarfare
You're not crazy per se but have you ever written any code? Try to get your
feet wet do something like a weekend project type deal to see if you have it
in you :)

------
bitwize
I would suggest that rather than a "coding bootcamp" you take courses from
your local community college, state college, or similar (do you have something
like Harvard Extension School?) in _actual_ computer science and software
engineering.

But yes, by all means, if your goal is to learn to write software yourself, go
ahead and get that extra education.

Coding bootcamps produce people who are conversant in the hot technology of
the week, but if they were weak on fundamentals going in they're still
probably going to be weak on fundamentals coming out. If you want to be a
leader in the field, and not in the rank and file, you need strong
fundamentals.

------
nul_byte
Don't quit your job, and learn coding on the side. That is what I did. I was
an architect in a well paid senior role, so I learned to code and got familiar
with the modern frameworks and tools and then found a job (or rather it found
me) that recognised my professional experience with my knowing the development
world and meant I kept my same level of salary. I now get to work more in
engineering where things are more creative and their is lots to learn, and not
services (which I was growing to dislike, due to the same old bullshit around
'escalations' and dealing with 'customer expectations').

------
ecesena
No, you're not crazy. But if you desire to learn how to code and you're
surrounded by top talent coders, why should you go for a (possibly mediocre)
coding bootcamp?

Maybe do the bootcamp to get started, but keep your job and the opportunity it
gives you to meet other great developers and learn from them.

My recommendation is: 1. learn the basics however you prefer, 2. study open
source code, 3. build something medium-size that you can use, either home or
work. If you're very good & lucky this may be your next gig. If not, you'll be
a PM with coding skills, which usually is a pleasure to work with from a dev
perspective.

------
orthoganol
I agree with your projection for the future and that PMs in general develop
only limited skills for building products or contributing at the ground floor,
but I would not get into programming unless you feel like you're wired for it,
because you may invest years only to become mediocre, and can even grow to
hate it.

Why not contribute by launching a startup as CEO? If a Harvard MBA with deep
pockets and PM experience reached out about her startup idea, that is a beer
or coffee I would take seriously. In other words it sounds like you have the
background to attract a talented programmer cofounder.

------
sumanthvepa
Well I made the transition you talk of. Although I didn't have to go to coding
bootcamp. I was a developer before I went to business school and became a PM.
While I found the job of a PM interesting, I loved coding, and always kept my
skills current. So when the time came, I quit to do my own startup, where I
play the role of the CTO (initially the only programmer.) It's a wonderful
feeling. I haven't really given up my PM function. I'm very much in charge of
the product. So try this route. You may find it works better for you.

------
peace011
A successful career switch depends mostly on your ability to support yourself
with money throughout the process, your ability to be dedicated to your goal,
and ability to do lots of hard work. There is a tremendous opportunity to make
the switch to many other fields, but a switch to our field is a lot easier in
regards to bureaucracy because many companies in our field tend to focus more
on the value that you can provide and a lot less on your background (this also
depends on physical location). I made a career switch myself about six years
ago. I can hardly call it a career switch though because previously I didn't
have a solid career; mostly I did odd jobs for a living.

In my experience it hasn't mattered that much where knowledge has been
"downloaded" from (college, bootcamp, self-teaching, etc). What has mattered
is maintaining this "downloaded" knowledge and having it always updated to
keep up with current times. Also, having actual projects to show to employers
has helped me tremendously (e.g. open source contributions, client projects,
personal projects, etc).

I'm self-taught and work at a BIG-BRAND company now as a Front End Engineer
and make a six figure salary in the SF Bay Area; no college degree whatsoever,
just a high school diploma. My resume says "Education: self-taught" and I'm
happy to explain what "self-taught" has meant for me in the past six years to
any employer. I've been able to work with people from all kinds of
backgrounds: devs from bootcamps, self-taught engineers, devs with degrees
unrelated to CS, devs with BS and MS degrees in CS and other subjects, and
from many more backgrounds.

I'm contacted by many other BIG-BRANDs and small companies all the time to
interview with them, and before I even accept to interview, I make it clear
that I don't have a CS background, and that I'm unwilling to waste each
other's time white-boarding algorithms - usually they're fine with this as
they can clearly see my experience and instead they focus on the value that
I'm able to provide. Many times I come across companies that ass-u-me I'm
incapable because I chose a different path than them, but I've learnt to
ignore the ignorant, and instead I focus on improving my skills and bettering
myself as a programmer and a human being.

