Has anyone successfully started their career over in their 30s?

I know lots of people who have started their careers over in their 30s. My mom, for instance, went to school to become a respiratory therapist. My dad was in his 30s when he learned to be a tool and die maker. Both of them needed formal training.

I've hired people who have switched careers by going to dev bootcamps, but their situation was different because they hadn't had a period of downtime. In general, though, I love hiring career switchers. They've demonstrated the ability to learn and adapt rather than just let momentum carry them on.

As someone who hires software engineers, here's my perspective on this question:

> -Will tech co’s ever consider hiring someone like me?

Based on your description right now, I probably wouldn't hire you. You sound like you are directionless. I love mentoring new engineers and cultivating their growth, but I need them to have the focus and the drive to do that growth, and the description you have here doesn't paint a picture of someone who would likely be successful at that.

However, if I were to see the resume of someone who spent their early 30s directionless and then figured out what they wanted to do and took the serious steps to do that with a record of setting ambitious but reasonable goals for themselves and hitting them, along with developing the beginning of the technical skills needed for the role, I'd be really excited to consider them.

I suggest you hire a career coach to explore your options; you're younger than you think. I wish you the best in figuring this out.

Yep -- I graduated grad school at 34 and got a series of amazing jobs with incredible people over the last 8 years. I was a complete pile of poop until 25, and slowly crawled out of my bad habits from 25-30, caught some ambition at 30, managed to turn it into an advanced degree by 34. Hell, I dropped out of high school and, 5 years later, still managed to fail my first year of undergrad.

In hindsight, it was a natural "1% better" progression. I stopped hanging out with bad folks, got out of a junk relationship, got into a good relationship with someone who encouraged me and was more conscientious than I was, started exercising, meditating, studying, taking measured risks, practicing, and keeping track of my accomplishments so I had good talking points when pushing into a new opportunity. I also have to acknowledge the "home court advantage", because I stuck near my family and friends until I moved to the west coast for my first big job after graduation.

Believe me, I still feel like I wasted the years from age 16 to age 25, but I no longer feel like I've wasted my entire life.

Yes there is hope.

I started college at 34, took 6 years to get two bachelors and a masters. Now I am a hardware engineer at a big tech (FAANG) company. I was an intern at 39 years old. That is not to say that you should go back to school. I'm just using myself as an example of someone that started their career over.

So to the first and fourth question the answer is yes. The others can only be answered by you.

If you look at this moment 10 years from now, you'd be surprised how early it is for you.

Eric Yuan founded Zoom at the age of 41.

David Baszucki was 41 years old when he created Roblox with cofounder Erik Cassel, who was 36 at the time.

Stan Lee created his first hit comic, "The Fantastic Four," just shy of his 39th birthday, in 1961.

Samuel L. Jackson has been a Hollywood staple for years now, but he'd had only bit parts before landing an award-winning role at age 43 in Spike Lee's film "Jungle Fever" in 1991.

I don't know how many of these examples you need, but all I can say is you can ignore the past. Do what you need to do, have some faith and just look forward.

I had a modest success when I was 19, struck a gold as an early employee and got rewarded nicely, quit the company, droped out of the school and started to create small side projects. Then when 4HWW book appeared I started travel around the world and just enjoyed the life, drink beers and did all the digital nomadic cliche stuff long before the term become well known.

Then my 30s showed up. Money long gone, pasive income from my side projects dried up as I was not paying much attention to them. At that stage I was living in 250 square feet appartment with my new girlfriend, had about 50 USD in my pocket, resume consisting of some small random project, zero team experience during past decade and idea that I might become farmer after all. Then one day my GF showed up and told me that in couple of months we are going to have a baby.

Well, what can you do, right? Big tech was (and probably still is) out of question, but I was happy to work with startups and just build the resume, going from random line programmer to lead developer within few years. At the end, nobody cares what you did 15 years ago, current experience is what matter.

I am in my late 30s now, things turned out great after all. Got two kids, girlfriend became my wife and I am leading mission critical projects for international banks both as an architect, tech lead and consultant.

There is no sure and simple way in turning things out for better. You might get lucky, you might get not. Take your time and think about what you want to do, just be sure that you can always start again, just don't give up.

I see these posts on hackernews quite often. I'm assuming some it is due to cultural differences in certain parts of the world because to me these questions silly especially for someone in their 30s. Maybe if you were on your 60s or 70s these questions would seem more reasonable to me.

I restarted in my late 30s, now late 40s I've my own SE business and have team members and it's non-stop opportunities.

And I'm just one of many I know that have changed careers or direction in 30s, 40s and 50s. I've read about plenty who have done it later in life.

IMO and IME, If you want to do something, and you have drive, desire and believe you can and you want to, go for it, don't let age, disabilities, gender, or other people stop you.

Twice. At 31 I left the Automotive field to start working in IT. It was a low paying government job without a lot of applicants. I started college at 32 and got an AA in IT. At 38 my state legislature shut down my agency and my wife and kids moved out. I lost everything in resetting my finances and digging myself out of the hole she created.

I had spent the past few years of my IT life learning PHP and at 39 I landed a job as a developer at another state agency. Not only was it a career reset, but an entire life reset. I turned 40 with absolutely nothing. I'm about to turn 44, and am flirting with 6 figures between my state salary and my side gigs. I have a savings for the first time in my adult life and a stable home life.

it's absolutely possible and I didn't even try very hard.

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/plane

I only know people who have changed careers in their 40s, sorry. ;)

I'm a university instructor now having dropped out of the programming field about 6 years ago after 20 years in it. I have a lot of 30-something students in CS.

"Where do I begin" is a great question. I'd ask you, "What do you like doing?" If you didn't know, I'd start showing you different careers and you'd categorize them as "no" and "maybe".

If you know what you want to do, Google how to get a job in that field. Then do those things.

Caveat: beware of student debt! Do the math on if the career is worth it. (Some careers can't pay back the cost of the training and you end up paying for life.) Try to get grants and shop around for less expensive accredited online schools, verifying their value.

I'd also recommend that you choose a lucrative field that you genuinely enjoy. If I weren't teaching, I'd be working in GIS. (I'm going to start training for that.)

Every day is just a day later. It'll be a gift to your future self. It'll be hard work, but you can absolutely do it. No better time than the present!

You totally can. I've taken multiple right-turns over my 'career' (I'm now 51). I think it's a myth to believe that you're stuck in one path, and TBH I think most people now won't have the same job for a long period (when I was at school, I knew plenty of people who thought they'd have a job for life in a particular trade or profession).

However, I've been self-employed since 1/1/2000. There's NO WAY I would be employed by a company full time now unless they were well off the beaten track. So I don't have job security, but that has allowed me to be multiple different things over the last 20 years, and I'm enjoying the freedom and interest of what I do (and I'm better at programming (Python) and music production than I ever have been). I've bought and sold cars in the meantime, and also written a couple of books and taught guitar.

I think the main thing is to play to your strengths, not the strengths you think you should do, or that other people will want.

And there is no such thing as wasted experience. If the chaotic startup was as bad as you say, there will be plenty of stuff you'll have learned from it - even if it is "never do this, EVER!".

Late 20s, but yeah, made the change into tech. Was a government analyst beforehand. I hate tech, but the crash of 2008 happened and I got into the data center and it was good enough.

Know several folks that made a change too. A parent went back to school to get out of engineering and into teaching. Became a professor.

Family friend went to law school at 40 -- she's now a judge in GA. Know a couple of folks who did law school early and then got out; one became a priest, the other got involved in government.

Had a friend who did a PhD in Theoretical Physics at UCLA and then went to Canada to teach; he's now a full-time cheese maker. He went hard on Insta and networked and has grown his business. It's hard work but he sounds satisfied, and his fresh cheese like queso fresco are delicious.

Another friend who was a NOC manager who moved to rural WA, married a local, and got involved in the local RotoRuter / sump-pump business. Literally a shitty job, but he makes his own hours and makes almost as much money, while meeting people and living on his terms. Being rural means hunting and shooting on his own land, him+his wife built a half acre garden, etc. Dokie jokes notwithstanding, I ponder if I should make a choice along those lines, since he's done at 5pm sharp, and the worst parts of his job wash off easily...

My $0.02 -- do some of those career inventories, either online or via paid local groups. I did one when I got out of the military and their predictions were, 10 years later, fairly accurate IMO. Talking about wayyyyy more than just an online MBTI test, too. But figure out, somehow, where you want to go, and then worry about picking up skills.

"- Where do I even begin?"

With logic:

- Pick a goal (AKA a destination)

- Find a map to achieve that goal (AKA a Roadmap)

- Ask a question regarding the above two points, to a search engine, such as "Roadmap to becoming "

For example, perhaps it's "Roadmap to becoming a Civil Law Attorney" or "Roadmap to becoming a Web App Developer"

If it's the latter, here's a good resource: https://roadmap.sh/

If you intend to educate yourself, search for "Resources for

Yes.

You can absolutely remake your career in your thirties. You can even do it in your forties, and I suspect we'll see people in their fifties doing it too.

We just don't live in a world where everyone gets a job at 22, stays in that field and job for thirty years, then retires with a pension. Tech moves too fast, and macro economic forces basically necessitate that workers become flexible. Gig work, or 2-3 year duration contract work, is going to be the future of most employment.

If we accept that, then the idea of changing your career at basically any age makes sense. The anxiety you're feeling comes from unrealistic expectations - that you'll have a stable career, chosen at 22, from which you won't depart. Not only is that untrue in today's world, it's also profoundly boring. I can't imagine doing the same thing for more than a couple of years; I'd get so incredibly bored

(Disclaimer: USA-centric advise)

I advocate the formal education route here. Figure out the least expensive path to getting yourself a technical undergrad degree. Meaning a BS in Engineering or Computer Science, from an ABET-accredited university.

For my BigTechCo, you are not going to get hired without a technical degree. Any Engineering degree with some Computer Science emphasis will work, or straight Computer Science. This assumes a software engineering role. There are other technical disciplines, of course, but you are likely to need a graduate degree. An internship will be the best route to getting hired full time.

Your age will not matter. One of the best engineers I worked joined my company as a mid-30's intern after finishing his second undergrad. His first undergrad was non-technical, second one was technical. He also had a healthy GitHub and spent a lot of time doing hobbyist programming before taking the plunge into formal education.

If nothing else, it sounds like you have a lot of experience in what not to do. And for school, you should have a serious advantage on your fellow students in terms of time management and social skills.

