Hi evincebal. I admire your perseverance and going with this path to get into development, don’t give up if this is where you want to go. You’ve got a great portfolio too!
We all have different pathways to get to it, I just want to share a bit about my situation if it sheds any light for you.
I’m 30 now and have been in your shoes before when I decided to switch careers into software development towards the second half of last year. When I left my old job, I primarily went down the self-taught route and building my portfolio, but on the side I was also volunteering for a non-profit that I was passionate about. There, I mentioned I could assist with any IT / dev related tasks, and they gave me a part time paid role and did that for some time. It wasn’t solely a dev role (I was also doing other random stuff and literally called to sort / fix anything electronic related haha) or paid a whole lot but at least in some tasks I was doing something semi-related and also learnt new things.
I also attended local meetups, and at one of them I met an IT manager. We kept in touch as I mentioned my situation and was open to job opportunities. One day he contacted and said his place was hiring and I went through the hiring process, and fortunately got the job, a junior dev role - which I’ll be starting in a couple of weeks time.
I agree ageism exists during the hiring process, and it’d be harder to get through the gates of standard HR screening. Networking and meeting connections in person so they can better understand your context, skills, experience and potential is one of the ways to gain a job opportunity. All the best!
Thank you for your encouragement! I’m happy that your hard work paid off when switching careers. Volunteering is a good idea. I reached out to a couple non-profits who needed to redo their websites. But they gave the position to someone else. That really discouraged me even. I thought to myself if I can’t even land a volunteer role, what hope do I have getting a full-time position? I have attended a lot of meetups too. But it was really draining since I’m an introvert and it gets tiring putting myself out there and talking to a bunch of people.
Anyways, I thank you again for your kind words and I wish you all the best in your new career!
There is so much demand for good developers I’d say you should have no problem finding a dev job. In preparation some ideas:
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find an open source project to work on. There are tons of projects out there with bad UI as the devs are more interested in features. Start small (really!) but then try to find something you can get your teeth into and develop your skills at the same time as having something you can demonstrate to employers that you’re competent despite no previous dev job.
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learning new technologies is all well and good but employers want to see depth in at least one thing. Choose something and go deeper instead of learning something new all the time.
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go to meetups. You’ll learn stuff and enjoy them, hopefully, but also you will meet employers and other devs that you can ask for tips on applying for jobs. During interviews it’s great if you can demonstrate your enthusiasm for tech, and saying you regularly go to meet-ups is one good example. (Along with github, stack overflow…)
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apply for some jobs now even if you’re not planning on moving from your current position. It will give you practice and you’ll get feedback to work on before you really want to switch jobs.
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if you don’t want your current role then don’t stay in it. Nobody will think bad of you for switching from a non-dev job to a dev job without sticking it out for a while. You can explain that it was just to tide you over while looking for a dev job. Unless you really want to work in the other team at your current employer, in which case it might be worth sticking it out while you continuously ask to switch.
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Find the right person to talk to in your current role about how to switch teams to a dev role. If your manager is open to it talk to her/him. Otherwise find a manager/senior dev in that team and start talking to them about what they want in a junior dev. Make friends there. Find out what they’re working on. Tell them you’re committed and want to learn the right skills so you’ll be able to be productive from day 1. Ask for extra work or example projects that you can work on in your spare time to hone your skills. Don’t just wait for a year to pass and turn up like any other novice, make it clear that you’re going to get that job and you’re going to be better and more committed than anyone else applying.
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try doing some work on Upwork.com or similar. Not for the cash but for the experience and confidence. Don’t aim for great money at first, just see it as practice. It’ll be quite different work, possibly, than a real dev job but again it will demonstrate to any future employer that you’re trying hard to get into dev work.
Good luck!
Hi, thanks for your in depth advice! Yes, I have been told to participate in open source projects. I do have a couple ones in mind that I support that I want to contribute to. It would be great practice for real world collaborating with other developers on the job.
You are right that I shouldn’t spread myself too thin. It’s easy to be caught up in being a jack of all trades to try to appear versatile as possible. But it’s better to do a few skills well than to be mediocre in many skills.
