Is it possible to retrain as developers after 30 without a specialized higher education?

Question

Career in IT

Hello. I am 32. Currently I am working as a systems analyst (collecting business requirements, setting a task) in a large company. I have extensive experience in applied programming at the level of creating various utilities, executable scripts (Bat, VBScript, AutoIt, PS, Bash, Python), microcontroller programming (AVR GCC). There is no specialized higher education. There is a humanitarian (it is not clear why received) legal.
Not so long ago, I realized that programming is probably the kind of activity that I can engage in with interest even in my free time. Most interested in the development of web applications in JS, Python. I plan to develop myself in this direction in the near future, but consciousness suggests that the most effective development would occur when immersed in a real environment. However, the current financial obligations will not go anywhere from me, and switching to a junior somewhere means losing money at least twice.
Question: is there any way to retrain, allowing you to jump into development from analytics without a specialized education and without losing wages. Does anyone have similar experience?

Answer 1

no loss of wages

Not! Changing the profile of work clearly entails a decrease in wages. This is not a rule, so there may be exceptions. To minimize losses, you need to become a very good programmer.
Create yourself an airbag for six months and forward to the Junes.

Answer 2

I'll put in my 5 cents
Everything is possible.
Truth.
I have an IT education, but in the future, a series of dramatic events in my life.
Well, in general - it did not work out.
At the age of 30, having a daughter in the 1st grade, debts on loans, not having a financial cushion and not having a home, I nevertheless realized that it was impossible to go on like this.
Yes, I had a ton of humiliating interviews.
I was told a million times that where you are already at 30. You are no longer able to learn.
But at first they hired a data analyst at a bank, then everyone was laid off there.
Now I work as an outsourced tester and I see that they hire testers at 35, and developers from scratch at 45.
Yes, at first they lived literally from hand to mouth. Now it's better. At least there is no such hopelessness. The company constantly sends for trainings, certifications, hackathons, and so on.
Questions about age disappeared by themselves.
There are courses on C# on the net, for example. Conducted by Evgeny Volosatov - he himself is no longer young and his students are also different. He says that those who want to program just do it. And age has nothing to do with it. And it is.
In general, think for yourself, decide for yourself.
Not so easy.
But probably.
And it's worth it if you really like it)))

Answer 3

Honestly, I don't understand why. On the contrary, many developers in the course of their careers aspire and go into analytics in order to apply their skills without focusing on trifles.
At the age of 30, it is high time to understand that there is no perfect job and that every profession has its pros and cons.
The image formed around the development is only such and is not smeared with honey here.

Answer 4

If this cheers you up a little, I can say that my former ship commander was able to pull it off (I was a former Navy officer, but quickly realized that I had stepped on the wrong path and returned to my favorite computers from childhood), captain of the 1st rank, well over 50 ... and the commander of the ship is also a very special treasure and way of consciousness ... we had an old computer - a Celeron for the Millennium, on which we drove Diablo in our free time from the watch and printing reports. Cap got carried away. then, out of boredom, he began to cheat - there you could open the files of your character and wind something up according to his parameters ... through this he began to tinker and study. I gave him the book. Cap was bored - a promising and digging first officer pulled the service for him. Then I quit and left. Then he was very surprised to learn that, having retired, the cap became interested in programming so much,
But it’s true that there was a very strong airbag in the form of a military and, moreover, a ship’s pension ...
But if a person after 50 could, you can definitely after 30)) a question of organization.

Answer 5

is there any way to retrain, allowing you to jump into development from analytics without a specialized education and without losing wages

Certainly. Get a job as a junior developer for 40-60 thousand from 10 to 5. From six in the evening until one in the morning, work at McDonald's for 30 thousand. If you try, then in half a year at McDonald's you will grow to a manager and you will also receive 40-60.

Answer 6

There will be no change of specialty without loss. You have to prepare for losses. The family needs to explain the reason for the change of specialty. Losses will be either in money or in free time.
In my free (obviously, outside of work) time, reading, watching, thinking and doing pet projects - I'm not original in this. There is no need to have any illusions about programming. Many developers have 12-14 hour workdays, especially for freelancers: 4-6 hours of coding + time to find new orders + time to communicate with old / new clients + time for organizational activities + time for self-marketing. Office programmers work a little freer in terms of time, but I'm sure that after work, many people still pin projects for themselves or work on small orders.
I want to voice four more options.
1. I already know several cases when a person went to piece work or 1/4 of the rate or part-time work at the main place of work and increased the number of hours to study a second specialty. Or he got a job in a new place for an hourly job or a quarter of the rate for an internship, or even for the position of a junior. I did it myself. Very efficient.
2. Weekends, holidays and vacations are not for repair or leisure, but for the accelerated implementation of their projects. I know a bunch of people who work without vacation, including scams with dismissal / reinstatement, just to get compensation and continue working. I don’t see anything difficult in spending vacation on an internship or self-education. If the new job brings pleasure, then you can expand your own thoughts so that the new job is considered a vacation (self-motivation, auto-training, self-hypnosis - call it what you want). Haven't you noticed that 8 hours of unloved work drag on for a long, long time, and 8 hours of your favorite activity (hobby, hobby) fly by unnoticed?
3. Administrative leave. He, of course, is not paid, but if an interesting business has turned up, then you can try, touch, feel, evaluate your feelings, and if you are not sure, return to your cozy warm nest at your old place of work. Administrative leave is good because it can be arranged at any time without the coordination of vacation schedules and cannot be denied. So as soon as an interesting case turns up, you can dive headlong, arrange an intense dive for yourself.
4. Try to combine positions at the old place of work. Ask the manager to give a simple job from the neighboring department of programmers. I myself met marketers-programmers, analysts-programmers, managers-programmers. They are just interested. At the same time, the salary will be the same, and may be increased - as agreed. You can also persuade them to send them to retraining courses, the organization will pay for both the time and the courses - you won’t lose anything.
Any other options for a smooth transition?
Whoever wants - will find 1000 ways , whoever does not want - will find 1000 reasons (Confucius)

