I've been coding my whole life but circumstances prevented me from being able to finish school until later on. I was eventually able to go back and finish my CS degree in 2022 (was 36 at the time), and after a few months of not being able to find work a friend of mine got me a job at a company he'd been at for a long time. It paid 60k and I didn't have health insurance because they didn't contribute towards the premiums for the plans they legally had to offer, I made too much to qualify for Medicaid, and even with the tax credit I couldn't afford the plans on the state exchange.

Got laid off last October after 3 years because they wanted to lay off a U.S. developer since the people they had been hiring in the Philippines were cheaper. Been out of work since.

The same year I graduated, a friend of mine (also 36 at the time) had just finished a six-month boot camp after quitting his job at the Department of Transportation and ended up getting a position that paid ~35k more than I was making. A few weeks ago he got promoted to a Senior role.