I am now 37 without an impressive educational or professional background, no network of colleagues, no mastery in any one skill, and a whole lot of mental health debt. And yet the child inside of me still wants to pursue the scrappy Silicon Valley tech dream.
Am I deluded? Where do I even begin?
Life is long and we can restart our journey at any time, so no worries.
The best advice I could give is to start meeting people and (always!) learn new things.
Action on you: go to meetup.com, find three interesting events in your area, go there with no expectations, just listen and meet new people.
You are smart. You will work it out.
Grind leetcode: https://leetcode.com/
Did you like being a PM?
What job did you perform in medicine?
TBH, I can't help with the mental health stuff, but my route has also been circuitous, so maybe I can offer practical advice.
I was a software engineer, went to law school (I am an idiot), was in law for a bit, now looking for engineering jobs again.
It can be anything; preferable a small-scale project to avoid the possibility of getting lost in the daunting scale of something supposedly "impressive" but overly complicated at this stage of your learning journey.
One finished project of 200 lines of code is more impressive than 10 unfinished "apps" that grew to big in concept and scope (at least in my opinion).
I started my career from 36 and I'm working as a data engineer right now. I didn't have a CS background either and before I launched my IT career I worked as a customer service for a telecom.
But I was lucky to catch up the post 2015 IT frenzy gravy train. Right now they are throwing people out of the train so I'm not sure what's the opportunity out there.
Take what is unique about you, what interests you and
Early on, I had multiple opportunities to make a life in the Bay area. I stupidly did not take those opportunities.
My coding skills are no longer competitive and I am competing (and getting out-gunned) at the highest level.
Some of the suggestions here to build something you care about feel to ring true. I am also mulling this. It is hard to make time for this later in life but I feel there is no other way. I am also mulling taking a big pay cut and relocate the family to the Bay area. It feels very risky but I feel I won't be able to live with myself.
Good luck, friend. I don't think it is too late.
From there I would suggest the following:
- If your craft isn't already your main hobby, turn it into your main hobby.
- Network as much as you can. Meetup.com is very useful for this purpose.
- Use your network to find a mentor. Someone knowledgeable who has achieved what you're aiming for and is willing to help you.
And so what if you fall short and end up in Cincinnati, able to afford a comfortable life? Would that really be so bad?
I think you’re 5-10 years late unless you turn yourself into a GenAI/Machine Learning specialist very quickly. The Bay Area has attracted the worst type of people to compete with. It’s packed full of gold miners and even more shovel sellers. Try somewhere else.
Do you have any money? Are you technically savvy? Can you take a 12 months course from a reputable institution that may award you a ML qualification?
Turn your age and background into a strength. You’re mature, dependable, hungry, professional. You show up, you get it, you can relate with the middle age hiring manager. You need a chance and you won’t waste it like some 25 year old jib hopping. You’re willing to work for a little less but not much less.
It is all the same problem: you need to develop a more coherent sense of yourself, and what you are shaping yourself to study. The work follows from the study, not the other way around; people arrive at a certain kind of work by trading off what they want to do, what the work allows them to do, the amount of stress they experience, and the self-dignity they sacrifice in the process of doing the work. You don't want to go into a field to satisfy a certain identity need, because that's something that can be used against you to gatekeep and say, "oh, you're not a real programmer, you're not a real artist, you're not a real entrepreneur" and to justify your exploitation. It has to come from somewhere else.
This is the kind of subject that, in the 20th century, was discussed by "What Color is Your Parachute?" But, while it's gotten a lot of new editions, I don't think the specifics of that book are so relevant now.
What I suggest instead is to sit down with some paper and make Venn diagrams: who you are, what you keep thinking about, what people seem to appreciate in your work, and what kinds of problems or situations you don't seem bothered by relative to others. Find the overlap. The center of the diagram is the outline: "this is me and this is how I genuinely want to present myself."
And then find the opportunities, and create another diagram around the overlap of you and the opportunities. There is always a "new thing" coming up, that needs people to do work in it. Sometimes you are positioned perfectly for it. Other times you can find a more peripheral space in it, like the advice given to accounting students that they can work in "any industry" because everyone needs accounting.
And then, from the overlap of that, begin the process of marketing yourself. Make your social media profile and your blogposts and send emails as an "interested student". You will get ghosted in some instances, and get some access to real conversations in others.
If you determine you need to pick up a skillset, the same process applies. Diagram out what's known about the field, perhaps drawing from your interviews and emails. Identify overlaps. Position yourself to pick up the necessary background to be within that overlap, to be the person somebody grabs when they need a certain kind of problem solved. If 4-year CS undergrads can do it, you, an experienced 30-something, can probably do it in 18 months. The technical training is ultimately all muscle memory, a thing you practice with monkey-see, monkey-do, over and over, until the task is familiar and the knowledge is memorized.
Although not everything technical is easy to grasp, in the broad view of getting involved and employed, it is actually that simple.
The biggest shortage in silicon valley is that of capable minds and hands. It's on you to make yourself marketable, but once that's done, there's tons of opportunity. I've been working here since 1996. I'm a grey haired old timer now, and I've seen this industry from big companies, startups, boring companies, and fad companies. Get your foot in the door, the first job won't be glorious, but as you demonstrate skill, pay and rank will follow. Don't go to any of the companies staffed by lots of startup bros, because a wrinkle or some greying hair is a disadvantage there, but there are plenty of other places to start.
For more details, read Steve Blank's "The Four Steps to the Epiphany".
Begin by playing a chess game. And in the middlegame ask yourself if it matters how you got to that position.
That aside, I agree it's not too late! For example, most of the people with new LLM startups probably didn't know much at all about LLMs two years ago. Sometimes everyone gets to be a new learner at the same time.
4 years later, I can build anything I want with lines of code in 3 languages. Best part = building is free (it takes time tho) + it's fun.
My advice to you is to decide what you want to work on by building things.
It's true that learning CS is important. But you can just read books + do youtube lectures on the side from the big colleges.
The tech dream you are referring too is about building things. There is a lot to that but nothing beats actually building things for users.
Also, remember that knowledge work (like tech) still have people working at 70 years old. I have conversations with programmers who are around that age. They haven't slowed down.
To answer your question, where do I begin, start by building something that you would have used in a PM role. Once you have the project in mind, the details will fall into place (google!)
She started with some courses, bootcamps (one of which was created by me - this is how i know her), some first shitty jobs and gigs and gradually built herself from there.
Within ~5 years.
Despite some arrogant naysayers suggesting her getting a CS degree first or chose different path at all.
I had only had fairly low skilled jobs (and lots of unemployment) earlier in life. I even dropped out of college when I was younger, just like you. I definitely graduated at just the right time, but I think that it can be done, and it's not as weird anymore to go back to school when you're older.
I was extremely motivated because I felt like it was my last shot, and I knew that I really enjoyed programming after doing a couple of MOOCs and such.
So go do that? You fail to mention whether you live in a developed country (the US), you have a family, kids, or you want to have a family in the short-term, or you have parents to take care of. Because that matters more than the rest.
If you don't have any obligations, I'd just buy myself a ticket to S.E.A or Latin America and forget all about it. That's just what I did it.
If your dream is pick up a skill like web development and join (or build your own) company, then totally give it a shot.
You don't need to do it in the valley either.