Answer 7

> programming - this is probably the profile of activity that I can engage in with interest even in my free time, which was
what was required to be proved. This is now programming for you, it's so funny, a hobby.
And in the end, you will have to deal with the same analytics + coding, because in programming, collecting business requirements is almost an integral part of the work of programmers, especially if you work in serious companies with long-term projects where business rules are constantly changing.
As a result, you will be the same analyst + delve into a bunch of shit ... code.

Answer 8

Start freelancing without leaving your main job

Answer 9

Engage in coding at your leisure, take python + django for example and try to develop, and then you can change your profession. I doubt that there are very many developers with a diploma in this world, at least in this country.

Answer 10

You can gain experience yourself by implementing your own projects. There are many tutorials in the process of studying which offer to implement some educational application. Make a couple of such projects, then write something of your own from scratch according to invented requirements, in order to learn how to write not from a textbook, but to look for answers yourself and fill your hand, and you can go middle. In most companies, employers are interested in your ability to solve tasks. If you can talk about your completed projects, implementation difficulties and how you solved them, and demonstrate the necessary technical skills, then they will not care where you got this experience.
I saw how people came to seniors right away, before that they either freelanced or did their own projects.
PS I assume that you have worked in a related IT field and are familiar with development methodologies and principles of teamwork. Sometimes this is also an important factor. Allows you to ensure that a person quickly joins the work. But if you were an analyst, then you probably know what is there and how.
PPS I myself moved from automation to development at about 29. Prior to that, he also worked as an analyst for a while. At first, I didn’t pass several interviews, but I remembered the questions and improved my skills in these areas. After the problem with specific work experience, there were only a few companies where they wanted me again only for automation. But usually if you pass the technical interview normally, then there are no problems.

Answer 11

There is a good friend, about your age, who had previously graduated from medical school, who had worked for a long time in a field completely unrelated to medicine and not directly related to IT, suddenly realized that programming is his, and something needs to be done. I finished courses in Java, poked around for a year in companies with my resume, stumbled upon some kind of open-space development, worked - gained experience, got a job as a junior, then after a year somewhere I grew to middle, because I plowed intensively.
Those. it all depends, most likely you won’t be able to immediately get to the midfield without completed projects. The experience is not personal, just shared a story.
PS: Location - Kyiv.

Answer 12

In your free time, it’s better not to freelance, but to cut your projects. After some time, there will be a more or less decent portfolio, which will certainly help in finding employment in the desired position. Unless, of course, projects are interesting and solve real problems, and not crafts from textbooks)

Answer 13

Quite. Upgrade the theoretical HTML5/CSS3 stack on your own, for example, on
htmlbook.ru , JS on learn.javascript.ru , python using a book (maybe there is something theoretical on the net, but I'm not a pythonist, I don't know).
Then (or at the same time) wiggle almost on
https://htmlacademy.ru/
www.codewars.com
Make two or more projects (something fully practical, albeit without animations), upload to hosting (maybe even free, if you're lucky) or in the github (for reference in the resume).
Go through a dozen technical interviews (the very fact of passing is important, after which to work out unanswered questions, unless of course you consider them trendy). And then luck will smile with some attempt.
A bit on my own, even having 6 years of experience in the web field (both front and back), when the need came to change jobs, I passed several interviews very weakly, which pretty much lowered my self-esteem, but as soon as I found an employer (by my standards prestigious, one of the information agencies of our Motherland) and I was accepted, I realized that I was not weak, but previous interviews were clumsy, testing not analytical skills for the implementation of the task, but memory)) If there is an orderly understanding and desire, then practical experience will come quickly if the employer believes in you.

Answer 14

However, the current financial obligations will not go anywhere from me, and switching somewhere to a junior means losing money at least twice.

And eat a fish and not choke on a bone? Depends on what your current salary is.
In large companies, there is a practice of hiring employees, with training for themselves, provided that the employee works for a couple of years for the company.
Might be worth looking in that direction.

