Hello. I am 52, married with a 13yo and have a BFA in visual art. For years I have been a stay at home dad and earned intermittent income. But I may possibly find myself in the position of needing to earn significant, solid income and am interested in software development. I understand the job market is trashed right now but you can’t argue with 25% job growth/450,000 new jobs over the next 10 years (BLS estimate for software engineers) so it will come back at some point. But I need to know if this is a fool’s errand or not at my age. I’ve outlined what I perceive to be my assets and liabilities (below). Please don’t give me false hope here. If it’s not a good idea I need to know so I can maybe pursue more age-friendly opportunities in teaching, banking or HR (MUCH prefer software dev though). I don’t need to be able to work remote and am in the Denver/Boulder area.
Assets
- College degree cum laude. Yes, it’s in art but I did a lot of conceptual and/or technical work including digital video and photography. I’ve studied philosophy, aesthetics and formal logic as well.
- I also completed 3 years of architecture school and did well. God I wish I had finished because I do feel too old to go back and finish that at this point.
- I’ve been technical and taken things apart out of curiosity my whole life…tvs, computers, audio equipment, speakers, bicycles. I’ve also built my own Windows computers.
- I’ve built MANY Wordpress sites, customized code, created several websites from scratch. I have good understanding of HTML and CSS. Built my first website in 1995!
- I have self-hosted websites continuously for the last 20 years, so I am no stranger to everything that goes into that.
- My education in architecture and fine art has developed significant creativity with regard to solving problems and thinking outside the box. I can’t imagine anyone outside of art or design having similar training.
- Exceptional written communication skills.
- I don’t feel or appear my age. In fact most 30-somethings I meet seem older than me with regard to personality.
- I can spend the time to develop the necessary skills. I am perfectly happy to go through all of CS50, Odin Project, Full Stack Open and whatever else I need in order to kick ass at this.
- I live between Denver and Boulder. Lots of tech jobs around here and I don’t mind going in to the office (and might even enjoy it).
Liabilities
- My age. I am worried about it because I would be entry-level and that’s kind of odd.
- Denver/Boulder…is it too trendy here? Not the best for older tech workers?
- I don’t know if I will love it (pretty sure I could like it a lot though).
- I don’t want to work overtime. 40 hours is enough with the occasional late evening or weekend.
- I doubt I can go back for a CS degree. If that is absolutely necessary I could try to line something up online but it would be costly, take valuable time and probably not even be worth it.
Couple more questions:
- If I want this bad enough can I just skill-up until I am desirable regardless of age? I have some time to acquire skills. I could learn full stack web and if that’s not enough I could start adding languages, UX/UI, etc. until it is basically stupid not to at least talk to me about a job. Whatever I could do to level the playing field.
- Is web development the best place for me? It seems like that from what I’ve read but I am open to other tracks. Creating Mac/Windows/mobile apps seems more interesting but I will go where the best chance of success is.
- What about freelancing? How many people do that successfully? I would imagine age matters very little there.
- I am rarely 100% satisfied with apps I use on my computer or phone…as long as I had the skill I could have a lot of fun creating my own stuff, improving upon what is out there. This is honestly the most exciting prospect—being an inventor/entrepreneur but I realize it comes with the biggest risks.
This is an epic post I know but I wanted to get the most accurate responses and people need background info to do that. Any help is appreciated, thank you!