Hi, I am currently in my late 20s, move to the US 6 years ago for an MBA in healthcare administration. Then I kind of give up to do hair for quick money. Now during covid I feel like it isnt a safe and fun job to do anymore. I love math and science and I used to have a bachelor in Corporate Finance (but I didnt get it in the US). I do know how to build a website with Wordpress and Joomla and I really enjoy the process. Now I am thinking of learning code by myself, I dont have money to go back to school.
My question is: Will I have a chance to get a job without a certificate in this field, and is it too late to learn code at this age?
Please let me know if you have any experience of teaching yourself code. Thank you!!!
10 Likes
I got my first dev job aged 35 and my degree is in English Literature 
Thereâs some links in my profile to a post I made about the process and when I also talked about it on the FCC podcast - you might find those useful.
Good luck!
13 Likes
Hey there @hezzipham 
,
To answer your question: Ofcourse⌠Why not? As long as you put in the work into it, you can get a job in that age. You donât have money to go back to school? No worries, Self-teaching yourself coding is an option. There are A LOT of self-taught developers out there. So donât be scared.
3 Likes
@JacksonBates I listened to your podcast, there is a lot of helpful information. Iâm always afraid of applying for jobs required more than what I have. But you teach me that I should just go for it, with some luck I might be able to get a job.
You make it sound so much fun to be a software engineer and you give me so much hope for the future. Thank you 
2 Likes
When I was 18 years old I got into a university with a Software Engineering major, then I changed to Finance. I do not regret it because Finance teaches me a lot too. Now my family and friends keep telling me that should do the things that I am doing now. I actually have this secret idea for myself and working on it without anybodyâs support. I am pretty good at teaching myself, but sometimes it just frustrated to fix my own code :(( Finding a job without a degree might be hard, but I have no other choice. Maybe just try my best for now and then hopefully it will pay off.
1 Like
I went to school for business marketing but was unmotivated by the job prospects after graduation. Luckily I had taken a couple of programming courses in college and found a passion for coding. Iâve always loved building things as a kid and felt that same excitement. Initially, I thought about going back to university or attending App Academy, a coding bootcamp in San Francisco, but I didnât want to take on debt. Still, I was determined; I found The Odin Project (similar idea to FCC) and created a curriculum. I locked myself in my parentâs house for four months, studying 80-100 hours a week, and came out with a decent understanding of web development. I landed a job 2 months later at a small start up as the 10th employee. That startup now has 260 employees.
Learning to code can be frustrating, but the reward is larger than the pain. You have to go into it with a strong will to succeed and keep going. Software engineering has a history of people breaking in from all sorts of backgrounds and becoming successful. People care more about what youâve built, so having good examples online or open-source projects on GitHub is essential to landing a potential role.
Best of luck!
4 Likes
Will I have a chance to get a job without a certificate in this field, and is it too late to learn code at this age?
You should be able to get a job with some technical experience under your belt.
If you already have some experience using wordpress and Joomla, you should have a âhigh level ideaâ of what your doing. The biggest blockers wouldnât be your age or gender, but rather time and your ability to sell yourself.
For the most part, being older isnât a bad thing as âexperience is experienceâ. If you have experience in finance and heathcare, that gives you 2 things you already have âdomain experience inâ. As such if you apply for a job for a company that is related to one of these, you automatically have a huge advantage over someone who just has the technical skills. The key is getting enough technical skills as well.
Regardless of your current domain knowledge, you will still need the technical skills to
This is normal and to be expected. Writing code isnât easy. Donât think less of yourself it there are problems with it, the goal isnât to write perfect code all the time, the goal is to continuously improve the code you write so you can overcome any issues you have over time. Getting frustrated is only natural, but donât let it get the best of you as stuff will always be breaking or not working at some point. As long as you understand that and are willing to continue to take the challenge of âfixing stuffâ head on, then your well on your way.
Keep learning, keep grinding good luck!
6 Likes
I would recommend the book series of Head First, those are really easy read and nice projects to be done, either if youâre learning python or web development.
4 Likes
Hi @JacksonBates I feel just like @hezzipham and reading this comments is really encouraging. I like to program but I always considered myself bad but now I am determined to learn and generate income.
4 Likes
I got my first programming job while in my early thirties. I worked as a mainframe programmer for 5 years. I left the IT industry for about 13 years working a regular blue collar job. Then at the ripe old age of 48 I got back into programming again. This time as a generalist, back end front end, systems , whatever programmer for 5 years. I switched to working as a full time back end programmer with a major NYC financial/brokerage where I am now.
5 Likes
I always wanted to be a web developer but had so many excuses to not do it like money, gender, age, language⌠Reading your comment I figure that I can do it if I stop procrastinating, accept those difficulties and keep learning to overcome all the issues, maybe keep asking for help all the time 
Thank you so much @bradtaniguchi!
2 Likes
Thank you @albertogarciaanaya I definitely try that. I started here in FCC, I just finished the Responsive Web Design Certification (300 hours) in just 3 days. Now I am doing the required Projects. I am so excited to learn more and become more comfortable with code. And yes, I am looking for more information to learn out of FCC, so I would love to have more books and material recommendations.
I know right, we have to try to learn and understand code in every different way before we can say that we are really bad or just lack knowledge
YOU CAN DO IT!
YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
I love your story, love to work at a startup company!!! I felt like I have wasted my time since I started to learn code, 80 -100 hours a week is possible when you are determined. I will do that!
1 Like
@kennyaustin your career is really impressive, now I kind of see my future 
Everyone has a different path, but we all use tech as a tool right? I believed learning code is never the wrong decision.
We regret it when we decided not to do something we might love just because of how hard it is. This time, I will give 100% effort to work in this field.
Me tooâŚthis is really encouraging
Iâve been in a similar position to you, Iâm in my 30s and seriously looking to a career change, so Iâve been intensively learning web development - Iâve been doing courses on Udemy which are incredible value for money, and supplementing that with FCC tasks. If learning from code-along, project-based videos is appealing to you I can highly recommend Andrei Neagoieâs Zero To Mastery: The Complete Web Developer course, and then looking for other more specific courses if thereâs anything you feel you need to spend more time on. For instance, I wanted to spend some more time on Javascript, so I also got Maximilian SchwartzmĂźllerâs âJavascript: The Complete Guideâ. Good luck!
Your welcome, I would suggest the book
âLearning Web Design A Beginnerâs Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics by Jennifer Niederst Robbinsâ. I do like it.
1 Like
If you try to learn programming, web page design etc by yourself, please check out the home pages of different universities for the skills they teach for the subject you like to learn.
Collect information from multiple sources and make your study plane based on this information.
It is not enough to be able to create a web page . You must know much more. E.g. how to analyses existing code to ad a new feature. This requires an understanding of data structures, algorithms, programming techniques and patterns etc.
Becoming a good software developer is hard, by doing it by self learning is double hard.
But there is one very important skill you need in any job:
Working in a team, collaborate, lead, deliver what is needed not what you think is cool.
With the age of 30 and experiences in real jobs you have here a big advantage compared to young people comming directly from high school.
Build your new software skills around this advantage and use it when you apply for a job.
There is no age of learning. Just get start with freeCodeCamp now!
1 Like