Answer 15

In general, it’s possible, without losing a salary, it’s impossible, because on your own or freelancing you can’t pull yourself up to the level required by companies

Answer 16

Yes.
If there is programmer thinking, then everything else will follow.
But it depends on what exactly you want and what you are willing to give up.
You can go to freelancers, as they advise here, and you will, like millions of others, deal only with cheap orders and compete with Indians for a bowl of rice. More money now. But growth prospects are very small.
You can go to a firm, to juniors, under the tutelage of experienced specialists (for this reason, sharashka offices, where there is no one to learn from, are not suitable for you). Less money right now. But much more prospects for professional growth.

Answer 17

A person does not want to work for 50% of the salary, but he is offered open source for free. Brilliant!

I did not write that I did not want to work for 50% of the salary, I wrote that I could not work at my main place of work, receiving 50% of the current salary.
With a part-time job or a free schedule, I am even ready to work for free to gain experience. Sometimes things can be hard to figure out on your own. The solution may lie on the surface, but the lack of experience forces you to go somewhere in the jungle of documentation or on stackoverflow.

Answer 18

If the point is that you want to learn JS, then I will say that I know from my own experience that it is easy to learn it in six months - a year. But... both CSS and HTML come in here. If you do not have at least minimal knowledge, it is better not to go anywhere.
In fact, why move right now? You can completely, and completely sculpt medium-sized projects and make money on them (such is JS, yeah). Then, having gained experience and a name, you can go to a reputable company, etc. Or you can do something ingenious (like mrdoob - three.js) and then calmly go to a reputable company, losing almost nothing.
But - alas - it seems so only on the web. In other areas... hmm, do projects and build portfolios.
Bottom line: you can lose almost nothing, except perhaps time.

Answer 19

Any self-respecting developer has from one to several pet-projects, on which he tests interesting technologies, methodologies, etc.
You don’t have to think here, you have to do it. Set a task, decompose it into elements, solve the elements, assemble it back like Lego into a working project. The path is thorny, the rake will be collected decently, this is a valuable experience.

Answer 20

Yes, if you're into programming enough.
It is the programming itself, not the money.
That is possible.
If your salary is now much lower than the salary of a novice programmer, then yes, it is possible.
If you're lucky (now there is a huge shortage of personnel, even beginners are paid a lot), then yes it is possible.
But in my mind - no, at least six months you have to seriously sag in salary.

Answer 21

I want to join the question and supplement it.
Ok, without specialized education, you can become a programmer, and you can become one by learning on your own projects, etc. Further, most likely, it will not be possible to jump over a junior, and for some time, depending on the level of self-training, for six months or a year, you will approximately need to be a junior, and if everything goes well, you will become a middle.
Actually the question is: what about the senior and / or lead programmer, team leader, architect, etc.?
In general, it is clear that everything depends only on ourselves, the question arose because looking at vacancies on xx is not junir (there is usually quite vague, like we pay you a penny, it is desirable that you could at least know something =)) periodically I see very clearly described requirements in the form of a specialized it education, but somewhere it’s not very clear, but as I understand it from the description, what is meant by U, and others, even those who have, say, 5 years of experience as a programmer, will not be considered !? It seems that, for example, some foreign large company will immediately watch Bauman \ MGU no, ok further =)
Or does it seem so to me?

Answer 22

I am also 32 years old, got a job as a junior for food. In the asset is only an incomplete higher education not in IT-specialty. But for a family man, of course, the option "for food" does not roll.

Answer 23

Good afternoon, I’ll be brief: I have such experience and it’s from an analyst to developers without losing a salary, but I can’t give a recipe, because. it all depends on your particular case. If you are interested in something specific, then write to me by mail or skype (contacts in the profile).

Answer 24

Yes, even at 70, there would be a desire.

Answer 25

If you want to change your job profile just because you like programming, then I definitely do not advise.
this is the same as that a person likes to work in the fresh air, but this does not mean that you need to change the profile of work and go to work as a janitor?
still need to be aware of the line between work and hobby

Answer 26

Even in times of crisis, programmers are in high demand.
Highly.
They take everyone.
One of our best specialists is generally a geographer by training.
If you can't do it, then you're doing something wrong.
Now they're all rowing.
Another thing is what you want:
And who needs a clumsy at the price of a specialist?
At least six months will have to reduce their requests.
And here you are more than lucky. Now there is such a shortage of specialists that in just six months your salary will return or even exceed.

Answer 27

A person does not want to work for 50% of the salary, but he is offered open source for free. Brilliant!
There are no such options for not having the qualifications to get a job for the salary of an experienced developer. Although there is one option - to lie about your qualifications at the interview. Let's leave out the marital aspects. If the company is not related to programming, then it can scan, but is there any point in going to such a company.

Answer 28

Yes, if you have an analytical mind

Answer 29

jff.name/odesk-how-to