I did mechanical engineering undergrad, then started and almost finished mechanical engineering grad school but dropped out and got a job. Then I started studying programming at night, then co-founded a startup with some friends, and quit my mech eng job. After the startup flamed out, I went to another startup. Throughout the whole time of startups, I continued studying programming and especially started dialing in on computer graphics. Now I'm a graphics dev at Unity. This whole switch from mech eng to graphics was all in my 30s, and has taken about 9 years, I'll turn 40 in 2024. It's not easy, and there are a lot of challenges. For example I'm basically a junior graphics programmer as I enter my 40s--which sucks. But when I think about it, there's basically nothing else I'd rather be doing, so that's cool.

The general thing I've learned is: there are no short paths, only long paths. Figure out what you want and start the long path to get there, because there aren't short cuts. How to figure out what you want? Well that's a long path too.

I worked in food service for like 10 years, followed by 7 years as a licensed massage therapist. During my time as an MT, I broke a metatarsal, and while I was able to work through the recovery, it wasn't lost on me that working with your body (vs your brain) has some downsides. A slightly different injury would have meant months of not working. I knew I needed to get into a field where I could work through a more serious injury.

The nature of the work meant that I often had 1-2 hours breaks in my schedule. Sometimes a slot wouldn't get booked, or someone would cancel. So I started learning to code, first Ruby on Rails then JavaScript. I took a couple of freelance clients, but didn't really start looking for work until I was 35. By then I'd been hacking on my own for almost 4 years.

Now I'm 40 and my title is Principal JavaScript Engineer. It's only really been like 5.5 years of working full-time in tech, but I love what I do and I'm damned good at it. I'm so grateful this worked out, because I _did_ end up having that hypothetical worse injury in 2021. Between that and the COVID pandemic, if I had stayed in massage or (worse) food service, I would have been seriously screwed.

> Is there any hope for someone like me?

Yes

> Is there any reasonable path to starting over?

Yes

> Where do I even begin

Pick a starting point. I can only speak for the software world, but the fundamental principals are generally the same regardless of your domain or tech choices. Pick a popular language and just start learning to build. Keep building and keep learning until you are able to recognize that you've reached a level of basic competency.

> Will tech co’s ever consider hiring someone like me?

I mistakenly assumed that being self-taught would make it harder to sell myself, but the opposite has been true. I'm not saying getting that first job wasn't challenging, but in general, I think my story makes me an attractive hire. Software development typically involves a lot of autodidactic learning, so someone who taught themselves is doubly prepared.

The first job is hard to get, but if you aren't picky and you try hard, you'll get it eventually. It's worth it. Once you're in, you're in.

I just went through something similar. As a result of my (then) undiagnosed ADHD, I failed out of college three times, couldn't hold down a decent job. Early on, I stumbled into a good gig as a game programmer and did that off and on for a few years. Because I didn't know then that I'm autistic, I got myself into some situations and ended up self-sabotaging my career and wrecked my entire life. Ruined my relationship with my boyfriend, along with most of my friends and I lost everything. I moved to a new city and started over.

I managed to figure my shit out (and get medicated) and found a decent menial corporate job. Over the next 2-3 years I sent out hundreds of applications for boring enterprise programming because programming is the only thing I've been moderately successful at.

Worked my way up to assistant manager at the corporate job and immediately, deeply regretted it. Job applications increased in desperation, but no interest from anyone that seemed legitimate.

There's no moral about perserverence here, I got stupid lucky. A startup found my resume on Indeed and emailed me out of the blue. I had just recently updated my resume to include every skill I was even passingly familiar with, and they picked up on my experience with electronics.

Now I am more or less a R&D engineer. I develop hardware and firmware for current and new products, innovate new types of hardware and generally get to dick around and explore whatever field I like.

This kind of role has been the secret hope in my heart of hearts since I was a kid. Something I'd always assumed was unattainable and never let myself think about too much.

Needless to say, I never expected to get here, but I couldn't be happier.

I don't really have any advice. I got here through sheer luck and the ability to seem like I know much more than I do. I massively impressed during my interview and my varied skills turned out to be precisely what the company needed at the time.

I padded my resume with every skill I thought I could confidently bullshit my way through. Total hail Mary, but it worked. Dunno if I'd recommend this strategy, but I was desperate

ETA: I got the new job just before my 30th birthday. Most of the disaster was in my late 20's. I still feel like I wasted all of my 20's and I don't know if I'll ever be okay with that. Just have to move on

Yes. My wife became a nurse in her mid-40's. She had to go back to college to make sure her prerequisites were completed, then she had to apply to, get in, and complete nursing school. She discovered there were all sorts of scholarships that she qualified for that greatly reduced the financial burden.

She's an awesome nurse.

You can do this.

To be honest, your biggest limitation is going to be your mindset, not your age.

The fact that you can't see a path forward for yourself and using phrases like "execs who had no interest in leveling me up" (hint: it's your job to do that) and "I was a moron", does not bode well for your chances.

You're going to have a hard time getting hired if this is the attitude you project, and you're going to have a hard time improving yourself with the negative mindset you seem to have adopted.

I know it is cliche, but you need to adopt a growth mindset (Google it, it is a thing)

The specifics of anyone's path will not be repeatable. Nevertheless I'll share specifics and a general conclusion at the end. 10 years ago in my late 30's I had destroyed my previous career by being out of the industry for too long. I was living off less than $20k a year and lived in the poor area of a poor city. I was lost and then heard the following challenge, "YC is harder to get into than Harvard". I had no real coding skills at the time and the chance of getting accepted were near zero.

I created a youtube video because YC's application asked "what have you hacked lately" and I had no answer. Because that video's audience was expected to be one or two people and I didn't care about the number of views, the DIY-video was authentic. I put a lot of time into it out of respect for YC as an institution. No one would put that much effort in to their first video since it is usually a throwaway. But so many people surprisingly watched it that the hack idea transitioned to an actual product and then company. That alone has netted me $1M+ in addition to Youtube paying me for views (about 1million views).

At the same time I released the youtube video, I taught a class at a local tech space just for the joy of it. I was totally incompetent but believed that someone in the process of learning a skill can teach effectively from the perspective of "here's what I found confusing". A manager from a local tech company walked into the tech space one day and asked around if anyone knew with experience in the framework/library I was teaching. They mentioned me assuming I must be an expert. 10years later I still contract for that company and netted again $1M+.

So three takeaways:

1) I had a north star so to speak. I never got into YC but just trying for it lead to a purpose and direction.

2) If the gig jobs are keeping you above water then just work on something that you enjoy and that is hopefully useful, and do it without any expectations.

3) Remember your network. The only reason I shared a link to my Youtube video was so that it wouldn't have 0 views when YC looked at it. But it turns out one of those people in my network cross-posted it to reddit and it changed my life. I now live in the rich area of a rich city.

Twice since 30. I screwed up my entire younger years, went back to University after 30 to get a degree in Electrical Engineering and worked hard during university. I was hired on as an engineer making semiconductors for one of the largest analog semi's in the world. During the pandemic, I decided to start yet another career in another country.. Now I work as a technical electronics expert in the automotive industry...

So, yes.. It is very possible to do this. Like most things in life, you will have to work hard and make sacrifices.

I'm 45. I run a small ISP. It's a dying business, which will be dead in maybe 7 years or so as prices in my geographical area drop 10-15 percent every year.

I started an agri commodity trading business in 2015 (anticipating telecom going down in the future) which did quite well for a while. Covid years were ultra bad. And the market instead of recovering has gone even worse now. Many small companies are closing down (2 of my clients this month).

Learnings from 2001, 2007/8 were to turn to education in a down cycle. I had anyway not completed my undergrad college degree. I joined one in data science. Found some problem areas for my existing clients could be solved with data science. Registered a new company last month, and this week got my a miniscule seed funding (debt).

Things are not great but they're still looking up for me. I do not consider myself skilled at anything except maybe relationship building. I too feel that I've faked a lot by just being there. I would suggest you leverage your existing experience, join a MOOC, network with people - it'll take a while, maybe a year or more, but things will work out.

I'll leave you with this cliche - luck is when preperation meets opportunity. Be prepared.

I am in my late 30’s. I had been teaching at the high school level, but left in June. I had/have complicated feelings about exiting that profession, but I knew I needed to commit or I wouldn’t leave.

I immediately began asking everyone I knew if I could do an informational interview about their professional lives. Often, their first hand experience helped me know that a specific path would be closed or undesirable for me (which is very helpful), but I always closed with something to the effect of “knowing what you know about my background and interests, do you know anyone I should talk to?”

This was a critically important question in my journey because it planted a seed. Even if my friend/acquaintance/former colleague said ‘No’ in the moment, I got a number a great follow up emails.

For those secondary connections, it also helped to ask for a personal introduction via email rather than just contact info. “Hey, Bob - this is my old friend G. He’s interesting to blah-blah-blah. You two should connect sometime”. The secondary contact was much more likely to engage vs a cold email.

I probably did two dozen calls/Zoom meetings with people between July-Aug.

Eventually, this led me to an opportunity at a small tech consultancy. I almost doubled my salary, improved my benefits, and have a substantially better work/life/stress balance. I probably wont stay in this position forever, but it was a solid win for me and my family.

The advice I was given and repeat here: “you wont get a job from your friends; you’ll get a job from the friends of your friends”, so start connecting with and talking to everyone you possibly can (on LinkedIn, Facebook, at parties, everywhere possible).

My best friend was thoroughly unhappy in a research gig. So she took out a massive loan and went to med school. It was a STRESSFUL period for her and her family. She's out now and makes 10 times her previous money and is a fair bit happier at her job.

My wife was a store manager, wanted to slow down for family, took hr courses and is now an hr manager.

So there are success stories in fairly radical career changes.

On the other hand it sounds like you want to stay in the field, just get some traction? I work for a big tech technically in technology, and would hire "someone like you" depending largely on other qualifications and aspects,especially on something adjacent - I. E. (spit balling) if you have a decade of average or below average technical experience, you might make an above average incident manager, release manager, service delivery manager, etc - depending on other skills and circumstances. If you are willing, diligent, detail oriented, have good comm skills, have good troubleshooting skills, or any combo of above, there are jobs with upward mobility (not saying it's trivial finding them).

I started over in my 30s. Here's what happened generally:

1.) Graduated with a degree that had very limited options post-graduation 2.) Worked dead-end jobs 3.) Got tired of said dead-end jobs, and started teaching myself Linux and AWS 4.) While employed at the last dead-end job, I got LPIC-1 and AWS Solutions Architect Pro certs 5.) Used the certs to get an entry-level Linux System Administrator/AWS SA job at a startup 6.) Worked my butt off for a year at the entry-level job, and then applied for a job at AWS (in support) 7.) Got job at AWS, which I'm still at

I went from making like $35k to 6 figures in around 4 years.

Find something you're passionate about, and go about learning it. For entry-level jobs, certificates are often a good replacement for experience (at least to get hired). Once you have your first job, focus on meeting people and learning as much as you can. And then pivot.

