Awesome thanks Michael for the JavaScript and Data Structure info…
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I see roles all the time for HL7/Mirth for anywhere from $75K-120K … HL7/Mirth engineers
Where is this? When I search here in Oakland, I see 11 jobs listing “Mirth”. For “reactjs” I see 2k and for “react” I see “20k”. “angular” gives 13k. Even “jQuery” returns 7k. I see some “HL7” jobs but the vast majority of them don’t mention “mirth”, but do list other langauges.
We have to be careful with assumptions. Different job markets have different needs. Perhaps Michael lives in an area with a lot of health industry that seems to have an extremely disproportionate interest in Mirth. But that doesn’t mean that it is the same everywhere.
You see it a lot in coding forums, people trying to coerce people towards their pet tech stacks. I think we have to be careful about that. If the goal is to help someone get a job, without knowledge of their specific interests, strengths, and especially their job market, then we should steer them towards things that have broad appeal across as many job markets as possible.
In my job market at least, Mirth would be a dead end. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with it or that there may not be places where it is popular, but my goal was to get a job, so I chose one of the most popular languages on the planet and one of the most popular interface libraries there is for it. It may be a boring choice, and it may not me “cool”, but it got me a job. I can be cool in my free time.
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It’s nearly exclusively Health Care. There are not and will never have 1000 of jobs. It’s very niche which is why it pays so well for low skill JS. Once you are established you can either pick up a permanent position or freelance. I am seeing a lot more permeant positions than in the past and I chalk that up to the explosion in Telehealth. I would also add that HL7 is not exclusively Mirth just that Mirth is a very popular tool for doing HL7 due to cost.
See: https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Mirth&l&vjk=81c7815ee39be8ab
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We could call our company “Gray Matter”.
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I’m feeling a bit better about things… I spoke with some one who was a recruiter in the web development field(he has now changed careers) but he said the best way to get a job is to to get really good and put together a mind-blowing portfolio. He said that most of the portfolios he saw with candidates he worked with were surprisingly average or slightly above average at best and a great portfolio is the ticket since it will do the talking for you…Basically he said that even though you still need to get through the interview process, if you can WOW them with your portfolio, you increase your chances 10 fold…He also said what others have responded to me in that Freelance is also an option, but he said that you will still need an amazing portfolio due to the competition, but I kind of figured that…
That actually doesn’t surprise me at all.
When you think about it, most people build the same projects when they are learning how to code.
Clocks, calculators, weather apps, etc.
Those are great learning projects, but they don’t help you stand out when applying for jobs.
Since a lot of people add those same projects to their portfolios, then everyone just looks the same.
Recruiters have probably seen the same class projects thousands of times.
Totally agree.
Separate yourself from the pack and build projects that are different from everyone else. 
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Agree, one of the people I recently interviewed had built a mechanical clock and wrote code in two different languages to make it work. I was WOW’ed. Sadly, he never turned in his 3 page project which consisted of a login, list view of emails, and a WYSIWYG editor. The entire project was a very simple Delayed email sender. If someone came to us with a WOW React project that had at least a simple Nodejs+Mongo backend then they’d be a shoe in.
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Love that! I think i want to use that as a hashtag on any article I write from now on. 
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Count me in. You know we would be a lot cheaper too, since most of us are retired living on SS and pensions. 
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Thanks for the encouraging word. I’m 50 just finished the Google IT Support course on Coursera.org along with several IBM courses and doing this course. I never thought I’d be doing this with computers. Check out Coursera there is a lot there.
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Your courage to be out here and writing about it and stirring this meaningful and encouraging conversations already makes great impacts to others like me.
You are 55 and you are learning new with Driven4 Success user name.
I’m just over 40 and I’m lost and afraid with so many what ifs even though I want to learn, succeed and am tired of saying wows to others and having self pity in me thinking I won’t be able to reach anywhere.
Reading those warm, encouraging, thoughtful and meaningful replies from this community really is rebrightening the hope and wish that was fading away.
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not to burst your bubble . but a representative from google came to speak to us during the time when i was working on my electrical engineering masters. i didnt finish it due to certain circumstances. but anyways he mentioned that there recruitment rate is at .5% . yes not 5% but .5% . but the bright side is theres 100’s if not millions of companies hiring that isnt google. maybe google changed there recruitment scheme but this was about 5 years ago.
