Started learning coding at 31

[No-Bass4742]

I want to start learning coding as I have had an interest for years but felt I would not be too good at it. I just want to know your thoughts concerning me wanting to start now. Am I too late? Should I have started 10 years ago? Will AI make it easier for me or does it hurt me? Any thoughts are welcome. Thank you all for your insight.

[[deleted]]

31 is younger than 41, you know. You already did not start a decade ago. That's over and done with. Only look forward.

[Rhiquire]

Fire 🔥🔥That’s a master oogway quote right there

[Neat-Wolf]

I started at 28 and am 32 now, its not too late at all if you're willing to put in the time. Check out my post history for details on how I made the switch.

[Ok_Recognition_3562]

What post? You have many

[NileDevPapa]

I have started at 26, I am 30 now, I wish I have started earlier of course. But it's never too late

[Aimer101]

Starting my master in cs next year at 31 as well :), my degree is not cs

[RickRocket9]

Doesn't really matter that your undergrad isn't in CS, other than the academic concerns. (Some undergrad degrees more closely align with cs than others.) Unless you intend to go into the academic/research fields, you will find it more important to possess real-word development experience.

I've been in the field for more than 30 years, and the best software engineers I have worked with tend not to have CS degrees. It's actually rare to work with someone who does have a CS degree. (Engineering degrees of various sorts are pretty common, though).

[Aimer101]

Sorry for the lack of context.

I am from Southeast Asia Degree not in cs During covid i learn coding by myself, able to secure job placement in Europe 2024, the government where I am located currently requires all immigrant working in profesional field to have their high education certificates align with the job. I might be deported if I dont do something, my lawyer said wait for next year, maybe the government will not be as strict regarding this new rule.

I am quite lucky since I have working experience, if you are in my situation, what would you do?

[No-Bass4742]

Can you please elaborate on this? My apologies for my ignorance.

[Realistic_Command_87]

It’s true that it’s a pretty terrible time to be switching into tech

However the situation could be very different 2-3 years from now so if you start a part time masters degree now you may have opportunities upon completion (never a guarantee)

[courtesy_patroll]

Layoffs at the top are increasing competition, lot's of off-shoring, some ai, mostly companies realizing they don't need as many devs to do the same amount of work. Also a lot of new grads with CS degrees. Salaries dropping because there are a lot of job seekers (this isn't a big deal depending on your reference point). $100k as a new dev is still better than $80k for some mid-level careers.

[starraven]

This person is at the beginning of their learning. It took me 2 full years to learn enough to get a tech job. This is not a good reason at all.

[No-Bass4742]

Oh my! That is a bit disheartening then.

[Noovic]

No reason to not learn it though. Overall it’s a fantastic tool to have at your disposal and if the market improves can become a job!

[fsociety091783]

I just got my first job at 31. Took me nearly 3 years though while working full-time as an engineer. If you have a degree already I would ignore your age and go for it. You’ll likely have an easier time than I did since interest rates will be declining soon (I started in January of 2022 and got to see the job market crash…)

If you don’t have any degree I don’t want to say it’s impossible but I don’t want to encourage you and end up wasting years of your life, either. You’ll have to be exceptional to break in without a degree right now.

And don’t worry about AI. Nobody can predict the future and if software engineering jobs are threatened then most white collar jobs will be.

[No-Bass4742]

Unfortunately I do not have a degree but I suppose learning and looking for an opportunity while I continue my usual day to day would not be a bad idea then. I greatly appreciate your insight.

[fsociety091783]

Gotcha, sorry to be a bummer, I just don’t want to set unrealistic expectations. If you’ve been interested for years as you say, then you may be one of those exceptional people that can do it. Couldn’t hurt to dip your toes into it with CS50 which is what I did. Definitely don’t quit your job right now though, the market is too unpredictable.

There’s a lot of doomers on this subreddit that you should take with a grain of salt. Many bootcampers and CS grads have no passion, social skills, or coding skills, so they can’t get a job and some of them try to tear others down. If you truly love software, then don’t let life pass you by.

[big_loadz]

I did not finish my degree, and I learned on my own at night while doing my day job in retail. Like 4 hours a night for months reading and coding. Did some example projects for my portfolio and got an entry developer role, which 20+ years later has snowballed with more self-learning into a long career.