Any path you choose will lead you to a similar result. That's the beauty and
uniqueness of our industry. As a final note, don't bother with comparing your
salary with other people's salaries when/if you make the switch, as it won't
matter at all if your income will allow you to live a really good life.

~~~
tigertheory
fantastic and super helpful reply, thank you for taking the time to write it!

------
mathgenius
I don't mean to sound elitist here, but if you were really a dev then it
probably would have bitten you in the ass already. What you are saying here
sounds completely backwards to me. So here is my advice: spend some time
testing the waters, if it doesn't completely intoxicate you then go back to
PM. Real dev's go through so much pain and agony in their work, if it isn't
also pure joy then it just doesn't work. Getting "excited about technology" is
very much not the same thing as actually doing it.

------
zubat
Nobody can say! But the main thing technology is doing now is pushing us to
engage design skills and critical thinking. Just "knowing ML" or "knowing
blockchain" makes you a potentially useful product or service, but not a
change agent. And being good enough to command the big bucks is a superstar
game played per subfield and specialty. The people who are really, really into
engineering work latch on to a challenging problem and can't let go - it's a
pretty rare mindset and most working programmers don't actually have it, as
they are there to fill seats and go to meetings and unambitiously do enough to
get by. And most businesses employing them don't need a level of technology
much above that either - that's why bootcamps are succeeding.

This is a world where you really need to aim to be the best in what you are
doing, though. It's so competitive and there is no reason to expect that to
let up. If you aren't doing that you can get stuck or hit a career deadend
when the market shifts and those surface-level bootcamp skills become
irrelevant.

So in my own space I am focused on a mixed stack of design, coding and
leadership skills that is more in line with founders. The ability to pitch, to
write up planning documents, to prototype and hold a vision, to study the
marketplace and identify opportunities, to hone the vision through philosophy,
as well as PM-type managerial duties. Those things are robust to changes in
the technical landscape and they build on my own background.

------
dasmoth
I can certainly understand wanting to make this transition. One thing to bear
in mind, though, is that corporate programming jobs can end up having a lot of
focus on process and highly-structured modes of collaboration that make it a
very different experience from coding on your own. As a tech PM, you're
probably more aware of this than people coming from some other backgrounds,
but still something to watch out for, especially if you're tempted because you
enjoy hobby coding.

------
paulftw
I'm going to get downvoted for my "elitist" opinion but have to say this, to
warn those few who'll listen.

Recently I was hiring on a tight budget. I've interviewed a dozen people from
various coding boot camps, self taught web developers, etc. None of them could
solve a Fizzbuzz level problem on a whiteboard.

(One thing I've learned after 15 years in industry, 8 jobs, 2 continents - a
person who can't do fizzbuzz-type problem is not worth having onboard even for
free).

It seems to me that even with best training in the world and a ton of prior IT
experience it always takes people at least 2-3 years to start thinking in code
in a way where you don't waste everyone's time. Learning to code is not about
a bunch of syntax rules. It's about retraining your brain to use different
mental models, developing intuition about where a bug might be, finding your
way around a large and hostile codebase, anticipating how your today's
decision will interact with all the features you'll implement over next 6
months, and so on.

Basic rules of programming are simple, but so are the rules of golf or
snooker, or making bespoke suits, or wine tasting.

If you are prepared to spend next 3 years aimlessly poking around the debugger
struggling to figure out the simplest thing only to realize at 11pm you were
looking in a wrong place - go for it. It's frustrating but also rewarding.

If you think in 6 months you'll be able to build the next facebook with AI -
only thing you'll learn in that time is how much there's still to learn.

------
baccheion
Well, if you're not sure, then do it over the weekends and at night. Are the
hours at work enough that you won't have time in the evenings to work on this
other skill?

Is this something where you could first try some of the online courses
(Udacity, EdX, Khan Academy, etc) to see if you're actually interested and
also able enough to do the job well?

Also, while I worked as a Software Engineer, I was not really doing much in
the actual job and felt I was stagnating and falling behind. Most of the
advancement in ability came during my free time where I'd try to learn new
things, dive into new interests, create software I actually wanted, etc.

Eventually, work hours resulted in less and less time to do things on my own,
and the crap at work got more and more irrelevant, tedious, and stupid. Also,
management was all about trying to rid you of any competitive edge or anything
else that makes you worth anything (or that brings you happiness), so in
addition to all that was in place, it was known/realized they were going
around each day looking for more ways to ensure every path would lead to a
dead end.

It wasn't long before I wanted to quit and before I realized the only way to
make it work would be to create my own company (or maybe become a
freelancer/consultant).

~~~
tigertheory
I think doing it on the side is less feasible because (1) work takes up too
much time for me to make meaningful progress in say 6 months, it will be very
slow progress (2) I find that the best coding bootcamps also help in getting
you a software engineering job which I think will be a lot harder just
studying on your own

------
gyardley
You're almost certainly crazy from a financial perspective. You're unlikely to
catch up, salary-wise, and will hit the ageism wall a lot faster as a
developer.

But hey, we all get a little crazy when it comes to the things we love. Just
be aware that a bootcamp is just the first of a great many steps before you
can contribute to something you'd consider the 'future' and not 'move the
button 10 pixels to the right'.

------
asafira
This might get lost in the comments, but I wanted to ask anyway: I am actually
currently doing a physics PhD, and am considering becoming a PM. Am I crazy?

------
johncch
Yes and no. My question is, what do you want to achieve by going through a
boot camp? Using the certification as a pivot for career change? Having an
short period of time where you can focus and intensely study the subject? I
think it's important to consider what specifically about the boot camp route
is important to you, because there are a lot of other ways to be proficient in
coding.

Tutorials on various common "patterns" (RoR web apps, iOS apps etc.) are of
good quality and easily available these days. As a PM in big tech, you can try
to find little ways to contribute into the product's code base, which will
teach you both programming and engineering practices. In my experience
(disclaimer: was a PM), engineers are delighted when PMs show interest in
code, and at least a few would be excited to hand hold you through the process
of setting up your dev box, building the product etc. It's not a bad way to
get better while making hand and fist full of money.

That said, like any other craft and practice, programming is layered and
specializes. It takes 5-10 years to be "good", and it takes equals amount of
time to be good in a specialization (say machine learning for example). Even
for a good ol' engineer to move from building web apps to building machine
learning systems, the barriers are still non-trivial. Furthermore, consider
that a career in software engineering is perhaps more akin to spending 20% of
your time building somewhat sexy* new thing, and 80% of your time doing boring
boiler plate work, trying to pull your hair out digging through other people's
APIs and code, and wondering why the build and CI system is so broken. If
that's what you want to do, then go for it.