You won't ever know how good you are unless you take a leap. Only reason I thought I was good enough to apply to AWS is a recruiter reached out to me cold and I gave it a shot.

My wife just graduated from nursing school at 44 years of age. Plenty of her graduating class were in their 30s, 40s and 50s. She was a social worker until we had our first child - she's been home with the kids for 15 years. There's plenty of hope: decide to do it and let nothing stop you.

Yes.

I was 30 when I took a major step back to reevaluate. I had some positive professional experiences that I was able to use as building blocks, but I was severely underpaid and underchallenged. I was on the road to nowhere, and certainly not retirement.

I gave myself a year to explore new things and not be an employee. I traveled, lived outside my home country for the first time, learned about startups, taught myself new tech, explored small business ideas and went on a lot of long walks. It was me time and it was glorious.

When I came back to the working world, I found I had a pretty radically changed perspective and I pivoted into a tech career. I have built it up over the past 7 years and now am in a fantastic niche!

You are never too old to redefine yourself and the world has no shortage of problems to solve, but a huge shortage of people willing to really solve them.

I was an engineer and then I went to law school. There were tons of older students in law school looking to change their careers, from housewives to Ph.D. grads. In intellectual property, it is not unusual to find lawyers whose prior careers was an engineer or scientist for many years. I've seen a few who graduated law school in the mid-to-late thirties, early forties and still go to big law, some eventually becoming partners.

I wouldn't go to law school unless you really want to do it, but the point is there are plenty of people out there looking to change their careers all the time. Some are more successful than others in achieving it (due to luck or other reasons), but it is not as uncommon as you may think it is. It's never too late. Good luck.

In a word yes. I worked in the film industry for 20 years from 20-40. The hours were killing me. My wife and I moved from Vancouver to Barcelona. I got a crap job at a call center. The company had courses in excel available. I took those. I then applied internally for a business analyst position. After getting that I learned SQL and JavaScript from LinkedIn learning and YouTube. I applied for a Security Analyst position at a different company. Got the gig and have since learned python and am working as a SOC analyst. I 44 now. Never had any higher education for the film gig nor the analyst jobs. I went to school for audio recording and have always had a way with computers.

I moved from (rail) engineering to finance (tech work) at 28. The first job was a bit of a disaster so I really got going at 30ish if that helps. I also was a moron for stating as long as I did at my medium engineering firm.

I am gay and a bit of a late bloomer so I didn't have kids, a partner or an overly abundant social life to stop me really working at it...

I think there is hope. I am on 6 figures in fin tech now.

I started with small companies: you (a lot) learn more, they hire more easily (less HR people requiring things the actual team don't care about) but the money is not normally as good. I'd recommend the same.

I restarted mine at 41. I was lucky to have saved money, but I just walked out of my 25+ year job with a 2 week notice. Decompressed for a year living off savings, and went from hardware to software engineering. Still engineering, but radically different tasks: I went from designing memory architectures (boring as hell) to writing web and mobile apps. (I also went from working with creepy old dudes to more exciting younger people.)

It took a lot of therapy and coaching and crying and some medication, however.

You probably can't do this alone, so definitely get a therapist because it sounds like you are depressed.

I was stuck in a dead end job in my late 20s, did the 2 years in a community college and 2 years in a "real" college thing, and began a career as a computer programmer when I was 34. It's actually easier to do in your 30s because you're more mature.

A good friend of mine left his career as an auto mechanic and became a CPA in his mid 40s. He had no trouble finding work.

You can get federal student loans as a second degree student, and some programs are exclusively offered to students with an existing degree (Accelerated Nursing for example).

You are younger than you think.

I taught myself to create websites after 30 and have made a decent living and career from it. I may struggle with burnout and lack of motivation from time to time, but that really isn't a problem of restarting a career after 30 as much as it is a personal issue with juggling priorities.

After 30 I taught myself to code HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and build Wordpress themes. I spent 5+ years at a multi-million dollar (US) ecommerce company in which I was part of a small (5 dev) team that built a ecomerce cart and inventory system from the ground up (admittedly I was a small player on that team for the first several years). From there I went to a local marketing agency and built out custom Wordpress sites for client.

Throughout all this time I worked on my own side projects and freelanced for small clients.

I took several months off during COVID, and went back to work at an agency building WP sites for clients. I still Freelance, and work on personal side projects.

I don't earn FAANG $$, but I don't live in an area where that is necessary. I make an excellent living for where I live, and it all started after I was 30.

EDIT: To clarify i SWITCHED careers after 30. I had gone to school for Finance and Economics, and came out of school into Financial and Investment sales, then into banking. I did it for 7+ years, hated it in the end, and learned to code so I could build a website for myself, then switched careers when I realized I could actually make $$ building sites.

I had BS in Math, MA in Education, 2 years of Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, and I was a math teacher for about 5 years. Around 31 years old I became a "full stack web dev" and have been happy ever since.

I did have background in programming (various WordPress work, some personal learning at PHP, minor projects like a 2D game for myself). I discovered I was able to do it after my wife finished a half-year full-stack bootcamp during which I kept helping / answering all her questions. So I realized I could do it too.

Definitely, I was a college professor through my mid-30s. I spent 3 years as a stay at home father, and then built an iOS app startup. The startup wasn't quite financially sustaining, but I bootstrapped my iOS app work to become a professional software engineer just as I was reaching 40. I developed in the Apple ecosystem for about 5 years and then migrated to cloud services. I am now a data engineer and very happy and fortunate to work for an enthusiastically Clojure-friendly company.

I was a mess most of my 20s.

Got the cheapest, fastest BS CS degree I could from an affordable State school while working menial jobs from ~28-32 (mid-late 30s now), had a few crap internships and have been mostly employed (at times well compensated) since--writing code and working in adjacent roles and with related skillsets (Ops type crap).

I've worked with bootcampers and self-taught types too-it's 100% on the individual.

The practical skills are almost entirely acquired by curiosity and experience (job related and personal experimentation).

I'm new in my career, but I've done lots of interviews and I personally really like to see/hear about the latter, even casually, FWIW.

With that said, make sure you have the energy in the tank to do it, and commit to it. I spent a lot of my reserve doing this and couldn't do it at this point in my life again (e.g something like a Grad Degree or Med school or a legit career change with a requisite re-skilling would be difficult for me again, if not infeasible).

If you're going to do it, mentally commit, and move forward relentlessly and do not stop, stutter, or hesitate.

EDIT: Frankly, if you have passion for working in "software roles" broadly and let your interest (I'm not using the silly "p" word here) carry you, you'll often find you're better in a lot of practical ways than folks just putting in the bare minimum in your average role at $AVERAGE_CORP.

I didn't start over at 30, but I did start my first career around then!

Our stories sound familiar. I dropped out of grad school, delivered pizzas, dropped out of law school, worked a menial job for awhile. Before I knew it I was approaching 30 and I could barely pay my bills.

If you've got no idea where to start, consider taking a job as a recruiter. I doubt you're interested in that as a career path, but in that role you'll gain a HUGE amount of insight as to how the whole hiring process actually works, as well as a ton of information about what jobs are out there, what the day-to-day looks like for someone with a given job title, and what your resume would need to look like to get that job.

That's the path I took, anyway. I recruited for a year, plotted out a career path, and five years and three (progressively better) jobs later I had the exact job title that I'd set out for. Now I'm on to the next one :)

Getting a recruiting job should be pretty easy. Just make a list of all of the third party recruiting shops in your area and hound the absolute hell out of the hiring managers. Most recruiting managers I've met are "Always Be Closing" types who love high energy and tenacity. Call them once a week and pitch yourself. If you find one who says they're hiring, be friendly but don't take no for an answer. Tell them they're making a mistake. Tell them to give you a chance. Push through "no" until they hang up on you. One will take this as a sign that they can't live without you.

Good luck!

Yes. I'm living proof. I'd always played with coding, and freelanced a little, but was mostly a public school math/physics teacher until just over thirty. That job, in that district, was not sustainable for me, so I put resumes out listing all the things I'd played with over the years and someone took a chance on me and I've been at it since, slowly but steadily adding to my skills and taking on more responsibility. I'm not running companies, but I do lead a couple successful teams now.

One thing that possibly helps but also causes confusion is that I look much younger than I am, so if I only tell potential employers about my tech job history it lines up, visually, with an assumption that I started out of college. If they happen to learn my age they do a double take. Hasn't caused issues, but it's weird.

I've heard from others on here that, fair or not, it can help to ensure you are not "dressing old" by having a hip neice/nephew advice on some age/setting appropriate but current clothes to wear to interviews.

One important note: I worked very hard on personal coding projects for years before making the switch. That probably isn't absolutely critical but helped me a lot.

I re-started my career later still. No matter how low you feel you have sunk, I sank that low, or lower.

In my experience it was friends and connections that I mistakenly thought were lost and cold, respectively, that helped me land a role that changed my career trajectory. I also had to clear a major mental hurdle about what I intended to do with my life.

For context, look at photos of yourself from 15 years ago. Remember how old you felt? You were so young! This pattern repeats.

Not me but someone I know pivoted their career at well over 30. They started out their career in bars and food industry (restaurants primarily) and then spent few years in uni to learn coding. Now he's a full fledged developer in the same firm I am and is actually in a semi-management role (he codes but he also does PM work).

So yes, there is very much hope for you because I have seen it happen first hand.

As for reasonable path, it depends. Depends on if you have a family to feed, loans to pay back etc. All that changes your risk factor and how fast can you go.

Where to begin? Take stock of what you have done and what skills have you accumulated. You say they aren't marketable but they might be if only in different context. Maybe one of those allows you to reorient your interests and career into deepening your knowledge of that particular industry. If you can afford it and want to pivot to a whole new industry, putting some time and money aside for education might be a way to go (trade school).

Previous was generalized but sounds like you are thinking about going into tech in which case you might be in luck: put in the work and you have better prospects than most to get your foot in the door even without a full fledged degree. There is also a ton of resources free of charge available to get into those tech skills. The trick is to keep the hunger for learning alive so whatever skills you do obtain don't stagnate and have a portfolio of some kind to showcase what you have done. Also, those unmarketable skills you mentioned? Those are specific domain knowledge which can help fill in the gaps with tech knowledge because it helps you understand specific problem space and that is very valuable.

Will tech consider hiring someone like you? Yes because again, I've seen it happen.

Yes, I went from a poorly-paid tech support manager at a University to working at a startup on machine learning. Took me 10 years though. But I worked my way up and constantly worked on improving my knowledge.

Responses to your questions:

> Is there any hope for someone like me?

Yes, of course. Unless you decide you want to build a fusion reactor in your backyard, I'm sure you can level up and get a good job.

