Did you change career paths after 30?

Twice!

I left engineering (non-CS) at 36 y/o to become a firefighter-paramedic. Long story short, took EMT-Basic at night for shits and giggles, realized I really liked it. Then went to paramedic school afterwards not knowing what I was going to do with it. Close to graduation from PM, county FD was hiring paramedic only and cross training to be FF as well. I figured if I didn't do it then I never would so I did. The best career decision I ever made. I stayed for 14 years before covid scared me away due to a chronic medical condition I have. I was married and we had just had our 1st child. (Still married, oldest graduated H.S. this year and our other is a sophomore in H.S.).

During the 14 years as a FF/PM, I felt I needed a backup plan in case I got hurt or my medical condition got to the point I had to leave (thought of this WAY before covid). I went back to school for a master's in CS, online. I was 40 y/o when I started school and completed at 45 y/o. After graduation I worked a few part time, remote jobs as a software developer.

Then in 2020 covid hit, I had enough, and started applying for CS jobs. Landed my 1st full time gig at 50 y/o. Stayed for 2 years and then, last year at 52 y/o I landed a new software dev position.

Never once, even the positions I interviewed for but did get the job, did I feel my age was a factor. It was never my plan to have a diverse and disjointed resume, it just happened. I did things I felt were in the best interest for my family and/or me, with an eye on the future.

I was a tenured mathematics professor in academia (at UCSD and Univ of Washington) from 2005-2019, and a full professor during the last few years. At 45, I left academia and started a small tech company, giving up tenure and the academic life. It has worked out for me so far, though it often felt like my instincts from academia are almost exactly backwards from the correct instincts for industry. Anyway, leaving the "golden handcuffs" of tenure was probably a somewhat unusual part for me. I tried very hard to stay X% with the university, but the intellectual property and other rules were too rigid to make that work for more than 2-3 years, even though the mathematics department was extremely supportive. My motivation for leaving academia was my inability to get funding to support development of open source software (in particular, SageMath), and I still aspire to one day create more value and have a bigger impact than I could in academia.

Planning on it and I'm almost 40. I'm in tech now, but in life I really enjoy deep 1-1 time with people more than anything else I do at work.

I've got a 5-year plan to leave tech and go back to school to become a therapist, specifically working with people suffering from OCD (and perhaps some other forms of anxiety). At this point it's mostly meeting with people in the industry to hear their stories, with a goal of applying to master's programs in the next two years.

Most likely complete a 3 year program and then open up a private practice.

Demand for therapy in my area (Seattle) is at an all-time high, and there are often considerable wait lists when it gets specific like OCD.

Yes, twice in fact. Went from being a geologist for environmental consulting firms -> community management for various tech websites -> software engineer.

Each has worked out better than the last and brought me more enjoyment (and dollar bills as well, ah gem). I still like my rocks, but I really like coding, too.

Now over 40 though. Hoping to stick with the software engineering side of things from here on out. But who knows!

Edit: In terms of advice - if you’re bored or lacking fulfillment in your current role and something else legitimately interests you, take the chance and do it.

It’s not always possible of course, I am very very fortunate in having a partner who is supportive and can help cover us financially while I attempted to ramp us in new careers.

But people with a strong enough desire seem to find a way. It just might take a bit longer.

Love these threads. I'm mid 30s, coding since young, full stack dev now. Lucky to do something I enjoy. That said, burnt out a couple of years ago, hopped a couple of jobs, but yet to find one that lets me love programming again. Too much BS. Trying to just treat it as a job and save my enthusiasm for personal projects to keep that fire alive, but I'd be lying if I said I don't routinely think about getting out. Always good to read accounts from the side of the fence where the grass is greener.

I went to graduate school at 30, and became and industry researcher at 35. My main advice is to realize that there is a lot of work in the transition, and your co-workers/advisor/etc will not care much about your previous accomplishments. You'll need to prove yourself again, but being comfortable with having to do that is worthwhile.

It's not going to be anywhere near as big as other responses, but I kind of did at 31: switched from development to maintenance.

I was tired of having to keep redoing the same thing whenever the product owner or designer changed their mind on something, and the tipping point came after they were looking for suggestions for this one visualization clients had a hard time understanding. No one liked my suggestion so we did one of the other ones, then a few months later it came up again as still too confusing and the designer came up with something new - that just so happened to be the same thing I had originally suggested. It's been that version ever since.