* most likely it's just a boring CRUD app using somewhat unfashionable technology.

~~~
hirsin
>engineers are delighted when PMs show interest in code

In particular, if you want to go for sink or swim, switch to a technical PM
role in your dev platform (like the Dart, STL, app model, or cpp teams).
You'll be forced to learn more about how developers work and what goes into a
language. Can highly recommend it.

------
sumoboy
Keep your job and fund a company on the side hiring people to do the hands-on
stuff your dreaming about. The software industry is full of challenges and
tech so it's endless and extremely diverse. You could spend the rest of your
life on deep learning or whatever discipline. Today your just another drone
PM, if you want to make a difference build a company, don't be another drone
techy dude.

------
bsg75
Why quit your current gig? Can you find a bootcamp that you can complete over
a "vacation"? If not, consider a program that you can acomplish evenings and
weekends.

Unless you feel your PM role is a complete dead end, build on your experience
instead of trading it away.

Edit, adding: A PM who understands software development, or a developer who
understands project management, is a good set of skills to have.

------
wasd
I personally think you are better off trying to learn this on your own. It
seems like you have the enthusiasm. It sounds like you're also unhappy with
where you work. You could try changing jobs to something where you have lots
of free time (good/work life balance, no commute) and work on learning to
code. Coding boot camps are very web development focused.

------
cheriot
If current tech managers have a hard time over the next decade, it won't be
that management is less important. Instead, there will be a growing number of
people that have written software and are going into management that will be
better at it. They actually understand what's going on around them. Software
is an outlier in that front line managers can't do even a little bit of the
job their direct reports do. This only happened because the industry grew so
fast that the bulk of programmers were so young.

That said, make sure you actually want to write code. Boot camps prepare you
to make simplistic websites and mobile apps not the interesting stuff you
mention. You'll have years of learning to get into those in a meaningful way.

------
swivelmaster
Well, you've got a lot of answers here already.

I've worked in startups and the game industry as a programmer, designer,
producer (probably more like your version of PM), and _kind of_ as a PM
(which, in gaming, is probably like some percentage of your job now, but not
all of it).

It's definitely true that having worked as a designer and programmer was
INCREDIBLY helpful in making me a better producer. The ability to communicate
with people you manage or need to make decisions for at a passable level of
their domain knowledge will be very fruitful and will help you command their
respect. You'll make better decisions too, of course.

Feel free to email me if you want to know more. (That goes for anyone here,
I'm always happy to give advice.)

------
snowwrestler
Management will only become more important in the future. As technology gets
more complex, it will take greater numbers of people to create and maintain
it.

And truthfully, most companies today are really bad at management,
particularly related to technology.

Learning to code is a great idea but I would think of it as supplementary to
your management work.

You're right about all these amazing technologies that are being developed,
but truthfully, the stuff you learn in a bootcamp is not going to put you in a
position to do much in those fields. It might be a small step in that
direction, but you would need to go way beyond it. Advancements are coming
from folks with deep knowledge of math, algorithms, systems engineering, etc.

------
jdavis703
By PM do you mean product or project manager? If you're a project manager can
you move over to the product side? That way you'll be able to leverage your
MBA by learning a new set of skills. These will include SQL and data analysis,
whatever field your product serves, and I even knew a couple of product
managers who would occasionally sling code, write copy or design mockups when
the project deadline was slipping. I feel that coding is going to be a dead
end career field in 10-20 years, because everyone will simply do it as part of
their job. Better to work on those soft skills, rather than just a pure
technical skill.

------
olegious
Maybe you're in a place where Product Management (I'm assuming that's what you
mean by "PM") is done poorly? If most of what you're doing is project
management and coordination, then you're not really doing Product Management.
PM work is about knowing your market, knowing your customers and their
problems, knowing the tech that can be used to solve those problems, building
a strategy to deliver validated solutions to the problems and then delivering
the solution, all while considering company and stakeholder goals. It is a
incredibly fun, sometimes, incredibly frustrating job.

------
apapli
Your are crazy. I taught myself rails part time using Lynda.com. I'm a sales
and marketing manager, but love tech and wanted to build stuff.

The skills you pick up learning to code will be tremendous for managing others
to build what you need.

Coding is hard to do well and takes years to get really good at it, and you
will likely need to start at the bottom of the food chain to get the right
coaching and support. I'd recommending learning enough code to be dangerous
but get experts to help you do the hard stuff.

That said if this choice is about happiness, then go with your heart. Money
shouldn't factor into that decision, it will come over time.

------
lazyant
In most best scenarios, if you are good enough as developer after a few months
of training you'll be able to land a job in a random software company at 1/3
or 1/2 your current salary doing probably 'boring' stuff, you know, the things
that 99.99% developers do.

The chances that you happen to turn out very good at programming and that you
land a job doing exciting stuff that you love in a cutting-edge company are
virtually zero.

You may have an idealized picture of what developers do. You can try and learn
some programming in your own time (yourself, with tutor etc) and see how it
goes before taking the plunge.

------
rebelidealist
NOT crazy at all. Actually this is a very good idea. Being able to code makes
you a much better PM and help you gain respect of engineers. It will also will
help you become a better tech entrepreneur or exec if you ever choose to be.

Having some kind of hard technical skill very important. It help you tackle
harder problems that arises in the future. For example let say AI becomes
increasingly important. Since you know some code, you ability to lead in this
a new technical field will be better than someone with no technical ability.

FYI i'm a coder and founder of a software company. Most of my time is spend on
PM now.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Being able to code makes you a much better PM //

People aren't saying he's crazy to learn coding (though he's going to need