> Is there any reasonable path to starting over?

Yes, rewrite your resume. Make your great accomplishments stand out. Gloss over the past few years with some bullshit. No one cares that much. They care that you're hungry and you're willing to work hard.

> Where do I even begin?

What do you know? What do you want to do? Figure out the path from the former to the latter. Rewrite your resume. Get online and start researching. Every day. Apply to jobs. Eventually you'll find someone willing to give you a chance.

> Will tech co’s ever consider hiring someone like me?

Are you hungry? If so, yes. Save the pity party for your throwaway accounts. If you want to learn and build and excel, make sure everyone knows it. Even if inside you're completely unsure of yourself. Most people are, anyway. Just keep showing up every day.

Your primary concerns seem to be emotional - any hope, any path, where to begin, ever consider. Others have responded with encouragement, but as you know, encouragement does not create courage like success does. The solution there, I think, is to realize (moment to moment) that your feelings are a normal response to floundering: loss of energy and perspective. They are not real.

One aspect of your questions is essential: leverage, from networks and experiences

You're now recognizing that your diligence and skill did not add up to connections or milestones that could lead you to other opportunities.

That leads you to want help. Sure, help helps, but wanting help doesn't. Getting help might. Helping yourself? definitely helps. But realize that with your history, people who can give help are not inclined to help you. That includes partners, admissions and job evaluators, etc.

The solution is to work on something you can control, and use success in that to engage in more collaboration, and build from there.

Just don't forget the most important thing is to work on the right thing. Don't polish any turds, and don't hesitate to leave behind a bad investment.

I was aimless all through my 20s and into my 30s. Started to realize that in every job I took, I ended up designing systems for how technology could improve their processes. This led to a project management gig when I was 29. No University degree, no experience. That PM role lead to another in my early 30s. When that 2nd role ended, I was floating around again. Worked in events until I was in my mid-30s.

After another short role as a PM, I started teaching myself to code. I was now around 34-35. An early coding project got picked up by TechCrunch, and I think the recognition, and a lot of people being impressed drove me further down the SE path.

I did some contract SE work, learned some ML, really just experimented until I got my first proper SE job at 40. I hated it. Left that gig and was super fortunate to land a job at CSIRO (Australia's science and technology research agency). Now I was an SE with some cred, but WAY outdone by my collogues, many of whom had PhDs. I was out of place, couldn't quite keep up.

I ended up as a mix Product Manager/Project Manager/Software Engineer, then spun out some tech to create a new company where I became CEO. I was 44 at the time.

So yes, you can DEFINITELY start over your career after 30.

We're now in the neurotech field, and that's all new to me as well (now at 50). Way out of my depth, but loving to learn.

Another way to think of it, if you had been an SE in the finance market until you were 40, would you ask if you could become an SE in (insert field of interest here)? Of course you could! You still have your experience, even if you think it isn't a positive experience. As long as you are a good person, with an interest to learn, there is a market for your skills.

Whenever anyone in their 25s or 30s or whatever, I'm always reminded of a blog about a guy's grandpa who retired then pivoted to consulting on construction projects, and ended up being responsible for some of the biggest bridges built in China. He quoted his grandpa as saying "My career didn't really pick up until my 60s" or something like that.

So don't worry, you've got plenty of time.

Harry Truman ran a menswear store well into his late 30s

My mom switched careers multiple times.

- Degree in Chemistry, led a production plant for a couple of years.

- Left that job and went to law school, worked at a law firm for 20 years until the boss retired.

- Then she studied to become an accountant and started working in the family business.

I know many people with similar "career paths" often doing something completely unrelated to what they did before. You only have to get up every morning and start.

My friend immigrated from Ukraine in her 50s, without any money and with very rudimentary English. She became a millionaire by opening a network of cheap kindergartens. Now retired with a nice portfolio of real estate properties.

Generally, any immigrant from a poor country starts from a much worse place than yours, but they have a huge positive gradient in their lives that serves as a motivation.

Mid-30s is fine. Pay attention to all aspects of your health, because it's super-important. Also, while you're in or working towards "the best shape of my life", as they say, that might have the bonus of another lifestyle/relatability point in common with some of your younger health-focused new colleagues.

What kind of work do you want to do? Software? If you already have some software experience, picking up a popular Web framework is very doable, and you can grow from there.

Too discouraged to imagine anything you want to do? If you weren't discouraged, what would you want to do, and how would you start working towards that? Why not start that, and get out of the discouragement trap?

Once you have some career traction going again, you might find that your prior experience has a silver lining. For example, you might see a pattern happening in a company, which you've previously seen not work out well, and can help nudge the company/person away from a pitfall.

My father-in-law went from rancher to engineer to salesman to minister to writer, the final change in his 60ies. It's never too late.

As someone who works at a tech company and hires people, the key thing is motivation and passion for stuff. I see that you say you have no motivation and that is the only thing you really need to work on. Some of my most valuable people are not technically gifted - but they care about the product and work hard.

There's always hope. You could get some Python - perhaps start going through some Coursera courses (to show that you're actively learning, and will help reestablish your confidence - I've seen people quote numerous on-line courses and it's always a major plus) and try to get even a low-level job at a tech company, then work your way up. I regularly see manual QA people move to test automation, then move to working directly on products.

Even if you don't get a job at a 'tech' company, there is some sort of tech at all companies - and it's more important to be working in a field that you like and transfer to a more interesting company than to be coming from gig work.

Changed careers at 36 y/o and then again at 50 y/o [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33126861

I have no intentions on changing career fields anymore but could definitely see myself upskill and pivot to another area, i.e. AI, data science, or whatever I decide to do.

Warsaw, Poland, EU

Graduated top university, did internships, landed demanding corporate jobs. Career stalled somehow.

I have a career in "boring" part of finance: financial planning and analysis (where I make big but simple models in Excel - without any statistics or programming involved, just very detailed) and do a lot of various user side related work (key user, acceptance tests, blueprinting, explaining to consultants what broke this time). Is there any way to swich to something else that pays decently?

I wouldnt like to be a tester, since those should know how to automate tests. I know some SQL and some VBA, but it is primitive stackoverflow driven development - good enough to impress some junior bookkeepers, but a joke when a real programmer looks at the code.

Scrum master perhaps? But how to start. I went to some agile meetups, read the manifesto, read some blogs (that mostly sound like self promotion...) not sure if I should start applying. Especially Im getting old so Im more of a "suit" now.

Consulting is a garbage job it means jumping from client to client + constant travel/overtime (I actually worked in consulting a small bit).

Will local companies or startups pay for someome without experience? Since I speak English some option is working remote, preferably to an european start up so the hours are sane - constant overtime is a big problem in finance.

I wonder if it is possible to switch to a product owner, or key user or similar position. But how.

I saw that some startups want someone who can fill out those EU-subsidy forms, but I never did that. Yet?

If someone needs a guy with tons of comments about your product (warning those can be negative) I could be that guy. But I have this feeling that everyone wants to be the idea guy and obiously those who can build stuff are much more preferred.

I was a BA in Japanese graduate during the 2008-2009 recession and ended up doing IT for a little bit, took time off to teach English, and ended up going back to school for a BSc in Software Development. I landed my first software job over 4 years ago in my 30's and have been fairly happy with my trajectory. Starting at the "bottom" as a junior with people about 10 years younger than me was a bit humbling, but ultimately I realized that having life experience was a big help in moving up faster than younger folks.

Based on your description, it sounds like you have no idea what you want to be doing. This will make it hard to find meaningful work because you'll just float around to different jobs doing whatever is available. I would suggest taking some time and be introspective about what motivates you to get better, otherwise I would just reconsider your career path and try something new to see if it sticks.

Let's say you wasted the last 10 years (you didn't - you learned a lot of valuable experience apparently).

So what ? You will probably live until you're in your 80s, and work (if you want or need) until you're into your 60s.

You have plenty of time - I suggest not to rush - you won't turn it around in 3 months. But you definitely can turn it around in 1-2 years. As someone wise said - people overestimate what they can do in the short term, but also underestimate what they can achieve in the long term.

Don't bother with the resume or marketable skills. Decide on what you want to do, and go after it. If you do it for a year, every single day, confidence and motivation will take care of themselves, and I can guarantee you will be surprised how far you can go.

99% of success in anything worthwhile in life, is just showing up, every single fucking day !

I quit my PhD in English at age 30, when my first wife left me.

Did a lot of low-rent freelance media work, video and audio ad production, and started doing websites. That's just gotten better over the last 12 years.

Stuff takes time. 5 years is a lot longer than you'd think if you're 35.

Also, while I don't think I could get a gig at a bigco, that's okay- there are a lot of boring, okay paying jobs out there in small companies. For me the entry was doing shit websites at an agecny for $12/hr to build a resume, and then 5 years of freelancing at ever increasing rates. That's a shitty hustle and I'd probably just go get my journeyman electrical if I had to do it over again.

But it can be done.

One of the best things to happen to me is to start playing music with 60 and 70 year olds in my mid 30s. The reality it showed me is that 35 is quite young and 5 years is a long time.

I'd say most people start their "career" around 30. Some people stick with the choice they made in their 20s while some people need to figure out something else. There is little pressure to make money or stabilize when you are 23, or 24. When you start your 30s you are more under that pressure and that's when you start to figure out how to make money.

Bear in mind, I am only 32.

> -Is there any hope for someone like me?

Yes?!

> -Is there any reasonable path to starting over?

Just start in anything in this industry or else.

> -Where do I even begin?

Getting a job in something that interests you is a good idea. Getting to college is another idea. Getting a job overseas (if you are American) is also another idea.

> -Will tech co’s ever consider hiring someone like me?

Don't focus on specific people or groups. Figure out which people need your skill-set and start from there.

I did, I was in the army in my early 20s, used the gi bill + parents help to get a psychology degree in my late 20s, worked minimum wage for 2 years then went back to school in my early 30s to get my cs degree with the remainder of my gi bill + savings.

Became a software engineer, that was 8 years ago. It's going pretty well now. Highly recommend if you enjoy problem solving and can tolerate writing code.

The most reasonable paths are to go to your state college and get a degree in computer science while trying to get a paid internship every summer then apply for jobs everywhere.

If you don't want to code, get an apprenticeship with a union shop if you want to do the electrician/plumber route although the housing boom is also coming to an end. There's always a market for good electrians/plumbers/contractors.

-Is there any hope for someone like me?

Yes. I reset my career 3 times between 30 and 40 and I did progressively better each time.

-Is there any reasonable path to starting over?

No. Jump into it. Be unreasonable. Fail fast. Accept lower seniority positions if it gets you in the area you want to work in.

-Where do I even begin?