Switching to maintenance here meant that we're directly solving problems. Not just "thing is broken, fix it" but also creating simple for-purpose tools, refactoring and upgrading, and largely being able to plan our own work. It's been a great place to use the depth of knowledge built up over the years, though not so great for new devs to build that knowledge in the first place, like we typically would try and use the role for.

I spent some time driving forklift after programming and computer tech work burnt me out. Also did some construction, and a few other things. I think me calling the "driving forklift in a warehouse" "my vacation" the entire time I was working there helped attitudes a lot. It sure got people laughing often .. (made "employee of the month" a couple of times too, I was definitely keeping up with everyone!)

After that, pivot to IT security ... burn out. Then pivot to web development which emphatically burnt me in different ways (I'm kind of nonvisual, so visualizing things is my bane. see aphantasia which I found out about later). Last - embedded electronics software, where I'm much happier. Sadly out of work for the last year so let's see where next....

I stayed in IT, so it was not a massive career change, but I went from being a Unix systems administrator to being an Android programmer.

Advice? It took longer to get a job as an SWE than I had anticipated. I kind of stumbled into being a Unix sysadmin way back when and didn't give much thought into getting my first SWE job paying a real salary.

In hindsight I would have paid more attention to college internships (although I don't know what companies make of someone 30+ on an internship). I was enthusiastic about Android when it came out, and at this point I'm happy I focused on it, but if I had been studying Javascript and React instead of Java and Android I might have gotten a job sooner. Also, I was doing my own projects and did not think to work for some small company for low pay, but eventually I did - I made a little money, got a little experience and had something to put on my resume and talk about in interviews - and I was upfront with them that I was not planning to stay for many years (I wound up staying about a year and eight months, longer than I had anticipated).

So my advice would be to think about how you're going to get that first job on the career path, beyond the idea that you'll go to college (or training) and study hard. I went to college and studied hard, and even was doing a lot of my own projects as well, but in retrospect it took longer to get that first job with a decent salary than I had anticipated.

I was a network engineer and after age 40 did a bootcamp and now happily work as a web developer.

I changed from being a system software engineer (working on device drivers) to applied research engineer (ai).

I worked for small startups for 2.5 years in order to gain relevant experiences.

I worked as a freelance translator from age 28 to 48, when I was offered a faculty position at a university. There would be a big drop in income and I was hesitant about cutting contacts with several clients I had worked for for years, but the offer came at just the right time in my life: the kids were nearly out of school, the house was almost paid off, and translation, while still paying well, had gradually become less interesting to me. The university job was only for a fixed term at first, but I took it because it seemed more stimulating. I also figured that, if my contract wasn't renewed, I could always return to freelancing and build a new set of clients.

The university job worked out in the end. I got tenure after a few years, and I had many more opportunities to learn and to interact with interesting people than if I had continued as a freelancer. I retired from the university earlier this year at the age of 65.

Looking back, I am glad I made that change when I did. But I still remember how nervous I was the day in September 2005 when I emailed my long-term translation clients and told them I couldn't accept work from them anymore.

Transitioned from a data analyst to a SWE at 34. Its worked out well so far, but there are definitely aspects of SWE that I still play catch-up with. Much of any good advice would depend on the career path you are switching from/to, but for anyone switching from analytics -> SWE, I've found that I (personally) should have invested more time in learning OOP and reading more production code. I don't write a ton of OO code on a daily basis now, but coming from an analytics background, most of my workflow revolved around FP where my goal was to just get something to work they way I expected to.

I also wish I reached out to my network a bit more and talked to other SWEs prior to accepting my role. Not that I would have changed my decision, just could have leveraged friends to get a sense of the day-to-day.

A lot of people here seem to miss the point.

I myself went from support > consulting > dev > cloud. None of those are a change in career! It is all still software!

Neither is going from a SWE in one industry to a SWE in another! That is just a new job!

Going from SWE to being a Firefighter or Police is a change in career.

Going from being an ER nurse to a SWE is a damn change in career!

Did a PhD in CS straight from undergrad. Stayed in academic research until I was 37 and was then offered a job in the automotive industry. Pays much better. Benefits are much better. Off-work time is respected. The work I did in academy felt more fulfilling, but I got over that after a year.