some solid actual CS for deep learning / blockchain stuff I'd imagine);
they're saying he's crazy to ditch his job and switch to a boot camp.

I took a >50% pay cut and switched to a field I had no experience in. It was
absolutely crazy and high risk; it was a lifestyle move though rather than a
career move as such.

Also, does he want to be "a better PM", or does he [think he] want[s] to be a
software engineer (or similar), it seems like the latter to me?

------
GavinMcG
There's a self-paced in-depth program I can highly recommend that might allow
you to do/explore this in a moderate way - that is, without quitting. I'd be
happy to chat about it. My email is in my profile.

------
colinmegill
I think you should do it. No one's an expert in these technologies yet,
really, since they are moving so fast. There's a lot of room left. Excitement
and meaning are much more important to long term happiness.

------
jonathonf
> I have a feeling tremendous opportunity will be available over the next 10
> years to software developers while other disciplines such as management
> become less and less important.

We're in a period when everyone is "learning to code". This means the
potential pool of developers (ignoring their actual talent levels) is growing.

Someone has to check whether the stuff people are making is following whet
needs to be created. Someone has to be able to manage the teams of people
making these things.

I'd suggest your premise is the wrong way round.

------
bdcravens
You're not crazy, but temper your job and income expectations. (though you may
get hired because of your PM experience, to do PM) Most bootcampers when they
come out are ready to be an intern and start learning. Your life will be much
different than your used to, but if you're in it for the long term, that's not
a problem.

As for learning to code because of things like the blockchain, etc, keep in
mind that bootcamps teach you to build web apps, not that level of
programming.

------
Hydraulix989
I fundamentally believe that programming isn't something you can learn at a
"bootcamp" \-- instead, it requires years of concentrated practice, much like
learning to play a musical instrument or to speak a foreign language.

You're not crazy to make that career switch, but you are crazy to attempt to
do so in that manner.

Start reading books on programming and teaching yourself instead, and start
working through the actual exercises. I think Python is a good language to
start with.

------
willcate
Quite possibly, but consult professional help if necessary.

------
eachro
You are not crazy to make that career switch, but I'm not sure that a dev
bootcamp will really help you get there. Dabble in the aforementioned areas in
your free time. I'm guessing you probably have at least a few software
engineer friends who could probably give you some pointers along the way. IMO
it's not worth the $$ and time to attend a dev bootcamp to learn how to build
a few web apps.

------
CodeWriter23
Crazy, yes. But is it the right kind of crazy to drive your success? There are
no rewards without risk. Bottom line, if you can sustain yourself through your
proposed experiment, then why not? But I would preface that with some soul
searching. Are the things driving you away from being a PM generic in nature
and likely to follow you? If so, it probably means the remedy to your woes is
working on yourself.

------
fouc
Learning to code will make you a better software project manager.
Unfortunately coding can take a long time to get good at.

Take the coding bootcamp. Do one of the longer ones, like the 6 month one if
you can. Or do one of the online ones, and be disciplined about it, such as
teamtreehouse.

And then go back to being a PM, but use your knowledge of the difficulty of
coding to leverage many developers to work towards an important goal.

------
readme
Shit dude. Just code at home for fun and keep doing your job. Save hard for
retirement and stick out a decade and some change or so and then you're
free!!!

Or, go back and become an expendable framework of the week coder and then find
yourself needing to relearn those skills every 5 years to do the same rote
job.

Coding is great fun, until it becomes a routine. Then it's just like anything
else.

------
Klasiaster
Quitting a job might lead to something nice, but my understanding is that
programming and computer science is overestimated. It's very interesting to
learn how things work, but really doing something meaningful with it is mostly
very very hard and one has lack of time or not intended all and thus you end
up writing things you would never use yourself.

------
edimaudo
Please do not jump blindly into becoming a programmer/developer/software
engineer. You should try out a few classes to see if it is something you are
interested in and want to do for a long time. Don't forget that after 35 most
programmers are moved to management roles since programming is a young persons
game. Good luck!

------
ben_jones
Universities are pumping out like 50k CS students a year. Not boot camp grads,
computer scientists already exposed to machine learning, advanced algorithms,
databases, etc. I really don't see a tangible benefit of boot camps that only
teach web development beyond short term web development jobs. This is just my
own opinion obviously.

------
fillskills
Please don't do that if your goal is to learn Block Chain or Deep Learning.
The goals of most bootcamps is to get you a job in software. If you can find a
bootcamp that can match your goals, then it might be very worthwhile,
otherwise you can probably start by learning on your own online and practice
by developing your own projects.

------
ivan_ah
Learning coding takes five years—at least. Do you really want to invest this
time?

Like several other commenters have said, a better approach would be to learn
coding on your own time. (Choose a language—any language will do, learn the
basic from a introductory book and codecademy.com, then work on small weekend
projects)

------
CalChris
Yes, this is pretty insane. No one of merit will hire you on the basis of a
coding boot camp. It's a good idea on the basis of skill set enhancement
(you'll know more about how your charges think+work) but as a career change,
utterly completely insane.

Most technical careers are competitive and short.

------
Lordarminius
What future role do you see yourself playing in the industry? Well paid geek,
founder, investor, researcher ?

------
dba7dba
Try taking a class in udemy. See if you can get that much first before
quitting. Speaking from experience.

------
sushirain
If you don't have financial obligations, you could quit. Otherwise, maybe it's
better to join an open source project on the side for a year. It takes years
to go from noob to proficiency in coding, machine learning, cryptography. Some
software positions are very selective.

------
overgard
You really don't need a boot camp to learn coding. I would stay at your job
and learn on the side.

------
coldtea
> _I have an MBA from a top 3 school and have a high-paying job as a PM at a
> top 3 tech company. But I don 't feel like I am building tangible skills as
> a PM, it is more about project management and coordinating._

And how are those not tangible?

------
dman
