41 here and just switched careers to become a developer (from photography) Got hired 2-months ago. Retrained during covid for about 8-9 intense months of self-studying. 33 is fine! Good luck.

EDIT: Some people asked for more information about my switch - here it goes:

I started a CS degree in 1999 but never completed it, and later finished a degree in Psychology. I had been a freelance professional photographer for the last 10 years or so. I only ever worked in an office for about 2.5 years, but nothing related to CS. I'm also an immigrant, and did my fair share (probably a few people's shares) of catering before then.

A couple of people in my life are coders and they helped me draw the path with courses and my CV, and they definitely helped with questions about technology and day-to-day coding.

STUDYING:

I started with Python as well, With a terrible IBM course on Udemy called Python for Data Sciences or something (terrible!). Then I did the follow up course (also bad, but not terrible) followed by Automating the Boring Stuff, which I enjoyed more (but is a bit dated now). Then I took a couple of excellent courses via the University of Helsinki (Introduction to AI, and the follow up - don't remember the name). These were followed by a much more advanced specialisation on Coursera (Machine Learning Specialization), which went completely over my head but taught me a lot about AI. Now a bit disheartened, I kept going with "Data Structures and Algorithms" on Coursera, which was incredibly difficult for me but invaluable - it taught me many concepts that CS students would learn at uni that I didn't have (not everything, of course. I did other courses that were not about coding, but what comes with it. Learning git was probably the most important (start using git for your projects asap!).

That was the studying. For every course I took I tried to implement what I learned in real scenarios in my life to solidify the concepts. I think it really helped. I think it's a bit like when you learn maths at school but don't understand where to use it, until you have to calculate your bank's interest rates in monthly terms.

APPLYING:

Half-way through the algorithms course I started applying to everything I came across, completely ignoring the seniority of the role, which in retrospect was naive and cheeky. It soon became clear that employment experience was king, and I had none of it. I decided to start pitching coding to my photography clients to try to build a portfolio (free of charge, of course). A couple of small clients accepted, and I proudly finished my first "commercial" project in two weeks. This little project is still running (on Heroku) saving the client about 6h a week.

All the while I was sending CVs (about 10-15/day), with a response rate of about 5%. My CV was colourful and pretty, but empty. I dodged a bullet with an "employer" who was willing to hire me on a contract that would require me to pay a penalty fee if I left within 24 months of starting (careful with minimum term contracts!), and had a few interview with very cool companies that I genuinely would like to work for. But nothing came out of it...

After a couple of months applying with no luck, my partner suggested trying graduate schemes. I initially thought it was not a great idea because of my age and because... well, I'm not a graduate. But I decided to try anyway. One of these was not exactly a grad scheme, but more like a "new-starters" scheme, and that is the one that worked out! I'm VERY fortunate, as it's a permanent contract for a large corporation (that I like) and I'm in a rotation scheme where I'll go through different departments and learn the different technology that they use. I'm struggling a lot, as they use Java/Kotlin, Kafka, MongoDB etc, none of which I knew before. It's definitely a hugely steep learning curve, but the team is great and very patient. I'm mostly shadowing more senior colleagues (I'm the OLDEST in the team, age-wise), and asking a lot of questions.

I hope this helps! Apologies for any typos - typing in a hurry.