Ask HN: Starting a career as a programmer in my mid-40s

Re:Ask HN: Starting a career as a programmer in my mid-40s by joelbluminator on Sunday November 07, 2021 @12:53PM (#29141713)

If I were you I'd try to combine programming with what you're already doing (finance/business). Like learn Python and how to extract data or something, thats easily added to your current knowledge. Then later you can learn some basic web development and build nice dashboards. There are some jobs out there for finance people who can program - That's what I'd go for if I were you. It's a shame to let all your experience go to waste by learning something like systems programming or android development, don't do that I think. The "How" is really easy, simply google/udemy/coursera/etc etc. But spend some time on figuring out What first.

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Re:Ask HN: Starting a career as a programmer in my mid-40s by thwllms on Sunday November 07, 2021 @01:11PM (#29141890)

Based on personal experience, I can't recommend this enough. My original background is in civil and environmental engineering; I discovered my love of programming after I'd been working as a civil engineer for a little while, automating GIS tasks. After that I fell deep down the rabbit hole and found a job as a full-time software developer at age 30. Now I'm back in the civil / environmental industry, but with several years of real world software engineering experience. It's paying off in a big way. I'm not the best programmer, and I'm not the best civil engineer, but I have more experience in both of those things than anyone else I know. Gives me a big leg up in a pretty niche area.

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Re:Ask HN: Starting a career as a programmer in my mid-40s by aurelianito on Sunday November 07, 2021 @01:00PM (#29141787)

+1.

Your experience is synergic with programming. Use it to your advantage. Learn a bit of python and begin solving little problems for you. Do it for a while and you will know how to program.

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Re:Ask HN: Starting a career as a programmer in my mid-40s by dcanelhas on Sunday November 07, 2021 @01:06PM (#29141850)

Indeed. I started as a mechanical engineer, writing scripts to solve recurring mechanical stress and thermal calculations. Then i moved on to robotics, then autonomous driving, now I'm making video games. Linear algebra, calculus and code is a nice combo.

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Re:Ask HN: Starting a career as a programmer in my mid-40s by fakeacct211107 on Sunday November 07, 2021 @03:22PM (#29143134)

Sound advice, but where do you find these hybrid jobs? Especially when it comes to programming, companies seem to evaluate you in one specific language/skill, and seem to have zero interest in the rest of your background and experience.

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Re:Ask HN: Starting a career as a programmer in my mid-40s by joelbluminator on Sunday November 07, 2021 @04:29PM (#29143682)

That's not always true. In a job board try playing with keyword combinations like Python + Financial Analyst/investment/trader etc etc. You'll see them. I was once thinking of doing the transition the other way around (from software development to market/financial analysis) so I know the jobs are there. Also - use your network and talk to your colleagues - someone must know someone who works in finance but does some/a lot of programming.

Here are some examples from a quick glance: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/2762895590/?alternateChan...

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/2786689624/?eBP=JOB_SEARC...

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Re:Ask HN: Starting a career as a programmer in my mid-40s by specproc on Monday November 08, 2021 @03:33AM (#29147202)

Agreed. I found my job by just searching for 'python' on a board for my sector.

The only reason I've been able to move into a coding job is because I have very deep domain knowledge in a pretty niche area and a bunch of other 'added value' that makes up for my relative lack of experience with any particular stack.

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