What is driving you to seek this change? What do you want to be doing 3 years
from now?

------
tehlike
If you feel that way, use your business skills to build a business. I am an
eng, a good one perhaps, and I lack the skills of a competent PM.

Find someone to complement you, then try changing the world. one small project
at a time.

------
theparanoid
No. You only have one life.

Instead of something like a coding bootcamp, I've taken courses at the local
university. Almost all universities (including Berkeley) allow non-enrolled
students to enroll in 1 or 2 courses.

------
codingdave
The only crazy part is thinking you need to choose between the two options.
Job descriptions can be flexible. Keep your job, learn to code, and work for
someone who lets you do both.

------
atmosx
Learn everything you are excited about on the side. No need to take risks
courses and general info is available everywhere, you are smart, you can learn
everything on your own.

------
novaleaf
Crazy, if you are primarily interested in salary, and you are a good PM.

Not crazy if you hate PM'ing, or you are not good at it, or are not motivated
by climbing corporate ladders.

------
mcs_
Yes...

Keep the job, join some open source projects, solve some issues and enjoy the
process if you can.

You can learn how to solve digital problems by coding while you work full-time
somewhere else.

Good luck in any cases

------
wkoszek
You're absolutely insane and you need help. Seek professional advise from your
school counsellor, if required. Below I wrote some paragraphs to help you. If
you do this, someone should go, figure out who you are in real life and revoke
your MBA. Or you should just request a refund of your $150k tuition.

If you really work in top 3 tech firm, your colleagues are
Stanford/Berkeley/MIT/CMU grads, who ate rice and ketchup writing operating
systems and compilers. This will be the level you have to get to to contribute
to any technical project in a meaningful way. But basically: when you were
doing business case studies and traveling around the world to meet world
leaders and learn from the best CEOs how they handled corporate crisis, they
kept hacking algorithms in a black window with grey letters. I know--I did
that too.

I have 15+ years of UNIX experience, 10+ years of programming experience and 5
years of real-world software engineering experience. I'm thinking how to get
your job all day long :-) This requires reading tons of books:
[http://www.koszek.com/reading/](http://www.koszek.com/reading/) which I do
and I sacrifice time with my gf because of that. If you look at this list it's
business, management, investments, people stuff. You'll have to do the same,
but read about software and hack code in front of the computer, etc.

Most of HN experienced crowd are smart technical people with worse
credentials, who are attempting to move from coding job to
architecture/design/management job, which you now have. You are our target :)
You can see it in many threads. It'd be like moving from a coffee shop manager
to a waiter. Ask some senior buddies from a random technical team whether
they'd like your job. It's good to see people appreciating each other
professions, and we appreciate that too, but don't do this job switch yet or
we will crucify you :)

My advice is this: take a break from work (just because you can -- you have a
shitload of money anyway, or maybe just "enough" due to loans; go on leave,
but for god's sake, don't quit your job), join the bootcamp if you really
like, and don't tell anyone you did it. You see from this thread bootcamp,
unlike your MBA, don't have established value in the industry yet. It won't
harm you, for sure, but you won't be a software engineer. Bootcamp sounds good
for you--you're a smart person and wants to learn more, since I think you
haven't hacked much code before.

Better idea is what other guys say: just get yourself all online programs
there are. All of them. They are $30/month at most, and Udacity is $200. Get
them all for a month. You'll spend maybe $200 + 5*$30 = $350, but maybe $0,
since first 2-4 weeks are free. You'll pick one that you like, because it'll
fit your learning style. Stick to it and just do exercises. On top of that get
books. Books are dirt cheap compared to value they bring to your portfolio.
Whichever books you need; all of them. I think you'll have to end up doing bs
I do for business/management books: google "top 10 programming books" and get
them. Even if you don't read it, get it. It'll be maybe $350, since you may
end up getting 10 books. So it's $350-$700 investment at most -- you'll get a
grasp on what's going on. Then maybe $30/mo for 6 months to teach you one
thing well and 2 in a sloppy way you'll kinda understand. And repeat it maybe
2 times. Basically: watch classes, do exercises and immediately after that
write your toy programs on the side or (better) real products.

So you'll spend at most $1k to learn something you want. It's also spending
$1k to save your $150k investment you've made by doing MBA in top 3 school.
It's 0.7% cost of what you've spent on school, and still much, much cheaper
than a bootcamp.

If you're a good MBA you're a cheap, stingy bastard that can get people to pay
for your stuff. And top 3 high-tech companies have educational grants. Some up
to $9/yr. They pay you for your education. So have the company pay for this
bootcamp, if you come up with good enough reason, it'll be all free.

Now:

If you absolutely truly love hacking code and are obsessed with it and you
think that yes -- this is your 2nd calling and you basically don't see
yourself talking to people anymore - congratulations. You are eligible for
leaving your job, retraining yourself and entering coding workforce. Trade
your suit for dirty sweater and you're all set to apply for a junior dev role.

But I think it won't happen.

What will happen thanks to my advise instead is this: you'll make yourself be
in like 0.1% top category of MBA people who truly understand what software is
all about AND have a PM job. People who you work with will see that, so you'll
be getting good reviews etc. You'll come back to this thread, see how wrong
about PMing you were, and you'll apologise. You'll then keep studying and
getting better at being a PM and being technical manager. You'll learn how to
manage technical people, how to partition tasks, build features, build
products and build tech companies. And no, it's not very easy and it's not
fading away. I see you posted some stuff about machine learning in the past.
If that's your field of interest: go and get TensorFlow original publication
from Google. It's a paper where you see an abstract is shorter than a list of
authors. Do you think these guys would have built Tensorflow without any PM of
some sort?

Anyway, story goes: then you will quit your top 3 high-tech firm, and start a
high-tech startup, get $20M in funding. And then you'll come back here, DM me
personally and offer me 1% in your new enterprise for having a profound impact
on your life and you'll offer me a PM role in your new startup. I'll gladly
accept it for this 1+ hr free of charge advising.

------
nikanj
As a programmer, you'll encounter much more ageism than you would as a PM, to
the point of being unemployable from 40 or so.