LinkedIn Jobs, trade shows, old friends and former coworkers. Hit up on LinkedIn founders and upper management of the companies you want to work with, you would be surprised how many have answered me back over the years.

-Will tech co’s ever consider hiring someone like me?

We live in credentials bubble where everyone has a piece of paper saying they are a senior specialist on yadda-yadda, but finding someone who is lean and mean, hungry and means it, who would be willing to work 12 hours a day to bridge the gap and overtake the rest of the team? That's really hard.

First, You learned a lot about how to "not intentionally build a business" which IMHO...is way more valuable than having everything work out perfect. Remember the lessons that were taught by every experience and interaction...being able to spot the issues (or people who will cause issues) is very important.

Second, 30 is still very young. You are barely 10 years into the cutoff society deems as "adult". I know it doesn't feel that way when you are in it...but you still have a lot left in you.

I started my current company when I was over 30...my only wish is that I would have done it when I was 19. I listened to naysayers, which, BTW never go away. No matter what you do or how well things are going...someone will always be around to tell you how close failure is behind.

A good start is to understand the value of you're earlier experience and find some positives.

You will certainly have learned some skills. You'll have learned what you don't want in a job. Even menial work can be used to demonstrate grit.

Anyway, starting from zero is hard, but least because you'll compare yourself to people who haven't. Much better to salvage what you can from the last decade and realise that you aren't starting from zero at all.

To me, what jumps it if your post is, this person is miserable and not at thier best psychologically. You better believe interviewers can smell that and sadly they don't like it. Suggest that getting some counseling might help you more careerwise than another tech skill.

Yes I did this. It was pretty tough but there is a way.

I was fired from a job in the media industry and decided to start over in tech. It was really a low point for me honestly; I can empathize I think with your post.

I found an entry-level job as a Scrum Master. The role gets a ton of hate, and some of the criticism is justified, but it helped me learn the tech world from the very bottom.

I spent about 4 years doing that. I did a lot of listening and learned an incredible amount from the development team. It was probably the most important thing for me -- whatever career you choose, find a way to start in the trenches with the folks doing the real work.

Then I became a Program Manager. That was really good because it helped me learn the delivery aspect, and get me plugged into the strategy aspect of the techbiz.

I should note here by this time that I had been really lucky in a couple of respects:

1. I found a company that was VERY good at developing their employees into new roles.

2. I found mentors and sponsors within that org that helped me to grow and sponsored me for new roles.

But after a few years learning the Program side, I transitioned to PM, where I am very, very, happy, and to be honest have a leg up on some of my peers because of my deep experience embedded with dev teams and understanding their struggles day to day, but also having to service the needs of the leadership/exec team as a PgM.

I guess I would sum this up by saying, it sucks, and it takes time, but it is 100% doable. I'm not exceptional in terms of brains or skills, which I don't mean as a knock to anything or anyone, but rather as a way of saying, "If I can do it, I really do believe others can too."

The thing to focus on are my 1 & 2 points above. Those are absolute game changes and IMO must-haves.

And LUCK again plays an unfortunately large part in all of this, I feel I must repeat. But I wish you the best of luck, and hope that my note gives you an amount of hope.

I went from air traffic controller in my 20s to data scientist (economist as DS is vague in specialization) in my 30s.

1. I realized the hours of ATC were not for me and began graduate school in international relations, while I was finishing that I applied for grad school again this time in economics.

2. Got hired as a data scientist for a labor market economics firm, and upped my skillet. Now work as a data scientist manager for a cyber security company. They hired because of my economics background, needed someone for financial/economic risk quantification of cyber events. 3. You have to realize you'll go from expert to beginner again. You'll have experience in the work force but from a domain perspective you're a beginner.

It was a great decision!

Jack Ma considered himself a failure at 30. Failed college entrance exam 3 times. Applied to 30 jobs (including fast food restaurants) and was rejected from them all. Never wrote any code. And then at 35 founded Alibaba. He's now worth $25B. You'll be fine!

Well I became a programmer in my 30s by accident, I decided to learn all things XML at just the right time, which led me to working on Governmental and International standardization. At some point in my 40s I switched again to Frontend, just because I had some frontend skills and there were some projects that were hiring. I would have stagnated then but I helped start a startup as CTO which, ended up leaving after a couple years because of disagreements with cofounder but hey then I had an impressive site and CV to point to so from that point it has been pretty simple.

I would like to have a secondary career as a writer, but that is harder to get started and anyway it would have to be a fallback since realistically money is less.

My wife did. She was a doctor and burned out during the pandemic. She misses it, but not the baggage that came with it.

Now she's a software engineer at a large non profit. Only had minimal experience writing code with me on hobby projects before that, but she learned quickly.

* Navy Nuclear Operator from age 18 --> 28 * Got a Bachelor's (not CS/SWE, but STEM) while I was enlisted * Electrical Distribution Engineer age 28 --> 29 * Taught self Python here and automated a bunch of small tasks * Semiconductor Shift Supervisor age 29 --> 31 * Taught self JS/PHP/Postgres here, built an in-house web app to replace a bunch of spreadsheets * Attended UT Austin for a Master's in SWE during this time * Tech jobs age 31 --> current

In fairness, I've also been using Linux since age 16 (with a ~10 year gap as I was pretty busy), and got a homelab around the time of the Distribution Engineer job, and taught myself a bunch of things.

Yes, you can change your career if you have the passion and you work hard. More than a little bit of luck also helps.

I studied corporate finance at university (including to Masters level part time while working). Did well in the investment banking arena over a 10 year period (including being a Director of a subsidiary of a listed company).

Went travelling for a few months, came back and whilst contracting decided to build a SaaS. I had almost zero programming experience outside of VBA. This was at the age of 38.

I ended up with 5 SaaS companies (some more successful than others), plus started my own software consulting business (grew to 8 employees). Also had 2 kids in the meantime.

I'm now head of Engineering at a ~100 person company.

I'm a similar late-bloomer who had to work my way into a tech job the hard way. No college degree, etc. Yes, it's possible - though it's quite hard. My advice would be to ask around and isolate the first set of skills needed to get a job that you would find interesting. QA is a great place to get started and probably a faster track into engineering than Support or Sales, but get in where you fit it and survive. Oh, and go on LOTS of interviews. As many as you can. I got rejected loads of times and I got my first job in QA with 0 experience but once I had a foot in the door of the industry, I had something to build on.

>Is there any hope for someone like me? >Is there any reasonable path to starting over? >Where do I even begin? >Will tech co’s ever consider hiring someone like me?

Frankly, that reads like a recruitment poster. If you are asking yourself such questions, have you considered the military? There are all sorts of tech-related jobs in the military that are way more interesting than the civilian equivalent. Whatever you do, the military would give you a clear path for advancement and improvement. Even if you don't stick with it, a few years of military experience doesn't hurt a resume.

I'd say "Yes, I did," but my employment in my 20s wasn't exactly a career. I started doing tech support at 30, moved into programming, and have been doing that since.

To answer your questions: Sure, there is hope; there is certainly a path, but I am not in a position to recommend one; again, I don't know; yes, I'm pretty sure they will.

For the last one, and looking at gensym's reply, "someone like you", meaning you as you are as you post, maybe not. But then you need to find a way not to be like that, without confidence and motivation.

34 here, spent a decade as a Project Manager in manufacturing. Quit without an idea of what I wanted to do, 3 months later decided to learn web development. After a year out of work I was hired at a FAANG company. I'm only three months in and the recent layoffs may mean I get kicked out, but I've been enjoying the work so far and everyone I work with is giving me positive feedback.

You need to create some way to keep yourself accountable and to make an effort everyday, no matter how small, toward you're goal. It takes work and a lot of time, but you can do it!

At age 31 I was was working as a part-time university lecturer in a non-stem field plus constantly struggling to find any additional freelance work, couldn't really see a realistic path forward in that career. Had also just become a father, so being broke felt even worse than before. I spent about 18 months learning web dev (just free resources online), and successfully made the career change. Required a lot of sacrifices in that time period though as well as a bit of luck, and I don't think my path is representative of the average person who tries this.

It's likely you learned a lot about what not to do. Good leaders will find it attractive that you have experience with mistakes and failure, both your own and others', just like they'll put cushions under their employees when they mess up because they've just payed for them being likely to not do the same mistake again.

Might take a while to end up talking to one but they're out there. Confidence and motivation are likely the bigger problems but it's highly dependent on where you live and how what would be the appropriate way forward in those areas.

"Feel like I’ve wasted my life. No marketable skills. Unimpressive résumé. No network. No mentor. No confidence. No motivation. And I’m in my mid-30s."

I have a "successful" career as a dev at a financial company. At least successful as in i was a high performer at one point and ive held the job for 10 years. I feel the same way you do, and similar age. I feel like I could lose my job and never get another tech one. I'll never get back to being a high performer.

The only way to answer your question is the apply/try. I hope I never have to find out for myself.

A friend had been an actress for a decade, then became a SWE. How? Enrolled in a CS masters program, got a degree, got a job. Entry level but much better than mildly successful acting, where you have to audition (interview for your job) many many times a year. So you're not too old.

The path depends on whether going to school full time will work for you. You don't need a degree from a fancy school to start over, community colleges have plenty of great classes. But if you can't put in some time to get sharp at something, it might have to be a different path.

Jumped a string of IT work which lands me as Data engineer after 35 with no relevant work experience.

But I was lucky to enjoy the previous IT gold rush since 2015. I probably won't be able to do it now.

Luck is the determining factor in my case so wish you good luck. A lot of people are going to share the same zero to developer after 30 but you need to read carefully.

As an old saying, an elevator takes 3 people up to the top floor. People ask how they managed to move to top, one says he was doing pushups in the elevator, another says he was jumping and the third says he was reading some books.

Bottom line, don't ask. Just do it. You lost X number of years. It's a fact. But that does not mean you can't start now. If you can't figure it out go to a career counselor and let them help you. The last thing you want is to be in the same situation a few years from now -wondering what to do next. The sooner you start the faster you'll get to your goal.

My suggestion is to sit down and imagine your best future. Where do you want to be in 20 years? Then figure out what you need to do to get there. Good luck!

Sure. I was 32 and freshly married, working as a field sales rep for an optical inspection equipment oem and programming for fun in my off time. Hated the day job, loved the hobby, and when the oem was acquired I took the opportunity to bail out and look for a full time software gig. It was a month or so before Christmas, 1992, and my wife was pregnant with our first child, and when I told her I wanted to leave the sales position and write software for a living she said yes instantly. It was a very good snap decision on her part :).

-Is there any hope for someone like me?

Yes. Lots. Best job market ever (well, maybe slightly worse than last year, but still virtually best ever).

-Is there any reasonable path to starting over?

Find what you love, learn it, and start do.

Degree requirements are out the window for many jobs. Companies can't find enough people.

