Hi. Is there any of you a mom working as a developer? I need your opinions please!
I was a sofware developer for a few years in my early 20s. I moved to the business analyst position then took a career break after having children. Now I am at the middle of 30s with two 5-year-old boys and want to get a coding job again. Is it possible? I started with Javascript course on FCC and I still have some sense of coding. I like coding. But I am not certain if I can compete the younger talented people to land a job because I used to work in this field and I know that the younger the faster and sharper you are when it means for coding. Really unsure phase to decide how to restart my career at this age.
I am not a mom. I lack children and the requisite equipment.
I am someone that became a developer at age 49, largely through FCC and other self-teaching. #ymmv I’ve worked with other developers that are moms.
Will it be harder as an “older” person? Yes. It is already insanely difficult to get the first coding job, that makes it a little harder. Is it impossible? No.
The coding world cares mostly about what you’ve done and what you can do. The job market doesn’t have enough coders and that doesn’t seem like it is going to change anytime soon. It would take a lot of work and probably more time than you’re hoping, but if you keep learning new things and building more and more complex apps, eventually the law of averages is almost certainly going to get you a job.
I know a few moms who learned how to code and successfully landing developer jobs.
The key to their success was plugging into a community and learning about companies that were welcoming of developers from diverse backgrounds.
When you are plugged into a good developer community and build connections you will learn about good companies to work for that are accepting and help you avoid those that will be ageist or prejudice against you.
My friend Bekah has a cool repo dedicated to moms in tech, you can check out.
Bekah is also a mom on 4 who broke into tech a few years ago and was previously an english professor.
Hey! I wouldn’t worry about it. In the end, you should always do what you enjoy. And if that’s coding for you, then that’s what you should do. I think @kevinSmith is right. Probably, you will have it a bit harder than some others, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Go for it!