~~~
bdcravens
Ageism is definitely a thing, but I'd challenge your assumptions about 40. I
turn 40 in April, and make more money, and work on more interesting problems
with new tech than ever in my career.. most of the developers I know my age
are well employed. Then again, I'm in Texas - it may be a much different story
in SV/SF or in "big tech". That said, a 40 year old still using the same stack
they used at 30 is probably in trouble. It's less an age thing than one's
ability and willingness to learn and grow.

~~~
nikanj
When was the last time you went looking for a new job?

A /lot/ of companies insist on "culture fit", which unfortunately does include
a lot of sexism, ageism and racism. There's been plenty of good discussions
about this on HN, and the fact that you've been lucky enough to avoid the
problem, doesn't necessarily mean that the problem doesn't exist - or that
people who are discriminated against are just stuck using ten year old stacks.

~~~
bdcravens
Honestly, a long time. For a long time I've done either remote work or relied
on my personal network.

I also can cheat the system a bit - even though I'm 39 I look super young and
wear the typical tshirt and hoodie you'd associate with someone much younger.
(I look in the mirror and see a 23 year old, so I think that shapes my
personality)

Additionally, I'm in Houston, where many developers are in healthcare or
energy, and they do tend to use older stacks (usually .NET or ColdFusion)

That said, I think it's just a series of data points, and what you think a
career should look like.

------
ryanSrich
I'd think the complete opposite of you. We'll need a few PMs around to manage
the army of AI programming bots.

------
piyushmakhija
Check out [https://www.42.us.org/](https://www.42.us.org/)

------
blairanderson
Not crazy. I did it and couldn't be more happy. I switched from sales to
engineering.

------
Bladtman
What's so bad about crazy? Do what makes you happy OP, what else is there?

------
fizx
You are crazy from a careers perspective, but do whatever makes you happy.

------
crististm
Read Cal Newport on career capital. Do you have enough of it?

------
known
Developers respect Senior Developers

------
homero
You're a prime minister?

------
sgentle
Wow, a lot of negativity here. To me it seems like this is something you
really want to do and, assuming you have the resources to give it a try, why
not? Worst case scenario you go back to what you were doing before but with
some new skills and experiences.

The two points I think are worth considering are:

1\. Coding bootcamp vs postgrad qualification in CS or similar. I'm not in the
coding-bootcamps-are-the-devil orthodoxy. In fact, I've seen a lot of great
juniors come from bootcamps, but you do have to recognise their limitations. A
bootcamp will get you to the point that a self-taught highschool code wizard
will be at just before they hit university and realise that they don't know
anything. Employable, sure, but lacking in fundamentals. You don't have to
learn CS from a university, but one way or another until you learn it there
will be a ceiling on how far you can progress as a developer.

2\. Part-time vs full-time transition. One thing I will agree with is that you
are going to be a way worse software developer than you are a PM, just by
sheer weight of hours put in. For that reason if you're looking to make a
switch I would do that wholeheartedly rather than learning on the side or
moonlighting. Otherwise you'll be pulled in two different directions, and the
one that you are better at, have more experience with, and can earn more money
from will probably win.

If you genuinely want to be a developer to build stuff, I would do the coding
bootcamp, get any job as a developer you can find, then teach yourself CS as
quickly as you can while on the job. The CS will mean more and be easier to
understand because you already have the practical skills and you'll be able to
call yourself a developer sooner. Just be aware that the stuff you build
straight out of a bootcamp will not be deep learning blockchain automation
algorithms for SpaceX, it'll be web apps with questionable business models.

Another option is to just bite the bullet and get a real CS education up
front. This will take longer to get you to a point where you're actually
building things, and keep in mind that CS doesn't give you practical skills,
so you'll probably still need to start with entry-level dev work, but your
trajectory to doing interesting stuff will be steeper from there.

Ultimately it's down to your resources and your priorities. If the drive is to
_just make stuff_ then go with the bootcamp, it'll get you there sooner. If
you mostly like the cutting-edge ideas and high-level work (and you can afford
it) go with CS first. Deep learning isn't bootcamp material.

And keep in mind that either way you're 5-10 years out from being good enough
at this stuff to really live up to the picture of it you have in your head, so
make sure what you're doing in the mean time is going to make you happy.

------
msurocks
bootcamps are not a good option.

------
JakeAl
I highly recommend you take an hour and a half to watch this Lynda.com video
on Leadership Fundamentals. It's focus is business, but first and foremost we
are all leaders of our own lives and the lessons apply as much to personal as
professional development. It may serve as a good refresher as to what you once
learned makes for good leadership as a manager and help you identify your
strengths and weaknesses as a leader of your life as well as in your
organization. They have a ten day free trial and there are many videos you can
watch after this one that will help you no matter what path you choose to
follow. It is well worth the 90 minutes. It helped me understand and resolve a
lot about myself and my dissatisfaction with own career, my organization, and
what was wrong with both.

