Change of direction: from sales to programmers?

Question

Career in IT

Hello.

I decided to radically change my life and finally give my time completely to what I like and am interested in, namely mathematics, programming and R&D.
Input data is not very good: 27 years old, all work experience: sales and trainings (worked for money, good salary). Behind the physics and mathematics of the provincial institute, 3 foreign languages, about a year of self-study: C ++, Python

Mathematics, programming have so far been just a hobby. But now I understand that this is what I want to devote myself to. Most of all I am interested in projects with a research bias in the field of Macnine Learning, NLP, cryptography. I am superficially familiar with these areas from Coursera, Udacity, Stanford courses and self-study.

First of all, I'm going to look for junior and trainee vacancies, and go to interviews to assess my level and compare with the level of requirements. As always, before jumping into the unknown, there are a lot of questions that can help a little to understand the situation. For a few of the most important, I would like to receive answers from a respected community.

1) Can past completely irrelevant experience and completely non-student age become an obstacle?

2) Will some crooked project be a plus? (For me, it's a matter of time: finish it and then look for it or start now)

3) Where can I find such vacancies other than hh.ru, Huntim?

4) What fork is adequate for a junior? Assuming I'm a very fast learner and doing well, how soon can I move forward?

5) How to prepare for an interview? I saw different posts on Habré, but not on C ++ and Python

6) Considering that I still want to develop more in the direction of R&D, which of the languages ​​should be positioned as the main one?

7) Maybe there is still some kind of minimum list of requirements, a checklist for a junior, in order to at least roughly understand whether it is worth spending your own and other people's time on interviews or still learn some materiel?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Was in a similar situation - 27 years old, moved from PM/Analyst to nlp/ml. The main advice is Do not panic :).
1) It's an obstacle, but it's more in the head. Just try.
2) If you can do it quickly - do it. No - don't waste your time.
3) In general, I see no reason to look in Russia. Search on odesk, indicate a small rate. Someone will turn up.
4) I don't know
5) Preparing is useless imo. Just keep learning.
6) If you really want to work in the areas that you indicated - mathematics. Linear algebra, a bit of functional analysis, necessarily probability theory and statistics. The language is secondary - you will not care where the matrices are multiplied. Either in python or C++. For nlp, python is better.
7) You already here decide on the direction first.

Answer 2

Last year, my teacher at the university in PHP reported an important fact that in QIP the main layout designer is a woman who worked as a judge before, and after all, before a judge, what experience is needed. She said she left the court and dumped into the IT world.

Answer 3

Starting to study programming at the age of 21, I was afraid of how old I am))) Before that, I was an accountant-economist. As it turned out, age is not a hindrance in order to do what you love.

Answer 4

Read my project - we specialize in these guys. Here are some articles on the topic:
Programming experience for the first resume
skillkit.ru/kariera/kak-poluchit-opyt-programmirov...
Tips for youngsters
skillkit.ru/interesnosti/6-sovetov-nachinayuschim-...
What to do with
skillkit age .ru/kariera/sedaya-boroda.html?utm_source=...

Answer 5

Inspirational story :)

Answer 6

You will not change absolutely anything by changing the service for sending SMS, because. the law applies to all providers, you will have to read "other nonsense" and prepare your site for the transition to changes to the new legislation. Of course, there is another way: hire a lawyer or get legal advice from the right organizations - you will receive professional advice and certain guarantees, but this, of course, is not for free.