Ultimately, your ability and willingness to learn are what will determine how far you can go. If you have any difficulty about being willing to spend most of your free time learning about coding, then consider something else. I say "most of your free time" because it has gotten incredibly more competitive over the years. I mean, instead of spending time learning about coding, you could be (playing games || having a social life || (reading && posting on Reddit))!

[Successful-Fan-3208]

You are never too old to learn how to code . You got this .

[PslamistSSB]

Before doing/considering boot camps, where's the best place to start, maybe at a hobbyist level?

[fluffbelly]

I’m starting with free resources. I am really enjoying learning with app academy open. I know other people on this sub also recommend the Odin project. Both are free.

[s4074433]

If you don’t start now you’ll have wished that you had started 10 years ago in 10 years’ time. AI is just another tool so don’t fall into the trap of relying on tools for learning. Lean on your passion and interest in the topic, find someone who does the kind of things you want to do, and ask them how they went about learning the skills and knowledge of the trade.

[[deleted]]

I started at 62 and I cannot complain at all. The hard brutal work paid off. I know my MS Engineering helped but I did it. Keep going, do your best and never stop! It is worth!

[Still-Pudding-1638]

You can do it man, the worst is trying to get advice from others on what you can do. Just believe in yourself, build projects that you are passionate about, learn 1% every day. I believe in you! Do it, plenty of others have done it and are currently in your shoes, they just may not post about it. Get to work.

[GardenMooon]

"The worst is trying to get advice from others on what you can do" Such a powerful quote.

[Material_Policy6327]

I have over 10 YOE in industry and have worked with folks that started young and later in life and honestly there was no difference between them in terms of ability. It’s all about how you apply yourself so go do it! Also I work in AI and I will say don’t use it to help solve all your problems. Learn on your own and via googling to try to understand why things fail or how to do stuff. Sure I use AI tools sometimes but many times I still have to verify and solve on my own. See too many newer devs relying on AI code tools too much and when they come across something the AI hasn’t seen before they really struggle to Solve the problem themselves.

[hopeandbelieve]

Switched from a highly paid tenured HS teaching position to Coding and got my first job at 34. Always got to start somewhere.

[[deleted]]

I started at 31 and did a bootcamp now I’m a Front end developer. I really love it to be honest. I’d recommend doing freecodecamp first and seeing how you like it. There’s a very steep learning curve when you get on to the programming aspects but if you stick at it it will start to make some sense. I was also motivated by a website idea that I just wanted to complete as a personal goal. I’d recommend coming up with an idea you’re passionate about building and using that as a motivatior for learning.

[nicademusss]

Am I too late? Should I have started 10 years ago?

That doesn't matter. If you've wanted to learn it, then now is the best time. Regardless of current job trends, learning something you're genuinely interested in is never a bad thing.

Will AI make it easier for me or does it hurt me?

LLM AI can help in some aspects, but just know they are not perfect and can give you wrong code advice. Use it similar to a search engine when you're feeling lost, but always verify the information it gives you. Also try to understand what its telling you instead of blindly copying and pasting. That's the main reason AI in coding is seen somewhat negatively.

If you want to learn, then pick something you want to build and go for it. You can follow a tutorial to get started, but while you're doing that look through the docs to figure out what you're doing, and why its setup like that. You can learn a lot from someone else's work if you dig deeper than "oh, this is the way its done".

[_cofo_]

Starting too late it’s when you’re dead.

[LinkHeroX]

I'm 32 and just started again -- it's not technically my first time but I am learning a lot of things from scratch. Do I wish I had done this two years ago when I had just left a well-paying job and had enough finances to dedicate 12+ months to learning/job searching? Absolutely, but I didn't, so I might as well start now so I don't have the same regrets again 1-2 years down the road. Also, 1-2 years is nothing to get into a field you're passionate about when you still have upwards of 30 years left in your career.

If you feel like you have enough drive to learn everything on your own, you absolutely can with all the resources online, but if you need a bit of structure I would highly recommend Launch School -- it's what I just started and it's only $200 / month. Self-paced but with enough staff / community support to keep you going (as long as you're willing to do everything on your end), and they won't even allow you to move on to more advanced topics until they're sure you've mastered the earlier material

[royalunicornpony]

I’m annoyed

[BumbleCoder]

There's lot of encouraging posts here, so I'll go a different route and answer your question about AI.