[https://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-
tutorials/Leadership-F...](https://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-
tutorials/Leadership-Fundamentals/122471-2.html)

Pay particular attention to the segments on emotional intelligence,
motivation, engagement/disengagement(!), and professional development. It'll
not only help you understand what is affecting your motivation and
disengagement, but you may also realize your greatest strength is that you are
motivated to solve these problems not just for yourself but others in your
organization. Understanding the way things should be could just cause you to
double down as a PM and master the challenges of the role while further
developing your skills to advance your career.

Good leadership focuses on the health (and happiness) and growth of the
individual as much as the organization. Maybe you are just in a poorly run
organization or one that has poor leaders. Discontent is usually a pretty good
indicator this is the case, because even if an individual is the problem, a
good leader has the awareness to recognize this and have a good relationship
with their staff that enables them to make the staff member aware of their
strengths and weaknesses and the source of their discontent so it can
addressed be remedied.

It sounds to me like you want to more authority and control, or at least more
challenges and your organization's leadership is not addressing that. Without
that your growth and personal development is limited. Being a coordinator is
little more being an admin that tracks status and doesn't require much
tactical or strategic decision making. Your manager should understand this and
being stretching your abilities in every area little by little until they
trust you to make those decisions. They should always be preparing you for the
next level up. Maybe you aren't aware of your weaknesses and they are not
identifying them and working on them with you. Maybe your desire to quit and
become an individual contributor is just an Escape Coping mechanism for
dealing with stress instead of a Control Coping mechanism which is positive
and proactive. Or maybe they just have poor leadership skills.

It would be terrible if you quit your job and lost the opportunity where you
are to address your weaknesses and strengthen all of your skills in an attempt
to start over because you feel it would give you more control over your
happiness, especially given all of the capital you have built up in that role
over the years. Besides, if the problem is your desire to leave is a just an
unhealthy response to stress or a challenging situation, it won't solve
anything.

Just a thought, but one from someone who has been there.

What did I do in your situation? It took me a while but I watched that video,
combined my awareness from it with formal knowledge of PMP (Head First PMP is
good start) as a reminder of what project management is all about and what my
organization did wrong as leaders of a functional versus projectized
organization (a weak matrixed organization), and then I studied stress
management to help me understand my own (unhealthy) responses to my situation.

If I had done that while still at my organization I would have not only felt
empowered by the evidence and knowledge, but challenged to work on myself and
the organization at the same time, and could have been perceived as someone
with greater leadership potential that would have allowed me to level up. Even
if I still decided to leave, I could have improved my skills while there to
prepare for a move to a healthier organization that I would have been better
equipped to recognize and excel at.

FYI I strongly considered a Masters in Data Science which would have had a
narrow focus either as a developer, data analyst, or data scientist, but at
the risk of competing with people who were younger and/or smarter, and rooted
in those disciplines from an earlier age. I decided I should master my
management and leadership skills instead, leveraging and building upon my
knowledge and experience at a better organization. I am unemployed and working
on that now. Once I get a job, even if it's a contract position, I can still
take the online courses to get that masters degree from a top university and
also take advantage of being around people in the industry that do what I
aspire to do as mentors.

I sincerely hope this helps.

------
heisenbit
Twice in my career I moved from management to more technical roles. Both were
somewhat forced by corporate reorgs and I found both quite difficult. Tech is
some sort of meritocratic place and if you want to have an impact you need to
contribute on an appropriate level. One of the hardest things in these
transitions is to be patient enough with myself and not judging myself too
hard for not meeting my expectations.

It took me 2-4 years to get on a level I was ok again with what I contribute
in my role (lead architect). In these transitions I had the benefit of solid
coding skills from way back plus having worked at a tier-1 corporate lab for a
few years. I had the benefit that the company supported me but that came also
with constraints on freedom and focus in recovering the skills.

Coding school may give you basic coding skills. The deep knowledge you would
need to be a good coder however will take many years to acquire. I would be
surprised if someone got to a more senior developer role in less than 4 years
and going to architect before 6. Only then you will again be able to shape
things. Until then you will have to implement what other - often a lot less
qualified product managers have thought up for you to do. Often of the code
will be for /dev/null as most projects fail in any case before hitting the
user. I sometimes think salaries in tech will always be good as frustration
tolerance is never going to be a commodity.

I found product management a very difficult proposition. It can be incredibly
hard to add value in that role but then on the other hand it can be one of the
most powerful and decisive roles too (Jobs do I need to say more). There is a
lot communication and coordination and that can be fun but also can feel void.
Shaping from that position takes serious political skills to acquire the
necessary power and to wield it.

The way I think about these changes:

\- what can you leverage into the new role?

\- is there a plan B?

\- do you truly like that type of work (tools, processes, travel, challenges,
conflicts)?

\- do you like to work closely with these type of people?

\- what drives you? Long term vision?

\- what are your strengths?

\- what technical and interpersonal skill you want to learn? Will you learn
anything new?

Would I have hired you when I was team lead way back? Iff you showed up with
lots of enthusiasm for coding and passed our structured technical interview -
maybe into a junior developer role. Willingness and ability to change was a
key criteria for me. But I know I probably had to argue both technical staff
and HR. I never worried about someone going for my role but maybe with you I
would have worried about that on my side.

By all means learn coding. You may however want to give some thought on
possible paths, risks and contingencies. Coding - considering your starting
point - is certainly one option but comes with a high risk of significantly
lower ability to contribute and ultimately benefit from it. Project management
may be another. Consulting in the area of requirements may be another.