-Where do I even begin?

It's hard to start if you don't know what the end is. Figure out what you want to be when you grow up (I'm 50 and still haven't grown up).

-Will tech co’s ever consider hiring someone like me?

Yes. Some of the best people we have hired at my company changed careers in their late 20s and 30s.

Yes.

Always knew I was a good developer since I started with a C=64, but school was an issue. Graduated HS but didn't go to college because I was so bored at school, like severely bored. Worked non tech jobs through my twenties. Finally sucked it up and started going to college PT in my late 20s. PT so I could pay for it as I went. Graduated mid 30s and have been a dev ever since.

Moral: Sometimes you have to slog through what you don't want to do to get to what you want to do. I do not recommend this, however.

I'm 54, and I reinvented my career 3 times so far. Every single time, I was over 30 yo. Let's start focusing your interest on something you are passionate about and move to an area where you can learn faster. Being mid-30s is a fantastic time for your career development, so believe in yourself and start learning something you care about today.

Where to start? Pick a career. Set a goal. Make it SMART[0]. Put effort into it every day. See results.

Education and training will help you get your foot in the door. That is where I would start.

There was a MASSIVE wave of retirements the last few years. Lots of openings.

0: https://www.ucop.edu/local-human-resources/_files/performanc...

Manifest your own destiny. What are you going to do if people in this thread say no its not possible? What are you going to do if they say it is possible? Either way you have to do the work.

No network is odd since you have been working for the past 10 years. Do you not have a linkedin or still communicate with any of those people? It's your best bet. Or if you want an easy route to employment find a technical recruiter. It's still a very good job market for tech workers.

Sure. My career didn't really pick up speed until my last job but one, which I started when I was a few months shy of 40. At that point in my life, I was also in other ways in a comparable situation to how you describe yours. The best advice I can give is to think hard on what's really important to you in this world, and how you can use software to promote that. That will point you in the right direction, and passion will give you boldness.

Best of luck. I like your odds.

I've run my own successful database consulting business, been a sales rep, development engineer and product manager for a Fortune 50 company, ran a startup that I left, was VP ops for another startup, digital sales support rep, digital photo lab owner and photographer. I'm 53. Anything is possible. Agree with suggestions to hire a career coach. Mine was great when I went through a terrible patch in my early 40s. DM me for his contact.

I was in tech, left in 2017 (when I was ~31 years old), though I had the funds to take significant time off. VRChat got me into 3D modeling, which eventually led me to taking classes as an avocational student at a VFX school in 2019 (33-34). Now I work as a contractor doing 3D modeling for decent money, though I do feel like I lucked into this position (hard to find lucrative 3D modeling positions without experience).

I was in IT out of high school for 8 years, then gave it up to travel for 4 years. Moving to Vancouver at 30 I started from the bottom with aspirations of getting into software development. 6 years later and 3 foots in doors later, I got an offer at Microsoft to start as the level right below Senior. I've been there for over a year now. It's always possible to start over, but it helps to start doing something you love.

I kinda do. I was a 3D artist for about 7 years, the architectural firm I worked for went out of business out of the blue, they let me go without a dime of compensation. I went back to college and took a second graduation as a SE. I consider myself successful cause I got to land a pretty good job in a pretty good company. Also I'm pretty proud of my new set of skills (being able to create software out of a blank text file)

Do some open source work in your part time this will

- Improve your skills.

- Teach you to work on a dev team (assuming you join another project rather than start your own).

- Stand out against other candidates on your CV (open source is like the sleeper car of qualifications).

- Provide concrete examples of your work to new employers (many _backend_ candidates don't give examples of their work).

- Provide a talking point to help deflect or defend against areas where you have lack of experience.

In directionless periods of my life, talking to the right person for 20-30 minutes was sometimes what I really needed.

For you, or anybody that feels like this, schedule a phone call with me!

I don't have all the answers, but I love chatting with strangers about setting goals and learning skills :)

https://calendly.com/taylor-town/30min

My previous team lead started coding at 38. Before that he was working at Walgreens. You can definitely start your career over in your 30s.

Yes. I left a career in land surveying to do a bootcamp at the age of 37. I feel like I have my whole life ahead of me now. My story sounds a lot like yours. I think you need to worry less about comparing yourself to your ideal and just find an organization that fits with how you want to grow. They are out there and there’s lots of them.

I got my first programming job at 31. I was always interested in computers before but never did anything serious. I was a classical ballet dancer.

You could say that I had a career before my 30s but that career was completely irrelevant for my new occupation.

So yeah. If youre interested in tech, 30s is not old. If you’re interested in classical ballet…sorry, you’re just too old.

Went from devops/SRE to pentest/code auditing in my 30s.

Best decision ever.

Took about a thousand hours of refreshing my offensive hacking skills. Maybe 2.5 years of intense work. This and two intermediate security jobs until I landed the dream job in the dream team.

There is hope for you. The effort alone is rewarding. If I had not reached anything with my struggle, it still would have been worth it.

I cofounded Hack Reactor, the coding bootcamp. (I'm no longer involved.) Your story is extremely typical, it's very normal to successfully do what you want to do, and you have way more marketable skills than you think. I recommend doing a bootcamp if you don't know what else to do; do a sales or recruiting bootcamp if you don't like code.

I started my Saas business in my 30s and ultimately it has been enough for me to be financially free. I’ve run it full time since 2005. Yes, I’m in my 50s now and still running a saas and developing new software. 30s, yes you can start over, and it’s even still young to do so.

Edit: I was not a software developer professionally before I started over.

Yes, I know a few good examples.

A friend went to university in her mid 30s during/after her maternity leave and switched the industry completely, then started her own company in that industry.

Another friend made his hobby a career and switched from sales to UX design in his 30s.

I suggest you start meeting people and network. You don't know where opportunities will come from in the future.

You spent your 20s cutting your teeth on a failed startup. Lots and lots of people do that and it's a perfectly acceptable thing to have on a resume. I know people who have started in their 30s from never having programmed professionally at all and are now working at a FAANG company. The world is your oyster, go get it.

I have. I studied EE, did that for a little shy of a decade, but didn't like the work culture in general. I wanted to do research but not get a PhD, so I got hired at a research lab at a university. After several years, I was done with that too and switched to SWE.

It's certainly doable especially if you go into adjacent fields.

Not merely careers, but entire large companies have been founded from scratch by individuals over age 50. See: https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-started-middle-age...

I did, I was a new father, and in my late 30s. Took a paycut at the time, became a trainee developer. 6 years later, I'm a (proper) dev and they are asking me to apply for senior dev positions, I'm making more money, doing more fun work, and with less stress and more remote working. Do it.

I moved from tech recruiting to swe at ~29 so pretty close to 30. Wife transitioned to a new career around the same age. I know a ton of people who have done it between 25-40.

> No confidence. No motivation.

This is your biggest issue. You need to do some research and figure out what you are interested in doing/learning about.

Of course! I was a commodities trader until I was blown up (financially) on 9/11. Then in the depths of despair I picked up software development as a profession. It was a straightforward transition since I had a physics/math(comp sci) major and, uh, dabbled a bit since the ZX81.

I was a process engineer for Intel until 28, got burned out, taught myself a bunch of backend dev & architecture skills and went and worked for Accenture (who will underpay you to learn on the job as long as you have competencies) I got to expertise in many domains by about 35 years old.

I'm on a FB group for people interested in flying planes and saw a ~45 year old stay-at-home mother who went through a divorce train and become a pilot for a major airline. I know a ~60 year old who just got his blue belt in BJJ having started two years ago. It's never too late :)

Yes,

I went from focusing on programming, to then switching to Math, dropping out to focus on art, and now I have a career in coffee and I couldn’t be happier as all the interests and skills I’ve acquired over the years of flip flopping have only been a plus when growing a business.

I worked with 3 DBA’s that took a semester community college course in database administrator paid for certification in Oracle and started working as full time DBA’s shorty thereafter. They all were over 40 when they started as DBA’s and one had a background as a Disney animator

We do the more boring part of tech, IT management. One of our best hires was someone who went from managing their family bar for 20 years to taking a couple of IT course/ programs and being introduced to us.

Life is really long and hard and complicated. But most of the time you can make it work.

Depends what you mean by "start over." I've had three 10ish year careers in adjacent but really pretty different technology related roles since my late 20s. (And another different one for a few years before that which I switched from by going back to grad school.)

I finished my PhD at 34 in biology and switched to a big software company as a consultant. You can do whatever you want as long as you are not dead, you still have decades of work life before you. And what of a life goal is an impressive résumé or a network anyway?

I switched from network administration to SEO around 30ish. Took a couple years to get my footing but honestly it wasn't much different than starting career path first time around. A few years of suck, followed by plenty of years reaping rewards of early efforts.

I'm in my 30's and currently using an MBA from a top program to pivot into a field unrelated to my previous tech-heavy work life. It's an expensive way to "start over", but it's worth it for the near-guaranteed cushy outcomes.

>Will tech co’s ever consider hiring someone like me?

There is near infinite demand for tech skills. Maybe you can't go work for Google (most of us can't), but there are 1000x as many "non-tech" businesses, big and small, that need tech skills.

Yes. I was a musician until 30. Kept up with tech and always had projects going. Worked my way up the ladder from contract help desk to Director of IT in 10 years. I just kept applying for help desk jobs until I got one and absorbed everything I could.

You need to read the wikipedia article on the "Cursus honorum" from the roman empire. Everything old is new again, not just in computer science.

You step one foot off the path, and the pyramid means there's a zillion people in line clamoring to take your place, your old spot is already gone, already filled.

Its like asking how you become a pro football quarterback if you're starting in your 30s. That's easy, you don't.

You CAN however, have an enjoyable and successful career and happy life doing something else. Just not on the old path. Which wasn't working for you anyway, so you're not losing much.

> I spent years running around like a headless chicken to satisfy sales-type execs who had no interest in leveling me up.

I got bad news for you if you think hopping from a startup to a megacorp will avoid that, LOL. Its kind of like travel, where you eventually learn its the same everywhere and you can't run away from yourself.

I was 33 when I left a successful automotive engineering career to start an ISP. It was a steep learning curve but in 12 months I learned a lot about networking. Then I went into network security. Have not looked back in the last 25 years.

HN gets this question like once a week. There is nothing stopping you. You're asking this because you're either looking for a reason not to start or something to attribute failure to because you're afraid of failing.

You can do it, it all starts with what you want to do. Depending on that there is absolutely a path to get there. All you are limited by is your will and your effort. Assuming you are able bodied and of average intelligence.

You still have at minimum 30 years of work in you. So I would say mid thirties is still young. I've read it takes around 10 years to become an expert in a field, so you could become expert in three different fields.