I really want to agree with you on your point about switching jobs without staying a while, but I don’t think I can. Because I’ve had HR employees tell me leaving a job so quickly can be seen as a red flag since it makes a candidate appear non-committal and are prone to “job-hopping.” I doubt many employers will buy the explanation that this current job is just a transitional job if I leave too soon. But maybe I’m wrong and I really want you to be right. Because while I am thankful for this job, I really don’t like it at all. As I said before, one route I want to take is to work up in the company to the dev department since I have a leg in already. But I don’t want to stay there too long either. I will eventually want to look elsewhere after I’ve worked at my current company for a while.
You’re working in a call centre. It won’t take any convincing for a tech manager to understand that it’s a transition job.
Sure, HR folk are right that a short employment isn’t as good as 1yr+, but you only have to convince ONE company to give you a dev job, after which it doesn’t matter anymore. That’s why you should apply to jobs now. Even if it doesn’t get you a job straight away, see it as a process from which you learn and progress towards a job.
Contrived software metaphor: Just like you build software in small iterations, don’t wait a year to release yourself; release early and iterate! 
Yeah, I suppose you’re right. If I do nothing, I won’t get another job for sure. But if I try, I might get one. Anything to get myself out of doing call center work. lol. Thanks for putting things into perspective
…Strapline?
Is that the headline part where most people put their job titles?
I’m talking about the bit just below your name. LinkedIn calls it the “HeadLine”. Click on your “Profile” then click on the “Edit” pencil icon and you should see it just under your name and above your current position.
First congratulations on having a job with an engineering department and lateral move potential.
I know it’s not what you wanted but if you show your potential then you can gain valuable experience and the ability to become a developer!
Also I’m not here to say age is just a number but age is only a factor in considering a candidate’s ability.
Objectively the only way one can determine if you can code is if you are given an assignment and can do it with little to no guidance. I’m over 6 years your senior and I’m older than my manager but because I am passionate I have learned more in my spare time than necessary and also come from a family of intuitively technical people.
Although I still needed 9 months to find a job I proved I could do the work and that is sometimes all you need to do.
On this note befriend anyone in engineering during lunch and speak their language. ask your manager if you can take on some tasks after your primary duties are filled. Stay late and work hard but more than that, try to gain insight from your co-workers.
You have a job now and don’t really need to invest more energy into meet ups unless it energizes you. Best of luck. If I can do it so can you!
Ps I forgot to say that even though you want to have the ability to do what is assigned without hand holding, if you are having difficulty understanding the company’s tools, scripts or library you should always ask.
Again congrats on the job and chin up on the age. It is just a number if you genuinely love coding enough to struggle through the adversity
Hi, thanks for sharing your experiences! It definitely sounds like your employer saw your passion and it payed off regardless of your age. Thank you for your advice as well. I do intend to talk to the engineering team when I get the opportunity to. Despite not liking my current job, I am thankful for it and the opportunities it can open up. It is a very good company as well and it goes out of their way to show it cares for it’s employees.
And no, I would rather not go to any more meetups if I can help it. They drain me more than anything else lol.
Hey, your portfolio is good, you’ve already learnt a lot. Keep up doing projects and while you have a job, you can be more relaxed because you have a steady income. Try to socialize at the company, maybe you will have lunch with any of the devs and they’ll mention that they will be looking for a new dev because somebody is leaving, etc. But on the other side, don’t rely on that and apply to other places. There will be places which will discriminate against your age and it will be hard because they will not tell it to you directly in the face, but, on the other hand, would you like to work with people who discriminate against others based on age? So think of it as an experience and keep going in the direction you want to go. Be open to possibilities. It will be tough but you’re tougher and you’ll build more toughness as you move ahead. And most of all, it will be all worth it when you find the job where you feel good at. Imagine how this will be like for you.
Yes, I am trying to talk to people in my company. Everyone there is really great and friendly. Pretty soon, I will talk to the engineering team to network with the developers. That is a good point about not wanting to work for a company that discriminates because of age.
Thanks for your kind words and I’m glad you like my portfolio. Cheers!
Hi,
I checked your portfolio and it is really good. I think everyone has mention everything that I might say but just don’t give up man, perseverance is key in this journey.
Just a couple of pointers regarding your website. As a matter of suggestion of course, I would advise that you move your social icons that you have at the bottom of your page straight back to the top, also I’ll swap the “about me” section and put my portofolio instead.
Best of lucks in your journey.