------
gabosarmiento
Yes you are crazy and Please Don't Do it. I'll try to make the story short so
bear with me. Almost 3 years ago I took a Bootcamp Online at Bloc.io, quite
recommendable and I was supremely obsessed with learning. I needed to make a
fast change in my life knowing that I was going to be unemployed in about 6
months, my wife was pregnant and I had to make a quick jump not to drown. I do
not regret it at all, in fact, I greatly appreciate having learned so much
with my mentor. You can not imagine how many things I did after investing +90
hours a week for 6 months. I still had to learn on my own for another year
testing ideas before I was able to launch a startup that has allowed me to
keep a decent income higher than the one I had before. But this scenario is
not what I wished for when I started 3 years ago. I did not conceive that
learning to code was a permanent and continuous process where you needed
concentration and long hours of focus instead of playing with my daughter who
is almost 3 years old now. I love writing code, words can't describe what you
feel when tests pass and you see it live in production (only to realize a few
days later that you were reinventing the wheel and there was a better gem that
did it faster and better). I thought this new world was my dreamed land where
I could build things without asking anyone for help but that's really the
problem. That window I opened 3 years ago showed me that if I continue to
develop the way that I did I would spend my life without actually living it as
I wanted to. I confess my lines are not that sofisticated, I even consider
them quite amateurish, my tests are light, and I guess If I would really want
to be a pro developer I would have to invest much more and that sucks because
you can't think how many nights I've spent being away from my family because
it truly is very absorbing. I do not say that it is bad idea to spend a life
in front of a computer but man that is not suited for me.

I can see through your words that your interests are to participate in those
great new ideas and to achieve greater things but you can make it happen
without that Bootcamp especially without quitting your job. If you decided to
attend to a good university it was because you really wanted to leave a dent
on the universe. There are cases such as the orchestra director where although
he does not play any instrument he must at least learn to play one to
understand the essence of music before being able to lead. But in our
ecosystem what is rewarded beyond our vision is our ability to execute.I
believe that you as a PM have one the most valuable assets because you can
take any talented team and give them a vision towards execution, that they
will appreciate because people do not know how to execute complex Things step
by step the way that you do. Besides that if you give them that strong desire
to accomplish excellence that breaks the molds. And that stamina to persevere
even in the darkest hours you are set.

If I could go back 3 years in time, I would ask for the refund even if I had
to pay something. Instead I would use that money to spend more time observing
regular people, maybe participate inside university activities, labs, study
groups and invite complete strangers to take espressos or beers with students
or teachers and bond with them. Instead of being a solo learner I would
encourage myself to be a part of a group. My job would have been to create any
initiative with them on the topics I sought were worth it and even if I knew
it wouldn't work I would put all my experience to support the implementation
of these ideas. I might not knew how to type a line of code but I would have
felt more alive to be able to see those ideas become a reality, even if it
wasn't 1% my vision, even if if wasn't my code, even if I only was able to sit
on a table with just one talented person and be able to keep him motivated and
enthusiastic after the first prototype was made and help him with the first
sale to come, that would have been enough. Instead of investing in Bootcamps
you could interact more with humans, learn more about human behaviors, spend
more time with your family or children, travel more to meet with more people
and take advantage of the work you have right now to find mentors or talk with
your peers about your expectations in those topics that you like to execute
instead of being in front of your laptop fighting with your lines of code that
someone you work with can do much better in less time.

Finally I have to say it surely was a blessing to become a developer, right no
I'm working as CTO/CEO but I 'm about to let go, and I know it's going to be
hard, anyways in your current situation where you have much more knowledge and
experience, only quit to carry out your ideas but if you definitely want to
play don't forget that sooner or later you'll need to delegate and learn to
orchestrate and for that you don't need that Bootcamp.

P.S.: Forgive my bad English.

------
nzjrs
Yes

------
codeonfire
Companies have this ridiculous idea that you have to either be a PM or a
developer but you can't be both. Virtually everybody in an organization except
developers wants to reinforce the view that developers are just dumb coders
who's only purpose is to implement the whims of everyone else in the company
as fast as possible. Every PM thinks they would be successful if only they had
more devs to boss around. Becoming a developer is not going to be like you
think.

Even as a former PM, PM's at your company will try to exert power over you if
you are a dev. They will be backed up by executive management, board members,
investors, the media who all have an interest in maintaining this outdated
view of the programmer who takes the specifications and simply types in the
code. Why not fire PM's and just hire PM's that code? PM's don't like that,
executives (who don't code) don't like that, even the janitor doesn't like
that. Nobody likes that except for devs and devs have no power in companies
because of self reinforcing old school ideas about job roles.

~~~
polotics
"Companies"? The model you are describing is dying a speedy death IMHO. The
only PMs left where I work are quite technical and do manage to join the dots
between projects economics, office-politics, and engineering. Needing a PM is
an indication that either something is very new, or is going very wrong. May I
advise you to look for employment somewhere not going down the drain?

------
MK999
just hire a mentor 1 on 1 dont throw away a good job to become a front end dev
or mobile app dev its madness

------
trentmb
I'll trade my front end dev job for yours.

------
maverick_iceman
look around yourself. How many of the SWEs you see came from a coding bootcamp
vs. a traditional CS background?

------
gaabytzu
Do what your heart wahna do!

------
boatymcdickwad
what is a PM? you're the prime minister?

~~~
moyta
Nah, PM stands for Project Manager, the person who coordinates & manages a
project to make sure it happens on time and on budget.

~~~
jdavis703
It's also used to mean product manager. OP should've spelled this out to get
better answers.