You were already in grad school? Seems like a great time to go back! Now that you have work experience the grad program will be more meaningful, and after you finish, you will have a whole new set of jobs open to you.

Yes. My girlfriend became a Trauma Nurse at 40. She's incredibly successful.

There *is* hope.

This comment of mine on another thread might be of help: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34059925

Learn how to sell. Read 10 books about selling and by next year you'll be running a business that makes money. If that business is any good, you'll be a millionaire between year 5 and 10 ...maybe sooner.

Analyst => BD in 20s

BD => PM in 30s

Kind of want to try software engineering :)

Quite frankly, if you are interested in something, you'll have enough to sustain the motivation to redo your life or career, regardless of "when".

I didn't even finish education until 30s.

You need two things, a focus, and a real hunger to do the thing you focus on. The time for half measures is probably over. But you have time to dive head first into something.

Yes, providing you have a year of free time. Learn to learn first, research, decide on what makes sense to you, learn the basics, practice the fundamentals every day, do your own projects.

I got out of the military and started my career in IT at 30. I went from fixing fighter jets to being a sys/net admin. It helps I always had a passion for networking and technology.

Absolutely! One of the smartest people I know did, and works for Google now and even landed a YC interview. Not only is it possible but it could end up being a boon. Best of luck.

I haven't done this, but I'm thinking about doing it, being mid-30s and wanting to restart career. While I've had meaningful bursts of career, where it lead was entirely hollow and I want pretty much none of it.

(I also feel like I've done a shitton of stuff at times, with not much marketable to show for it. Some grounded but pie in skyish, some in tech but really just knowing how to use a computer really well and not so much deep programming knowledge.)

IMO now (2023+) is a fantastic time to re-start. There's a lot of change and a lot of opportunity. Maybe there has never been a better time to start new.

Look at everything that is broken, that everyone (or at least many--maybe half) know is broken (at least subconsciously).

I think maybe going out there and KEEPING AT MAKING/DOING SOMETHING PUBLICLY no matter how small, to add value (solve real problems) in one or more of the broken spaces, has got to turn into being profitable (trade value for value, put a price on a thing).

These are my random thoughts. I actually think I pretty much know what to do, and just need the courage/motivation to do it. So maybe motivation is a thing to look at, too.

This is high level. I could probably make a list of the broken areas, and so could you probably. I think if one gets started on solving them, there are plenty of people to hire and who would find the work meaningful and to grow. And plenty who know the fixes are needed, and not enough people making and providing the fixes.

There are also more obvious/traditional ways to restart, I guess. The same applies; a lot of things are new or newly matured enough to be really obvious/useful, so starting now as an experienced person (even not in the domain) in something different will have its advantages.

I doubt this helps much, but hang in there and believe in yourself. Sounds silly, I know. I think we can be realistic optimists here.

[Addendum: What I really want at present though is to find something that just needs me to be a really good computer user, and can help someone's business with that, to make ends meet, while I try to start the loftier stuff on the side. That has to be valuable, right? Seriously, IME most people cannot do that, and it's like it almost does not even matter. I do not want to learn all the programming things, but I'm still extremely proficient other than I guess what people actually need. Open to input along these lines. Thanks for asking this question. I might sound stupid, if so please just ignore.]

switched from finance to tech at age 30. went thru a bootcamp, self studied freecodecamp, the works. i did have a good degree but otherwise had to eat crow for a full year retooling myself. not regretting it 7 years on.

you can do this, OP. life is too short to spend it living on autopilot.

https://mixtape.swyx.io/episodes/weekend-drop-swyx-interview...

My GF went back to school to become a layer in her 30s after having two kids.

My M-I-L went back to school to become a teacher in her 40s and retired with a fat pension.

First, decide what you want to become.

My friend started training to be a programmer at 32. She's 39 now and is enjoying her very successful programming "early" career.

Prior to this she was a pianist.

Your question is less about restarting your career, and more about mental health. I would suggest:

1 - See a therapist. What you wrote is what you believe about yourself, and that belief may be false.

2 - Understand your previous and current behavior. It will follow you, regardless of career.

3 - Be kind to yourself. Others will criticize your career path without understanding your background or history. HN might not be the best outlet to ask for support in this area.

Yes there is hope. Yes you can 'start over.' Begin with asking for help. When you yourself believe tech will consider hiring you, tech will consider hiring you.

It's never too late to start over. The key is to just START! Find something you're interested in and dig in and work towards it every day!

Not quite the same situation and probably not reproducible, but maybe I can give you a glimmer of hope:

Throughout the 2000s I was in a unrewarding PHP-coding job with a company that was going nowhere and I (extremely foolishly) stuck around out of loyalty to my team, only to be laid off around the beginning of the 2008 crash. I was 33 and felt tied down, stuck in a smallish city with no real tech industry and a bunch of debt.

(I need to interject here that I'm something of a long-time Apple stan, so this might seem unrelatable if you're not).

I was able to find a job with a much better company locally, but it wasn't the most engaging work, and my boss managed my team more like a McDonald's shift than a tech company.

I had done a bit of Mac programming on a hobby project in the late 2000s, and some of that turned out to be applicable to iPhone programming, so I picked some of that up on the side, both some very basic apps and a couple of contract gigs doing iPhone development that in retrospect I wasn't remotely qualified for.

The company I was working for had a product that was a natural fit for the iPhone and moreso the iPad, so I was able to get them to send me to WWDC in 2010, which as a long-time Apple stan was a bit of a dream come true for me.

Later in 2010 I was contacted out of the blue by a company looking to hire a full-time iOS developer to take over for the contractor that had built the iPhone part of their product. I worked there for a few years through an acquisition (that paid off a lot of my debt) and then switched jobs a couple of times.

Anyway, I'm now nearing 50, earning 3–4 times what I was when I got laid off, working remotely from a place I still really like, and (mostly) really enjoy the tech stack that I get to work with.

Again, with the iPhone being the most successful product in history, this may or may not be replicable.

I don't know that I have any super clear takeaways, but:

1. Don't lose hope, because while that may be productive for specific initiatives, it's almost never productive for life in general.

2. If you have the free time/energy, I would recommend playing around with a few different kinds of tech that you genuinely enjoy, either as a user or as a developer (For example I was also playing around with a Mac app project, a Ruby/rails project, and a micromobility project that ended up not leading to paying work).

3. If you feel like you're starting from a place of very little specific knowledge of anything, you might consider looking more at new technologies where everyone else is also starting from very little specific knowledge.

Go office space, and work construction. Maybe you'll get motivated to do something less menial, and who knows, maybe you'll like it.

you have to understand that age is becoming not a thing nowadays. almost all tech and office jobs are moving to remote so no one cares about how old you are as long as you can do the work.

that being said. i started over at 45 with a consulting company and i'm doing VERY well with it. i'm now 47 and can tell you that i love my job and wouldn't trade it for the world.

I switched from being a System Admin/Engineer to being a SWE when I was 40 -- and that was a decade ago for me.

Guy I know switched from being a helicopter pilot for 30 years to a software developer in his late 50s. So yes!

Yes. Started as a lawyer at 31. Got laid off. Did a coding bootcamp at 37. Manage a team at 40. Very doable.

I've got some answers to your questions:

Q1. Is there any hope for someone like me?

A1. Yes, just don't be a victim.

Q2. Is there any reasonable path to starting over?

A2. Yes, depending on how you define "reasonable." Also, you don't have to "start over."

Q3. Where do I even begin?

A4. Start with something small that interests you. "Follow your weird" (http://lib.ru/STERLINGB/story.txt).

Q4. Will tech companies ever consider hiring someone like me?

A4. Depends on the company; depends on you and how you "pitch" yourself. Again, don't play the victim.

Who the f*k am I?

I'm 59 years old and I've been working in this industry since 1988 and I sincerely believe you make your own opportunities.

I guess you can say that I've had 5 careers over the past 35 years.

* 1988-2014 - Help Desk -> Software Developer

* 2014-2023 - Project Manager, Scrum Master

* 2009-2015 - Smartphone Software Developer (P/T)

* 2016-2022 - Startup Co-Founder & CTO (P/T)

* 2018-2020 - Open-Source Project Administrator & Developer (P/T)

I don't have a Computer Science degree though I did attend RPI, left after less than a year, and ended up getting a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Film & Television from NYU. I've read a few books and taken a few classes but a majority of my programming, software development, and project management skills I've learned on my own, sometimes at my day job; sometimes in the early mornings and evenings after the 925.

I've been very lucky over the years but I've also tried to be prepared when new opportunities come around (which includes seeing them for what they are and what they might be). Everything builds on what came before.

Right now, my next plan, my 6th "career," is to continue the project manager-ing since it pays the bills but move back into programming the things I wanted to code 42 years ago--games, interactive fiction--and learn some new stuff like HTML/CSS/JS and machine learning. I don't think I'll end up programming for other people or other companies but we'll see...

Your experience is worth something but only if it's worth something to you. And it can be worth something to someone else at some other company.

Good luck.

Yes. Anthropology/archeology/teaching to software development and data analysis in research lab.

Colonel Sanders started KFC in his 60s.

> Is there any hope for someone like me?

YES! There is always "hope" for nearly everything and everyone. The first step is to actually try to define what type of "hope" that you're looking for. Set goals, aspiration, and a clear vision of what you want so that you have an attainable mark. It's okay if this changes over time, but to light that fire you have to have something to strive for, even if it feels unobtainable at the moment.

> Is there a reasonable path to starting over?

Well, what do you define as "reasonable"? Everyone's path is different, and if you're comparing yourself to peers who have never veered off the straight and narrow path then you own path might seem unreasonable to you. Your path might make you the 30 year old intern or apprentice, and that's okay! Success and satisfaction doesn't always come from taking the "reasonable" path.

> Where do I even begin?

For lack of a better vocabulary, you need to find some way to "spark the fire." I was in a similar position to you. I spent years dragging out a degree that I wasn't passionate about, felt less than my peers who had moved onto successful and fulfilling careers, and felt down on my luck. After a series of poor decisions I finally found my spark while sitting in the dirt after a long day of landscaping. No car, no ride home, could barely pay the bills, I finally realizing exactly where my life was headed and I knew I needed to change direction. I spent weeks researching jobs that I wanted to aspire to but that I knew were unattainable at the moment. But I bit the bullet, applied to schools, completed a degree related to the roles I was passionate about, and have gone on to work in roles that I couldn't have even fathomed just a few years prior. So for me, it was the realization that life is short and what I contribute to it is up to my that really sparked my fire, but you have to find some way to get out of the mindset that's dragging you down. It's not easy, and you will face significant challenges on whatever path you take, but find that spark and commit to your goals.

> Will tech co’s ever consider hiring someone like me?