Multiple times, went from mechanical engineering > tech project manager > product manager > educator/developer

It's been working out well due to me having doing something I enjoy more than doing something that makes me money.

What I regret is not getting here sooner.

I was 29 when I got my first job writing code. Before that I was a wildland firefighter and then a carpenter. I taught myself to code at night over the course of 2 years. Got an MS in Data Science a few years after that. Now I’m doing software engineering, data engineering, and data science in a domain I’m super interested in. So it worked out really well. I’m pretty much right where I wanted to be when I wrote my first line of JavaScript at 27. My advice is to totally immerse yourself as much as possible in whatever field you’re trying to get into and start to think of yourself as someone who is already a part of that community.

Yes. I spent about 10 years doing military Satellite Communications, took a year off after a few years in the sandbox. I then switched to IT. Pivoted from Sysadmin to SRE/DevOps five years later.

Five more years after that and I make 10x what I did 10 years ago and am working towards FIRE. My family lives on <30% of my income, the rest goes to savings and investments. We should reach our FIRE number before I turn 50.

I love the work I do (DevOps with a Security focus), and that year off I took I was miserable. I'll probably never really retire, just be to the point where I can do the work I need to in under four hours per day and travel.

Not so much 'change' in my case, more of a 'wobble'.

Started as a retail pharmacist, moved to become hospital pharmacist, a sidetrack to become a COBOL computer programmer in warehouse software, then back to retail pharmacy plus aviation training as far as Commercial Pilot Licence, then back to retail pharmacy when General Aviation went through a downturn, followed by becoming general manager of the family's Commercial Rents business.

In my youth it was common to see people stay in one job for all their working lives. Today it's common for people to have several careers over that time period.

Started my career as an embedded software engineer in telecom. Around age 30, left and went traveling for a few months. Came back, fell into a software dev role in fin tech. I stayed in the financial realm, and made significantly more money than had I stayed in telecom. This industry tends to be counter-cyclical to the job market, so there are other benefits.

I'm trying to break into SE (at 32 from an accounting background), but not having a US/EU passport and living in a third world makes it hard. So I will say that depending on where you are from, things can get tricky. But the usual still stands, you get jobs by knowing the right people.

I was a welder for 8 years before I went back to school. Graduated at 29. I somehow snagged a developer position in April. It has worked out well so far. Welding can be very fulfilling work but it didn't quite scratch the intellectual itch that programming does.

Yep. Went from electrical designer in industrial automation from 23-27, went to graduate school, came out as a robotics software engineer from 29-onwards. Almost completely different worlds. About the only thing that was the same was the presence of 6-DoF robot arms.

Yes! I switched from software to being a therapist. I wrote about it here: http://glench.com/WhyIQuitTechAndBecameATherapist/

I started working as a web developer professionally at 31. Prior to that I worked in a welfare office. Switching to software was a great decision both for my paycheck and generally being around happier, less stressed coworkers.

Left SWE for administrative side.

All of my experience was mainframes and cobol anyway, and leaving that for a more modern SWE is a radical path change as well.

Anyway. Working as a SWE sucked all of the fun out of it. Now I get to enjoy it as a hobby again.

Switched to web developer from a sort website content management / editorial career path. Went back to uni part time to do a CompSci graduate diploma at 34, got web dev job at 36. Still there now 10 years later.

I was mech eng and switched to cs. BS in ME but MS in CS.

I know lots of others 30+ who switched to cs after 30 as well. Much less going the other way. It's worked out quite well for everyone I know.

yes! https://www.swyx.io/nocsdegree-pete

https://hackernoon.com/no-zero-days-my-path-from-code-newbie...

https://learninpublic.org/

Yes, I ended my career to make apps on my own or within worker cooperative structures. No more bosses, no more wage labor. It’s peachy.

I did. At 35 I sold my Domino's, moved to NYC and started doing freelance tech support. I never looked back and am much happier

49 this year. 24ish years ago i went from Baker to IT.

I know thats not at 30... but close enough given the huge change in career trajectory.

Network engineer Frontend engineer Now a hotel owner

But can't leave behind tech. Still writing code to automate things at work.

10 years at FAANG companies, laid off, now considering classical guitar conservatory + indie dev ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Didn't anyone tell you? Doing new things is strictly not allowed in tech. Too late!