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Hello @Driven4Success, If you quit what you really love, it doesn’t make a sense to me. Maybe you should stop for a moment to really understand why do you learn in this portal?. if only because of what they say, you’ll regret it. You should use it as a trigger to prove your success, and remember they’re not ruled your life. Why are you limiting knowledge and Skill just for getting a job? many things you can do with your skills and knowledge. Open mind and keep digging inside…
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well.
i’m 41 now. the path for me is now just an adventure. i like the intellectual side of coding and because of this i’m here. i want to create some projects. maybe some extensions for opencart or magento.
but there is something i know and this is gonna give you enough motivation. the need for coding tribe around the world is on rise. and there is no room for ageism to excuse for leaders. they needed coders badly and this need is growing exponentially.
mobile apps, backends, api integrations, landing pages, themes, database managements. this list goes on. time is changing. they have to adapt and their cavalries are coders.
so when they decide to hire they cant decide by gender, religion, nationality or age. they decide by your github. by your showcase projects. by your portfolio website.
this is promising.
sorry for bad english. my mother language is turkish
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I hope you are doing OK. I think this was pointed out on the reply thread already, but I maintain a list of people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who recently got their first developer job, and you may find some inspiration in it.
Also, my friend just made a video about your post encouraging you to keep going.
Hang in there and don’t let anyone discourage you from pursuing dreams.
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I can add my own story, if it helps. I started at a local community college in my 40’s. I was very discouraged as I’m tied to this area, and there are not a lot of job prospects. Towards the end of my degree journey, I felt like I hadn’t really learned much – then I found this site. I think I learned more about real application development from this community than most of my courses.
I’ve been doing computer “stuff” since I was a kid, so I have a lot of general knowledge going into my degree. I got lucky that the same people who led my classes recognized some of my skill and at the same time someone retired. So I’m now teaching computer programming classes. Ten years ago I couldn’t even see myself in college, let alone doing anything with computers for work.
My point is, you never know where you might end up. You just need to apply at the right place at the right time. You never know when the opportunity can happen. But if you don’t try at all, you’ll never know. I personally found it helpful to maintain the attitude that I’m learning for the fun of learning. I find if I try to rush the process, it’s not fun and a lot harder.
I hope someone finds these thoughts are of help.
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I would not want a 90-year old operating on me… or anyone for that matter, but…
Any follow-up from OP? Any further recommendations for WHERE to look for work when you’re beyond your 30s, and this is a career change. Thankfully, I’ve been dabbling in coding for years already, and have worked in tech within a sales capacity, so I have a number of industry contacts, however I still see that first FT “real” job as a bit unattainable at this point.
The biggest problem I see is that most (if not all) of these online coding courses teach nothing but the language/syntax. I did manage to get passed a screener on one dev job, and took the assessment. Beyond having to look up things for Java, which I have no experience with, I did find it more difficult to think algorithmically. People who have studied CS at a good school know how to approach writing code to solve a problem (like in ANY real-world case). But these online courses just teach you some syntax, ask you to regurgitate it in the form of a project that is about useless in a portfolio, and you walk away still not actually knowing how to be a programmer, even if you are somewhat proficient in a particular language. Most software engineering jobs (with any respectable, knowing company) couldn’t care less about your language background in coding - it’s about knowing how to set up test cases to find a solution to a problem. FCC doesn’t discuss how to design test cases, or design algorithms with pseudocode, so you’re only looking at entry-level roles that are just editing html and css, or something, after finishing all this stuff.
I did find ONE resource (lost it now) for learning how to design test cases, and approach coding as you would in real-world work. But that’s it. Would love to have people link some better resources for learning what you actually need…
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The projects shouldn’t be regurgitation of the syntax of others. For example, if you do our cash register problem without looking at somebody else’s code, then you are practicing the sort of problem solving skills that you need to become job ready.
Granted, that itself isn’t really a portfolio piece. You’d probably need to move on to the backend challenges and projects and then eventually work your way up to making a full stack application.
Paradoxically, it’s hard to have someone coach you through writing your portfolio pieces. You definitely want some help doing starter projects, but to be hired in a job where the boss what’s you to write code of your own, you really need to have been writing code of your own.
I think the big advantage that someone with a degree has is the 4 years of practicing writing code for a wide variety of projects and contexts. But that’s still directed work to some extent.
I don’t agree that freeCodeCamp is focused on teaching you only the skills to get a job editing HTML and CSS. I’m not sure if you have completed the later Javascript certifications, but there is a lot there. Also, there are tons of examples of people combining freeCodeCamp education with other resources at their own personal projects to get a job.
Getting that first dev job is hard. It’s doable but you need to convince a company that you aren’t a bad risk.
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Hello! Driven4Success,
Even at 55 years old, you can keep continuing learning. After learning skills, you can freelance or do service-based business in tech fields. It’s about hope!
I believe that It’s not too late…
thank you.
Masum Billah
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