Someone like you now, lacking passion, down on your luck, self-loathing, and without a direction? No. But you won't be presenting who you are now to these employers. It's your life–you can be whoever you want to be! As someone who comes from a less than favorable background, the imposter syndrome is always knocking at the door in my head. At the end of the day, you are who you choose to be, so choose to be the person that those tech co's will hire if that's what you desire.

You need to hire a mentor to guide you in correct way to improve yourself in correct direction.

I went from bare metal/OS stuff to cloud in my 30's. It felt like starting over.

I took a BSc and MSc in Data Engineering in my mid 30s. Never looked back.

Today, we know KFC as Kentucky Fried Chicken, a pretty decent restaurant as far as fast food goes.

But back in the day, Colonel Sanders didn't actually start what became KFC until he was 62 years old. His career was haphazard and beset by setbacks until he was almost a senior citizen.

You got this!

> No motivation

You typed all this, so clearly you show some motivation.

don't discount your experience/knowledge of how NOT to build/run a business/startup

I learned to code (properly) at around 29, got a Software Engineering degree at 32. I'm 36 now, and I run a solo consulting business. It's a business in the sense that I serve some really large customers (up to Fortune 500), hire people per project, have a sales pipeline and other structures built, but it's just me.

If I've learned one lesson throughout these years, it's that the skills that truly buy your freedom are persuasion and sales. Your technical skill or the product you sell are somewhat relevant (there needs to be good demand/supply dynamics, etc.) but secondary.

I am a technologist at heart and have thousands upon thousands of hours of learning ahead of me but if I had to pick one skill essential for my survival, it would be sales.

Selling is human, universal, and potentially lucrative. There's a lot of potential for turning into a fucking weasel, but one can simply avoid that by not being a fucking weasel.

You saw terrible sales-type executives, it doesn't need to be like that. You can choose to pick a humanist stance towards it; at its heart it's about learning about people's deepest problems and finding solutions for them. You can find good people, good teams and good products or services to sell, even if they're modest to begin with, and build from there. Yes it's hard to find those conditions, but nothing is easy in life - a lot of technology, for example, is an absolute tire-fire.

If none of this jibes with you, maybe project management could also work. Reframe all your experience as "project management", find a domain that you find palatable and is somewhat accessible. Get a PMP certification. Congrats, you're now officially a project manager. It sounds bad because of how easy it can be to intrude the profession (and I'm being particularly facetious about it), and some PMs get a terrible rep because they truly are terrible, but precisely this is a possible aspect of differentiation for you: you will take your job seriously and display the utmost professionalism. You will be the total opposite of a terrible project manager. Your earning potential will not be as high as in sales, but in some domains, six figure salaries are feasible, and you could build a long term career with a progression for the thirty plus working years you have ahead of you.

These are just a couple ideas... Maybe others in the thread are better suited for you. The only thing I'm absolutely certain of is of your ability to turn things around. You're much younger and capable of a quick turnaround at your age (and later, but start now!) than you seem to realize.

What do you want to do?

Just don't pivot into the wrong field

As advice is always super specific and would require me to learn much more about you, I will just share my story first and say yes it's possible:

- German

- spend youth with coding and drumming mostly

- got a bachelor in jazz drums

- got a bachelor in architecture (and got interested in entrepreneurship)

- failed first startup attempts

- worked in architecture for short time

- switched into a commercial real estate development job at 29

- founded a proptech startup by 31, headed product development and later tech there. It worked but didn't take off enough and will therefore be "sold" for close to nothing

- took a part time job in commercial real estate again with 2-3x last salary at a large cooperation (bureaucratic)

- constantly on the lookout for new business opportunities since then (suggestions welcome). I'm also considering leaving job for something less corporate and more at the crossover between tech and real estate.

It can be a mental struggle to switch back and forth, especially since you don't get to the point of directing all your energy into the "one right thing", most people feel the need for in their thirties. At the same time for me, having a well paid job that isn't fulfilling can glue you in as much as a unemployment, as there is more risk involved. Comparing to others is the underlying poisonous thing here, I guess.

I still idealize running my own business, as I tasted that juice and loved it, but getting more risk averse with upcoming recession too and yes I know I'm pretty lucky of from an outside perspective.

One generic piece of advice I saw on hacker news a while back is "if you struggle between multiple options for long and don't know what to choose just flip a coin, as outcomes might be similar with information at hand", just get going with something. People on HN will be able to help you with "how", but "if your should try"?

You won't be the only human on earth, that doesn't have talents or can't look back and find moments in your life, where you were in some kind of flow while working or felt a deep passion for something. You will get there, you can do it!

Sometimes a weird looking CV is our reason for not even trying. Isn't there some story you can create around your cv to pitch to employers? There must be. Sure there is hope. But that's where you start, find a forward perspective and start applying. If you don't roll the dice, they can't show a six. If you don't start folding the paper, it will never be an airplane.

Best and I hope 2023 well be a pivotal year for you! Thorsten

Absolutely. I just did this myself (37, hired at first tech job about a year and a half ago). I was a bartender for a decade. I have a GED and went to college but didn't finish.

To answer your questions:

| Is there any hope for someone like me?

See above

| Will tech co’s ever consider hiring someone like me?

I can't speak for bigco. I work right now at a small company, but I love it here. The focus is on the work. What's going to matter more than anything when you start applying again is your git and your grit. There are places out there where what they want is someone who can learn, who cares about the work their doing, and who's honest.

My interviewing strategy has been to be completely up-front about what I lack. This means a lot of interviews end quickly - which is a good thing! Once you're up to scratch on what you need to know to get into working in tech in the way you want to (like, you've built a thing or two of the type that you're applying to work on), you'll want to find the right fit, and you must resist the urge to upsell yourself on interviews. That way leads pain.

| Is there any reasonable path to starting over? / Where do I even begin?

This is going to depend on what you want to do, and how much runway you have to focus on teaching yourself to do it. For me, coming out of bartending / no tech experience at all, it took 4 years. I got SUPER LUCKY that covid hit when it did - it forced me to cloister and do nothing but learn for a year, which is what made the difference. You can choose to do this on purpose. It's a commitment and you have to make it a priority.

I would also recommend taking a look at the recurse center (1) - they were instrumental for me, and in many ways still are. It's a community that is good to be a part of - you will need help along the way and this is one place to get it. Do a full batch if you can.

Be extraordinarily wary of bootcamps. I've been told some are good - but I almost spent 10k on what looked totally legit (it was in the UC system) but on closer inspection was definitely not (they refused to provide a syllabus or list of instructors before I paid them half, turns out because they didn't actually know either of those things at the time).

For god's sake, pick something to learn / get in to that you love doing! This is tech, you can find someone to pay you to do it and you'll be better at it if you like what you do! Which means better everything - pay, satisfaction, culture. Don't just default to the one with the most jobs or the best pay.

Build stuff. Get your git packed with projects. Don't worry about curating them - if you get an idea start working on it and get it in there, it doesn't matter if you don't finish it. The point is to always be building and always be learning and to have a git history that reflects this.

Don't get stuck in a language, either. Play with rust and python and go and lisp and anything else you can get your hands on. Make programming a joy to do, not just a way to get the job done. Also, use an editor that makes the experience of programming fun / enjoyable. I love emacs for this but that's a matter of opinion.

Starting right now, make a monthly habit of checking the HN whoishiring posts, they drop on the first every month. I've found Kenny Kilton's whoishiring browser (2) to be really useful for this. Just to get a sense for what is out there and what you could be doing.

Stay the hell away from recruiters and places that have a byzantine beaurocratic approach to hiring. Those places are for folks that look good on paper, not the likes of us. You want your first round interview to be with an engineer or CTO or someone who's actively involved in running the ship - those folks can make the decision to take a risk on people in your position, and the other places will typically waste your time by filtering you out with an automated resume reader.

Find community. Keep coming back here. Engage until you understand. Ask dumb questions. Seek to understand.

I feel your pain. I know what it's like to feel like you missed the bus and everything is fucked. Trust me when I say that it's not. If you still have questions reply with them, I'll keep an eye on this thread. Good luck and happy hacking.

1 -https://www.recurse.com/

2 - https://kennytilton.github.io/whoishiring/

I am in the process of doing so.

I can really relate to your naievate that by working hard your efforts would be rewarded. It's really disheartening how sociopathic and downright evil the people in charge can be. I think when you rise up through the ranks you lose your ability to be empathetic to the people your decisions affect. Otherwise how can you be a strong leader if you aren't afraid to ruin a few lives right? /s (just in case)

So rather than giving specific advice, I'm going to give you a few pieces of my situation. Feel free to browse my comment history to see the depths of a crippling burnout and career failure mid-30s.

I did about 10yrs of development before I got to a really sweet job in NYC. I got to experience the full startup ride from fun spunky group to getting acquired and strip mined for assets and personel.

I let the job become too much of my identity and I struggled to move on because of this.

I moved to a different state (USA) with less population density and more nature. I think this helped a lot. I'm also much more isolated which has caused its own problems.

I got into therapy. It took two different therapists, the first one when I told her I think I might be on the spectrum she told me "well I don't do that" and we wasted another 2 months before I missed a few appointments and things fell apart professionally. The SECOND therapist I found is absolutely amazing and the work we've done over the past 8 months is more significant than I've achieved alone in the past 10 years.

I worked a few menial jobs. I was at a pizza kitchen for a while, and I also worked at a kayak store. I felt like I was worthless, I couldn't get a technical job or any that I could get I couldn't tolerate. I cannot recommend this but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to pay the bills.

I worked a few contract jobs after my last big fulltime job. I have had a really bad stretch of gigs working for uninspiring and technically incompetent people. At some point the blame rests with me for not vetting these people, or at the very least politely delcining the work because it wouldn't be a professional work arrangement. You absolutely cannot talk reason into people who haven't reasoned themselves into the situation they are in.

I got a stable job with the state I live in. It pays a lot less than I'm used to but it affords me time to try to sharpen my technical spear and crawl back into the market I used to inhabit.

People will consider hiring you, but not the you right now. You might need to take time off from the job hunt and do something else. You might need to take work in a different field to get some perspective. You gotta find a job that rewards your natural behavior instead of exploiting you like your startup experience. The jobs are out there but 9/10 are smoke and mirrors bullshit liars trying to exploit you. It's a numbers game finding a reasonable employer and you just gotta be diligent in applying more and also really honest with yourself about whether THE COMPANY is up to YOUR standards not the other way around.

A big part of that last thing is self respect. You have to actually have it, you can't fake it. Cultivating the value you feel in yourself is hard and at times painful work but its the only way.

Good luck. "Where to begin" is one step after the other, dont give up. Find something that fucks you back even if you have to do it yourself with blood sweat and tears.