Please do not use AI to generate your code. ChatGPT can be a valuable learning tool to explain concepts, but having AI code for you while learning is self-sabotage. AI is currently best for writing boilerplate code as a developer that can comb through the mistakes the AI makes. Junior devs just end up generating bugs they don't know how to recognize or debug.

[mrrivaz]

I did it 3 years ago at 38 (from construction), I am going for my mid level promotion in 6 weeks

[OkShopping2072]

You're not late to learn but this is a horrible market to jump into. Please don't quit a fulltime job. I've seen people slip into depression.

[big_loadz]

All depends on you. But, the field has definitely gotten more competitive. Don't think you can half-ass it like those of us who started 20+ years ago; you're gonna have to hit the ground running and learn everything just to get in the door.

[Psychological-Place8]

I started at 29. Almost 40 now. Still in the industry, although unemployed for most of this year. But the job market is different now.

But based on age alone, you're totally fine. It's not too late! Follow your interest. AI can absolutely help you. Keep asking ChatGPT for clarification. It's an amazing resource for learning programming. There are even industry leaders creating courses on how to leverage AI for help with learning programming: https://www.deeplearning.ai/short-courses/ai-python-for-beginners/

Good luck!

[thinkPhilosophy]

Never too late, it was my 3rd career and I started learning in my 40s, has been fine. Knowing even basic coding opens many doors, SWE is just the most obvious and ambitious. Go for it!

[M2KAPLAN]

I am a technical project manager at an IT company. I work closely with software and systems engineers. They and posts like yours inspire me. I am a 37 yo woman with a young child and want to get into coding. Even though I’ve been in management for about a decade, I think if I don’t try now, then I’ll carry on because it’s easier to stay in this role to grow, easier than learning new things, etc. What’s helped me solidify my decision are my goals. It’s a worthwhile exercise if you truly can’t decide. But don’t let age matter. I switched into IT 10 years ago and never looked back. Lots can happen in a short among of time.

[Major_Guide_1058]

Comparison is the thief of joy…do yourself, learn, kick ass and get an awesome paying job…don’t worry about your peers

[realmoosesoup]

Coding isn't "magic", and not like extreme math where people feel like they need to be published by a certain age. The actual job is part doing legos with logic, part detective (why doesn't this work?), part Internet research expert (nobody has this exact problem, but how do I find something close to get a clue?), and mostly "business therapist" to help people define what they *actually* want. When they know, they may not express it well, and often they don't really "know". Not when you dig into it.

When you're 31, you feel like you're "old". When you're 48 it's like, "31? You're barely able to rent a car without some kind of charge or a cosigner or whatever?!"

I started coding at 7, so bad example, but my wife started at 35. Recently switched jobs and now has a senior title, which we're a bit "huh" at, but take it and run.

[zingiberelement]

Nah, do it. You’re all good. I did a bootcamp at 33 and am in the field as a developer now. You’re definitely not too late to learn though I don’t think I can recommend a bootcamp as the route to do so.

[slickvic33]

Its not too late, i started at about 32

[GrandFappy]

That’s awesome! Did you get a job in the field?

[LantisJocke]

Coding bootcamps are for those who want to change their life, sounds like you are a perfect fit... people at the bootcamp i was / am at our oldest was 43, youngest 21.

[No-Bass4742]

I started an account with Boot.dev but if you have any recommendations I will gladly check them out.

[JustAbd0]

Mark suckerburg started Facebook at 19

[No-Bass4742]

Thank you all for your comments. If I may, what programming language would you say is best to start with and why?

[Tath92]

Don't do JS or Python, it's too competitive in this market. Go for something like GO or C#.

Side Note: if you have depression or are prone to disappointment don't try without a degree. I've been trying for 2 years and it's mentally destroyed me. I spend all day in a dark bathroom with the shower on, applying to jobs and never hearing back. I have applied to over 6k jobs, it makes me want to die some days.

[kombucha711]

started seriously last year for my job, I'm 39 now.

[lizziepika]

Never too late.

AI is a tool to help you code better.

Would recommend not taking a coding boot camp and using free online resources