I'm 35 with an MBA and 10 years of experience in commercial banking underwriting. I'm interested in coding and data analytics but I have a mortgage and a family and I can't afford to spend $20K on a boot camp and start at a job making a lot less money. Is it worth trying to teach myself at night?
Boot camp is a fucking scam; you can teach yourself all that on your own. If you've got no coding experience it definitely won't be easy, but you would be neither the first nor last to succeed if you did. The family and other obligations make it seem like it'd be really rough, though, not gonna lie.
How much time do you think it would take for an average guy with no family though?
Appreciate the feedback. Any advice on where to start? I've thought about Dataquest.io and freecodecamp.org. Any language I should start with or focus on! Python? Ruby? HTML?
If you are looking for something with processing data, python would be good. It's quite an easy language to pick up and the community is big, so there are many open source projects that you could use. I would suggest you to learn object oriented programming together with the language that you want to learn. Try codecademy. Although you will need a subscription, I think the first 7 days are free.
Thanks! I've seen codeacademy as well.
Devil’s advocate: You’ll be kissing goodbye to FIRE dreams and working thru 50s assuming a successful transition. Are you OK with entry level salary at 36? Managers 10 years your juniors? I’d find a job in tech that doesn’t involve coding and uses your MBA/people skills
Thanks. I appreciate the feedback!
The way I figure it is that I'm going to be working though my 50s regardless. I fully expect to work until I'm 65. Which is why I am trying to find a career that I can enjoy rather than stick with something that is boring, not challenging, and doesn't utilize my aptitudes. If it turns out I can retire before that, great. If not, I got what I expected.
If you are 35 and you haven’t taught yourself programming by now, it’s probably not the best career option to start so late. Many start in their teens or earlier.
Curious, Where is your MBA from?
Penn State. Loved the program, the professors, the people. Wish I would have waited until I was 30 to decide whether to go back to school or not. However, I left with over 100% increase in salary from when I went in...
If you want a degree the Georgia Tech CS masters online is pretty cheap. Illinois and ASU also have affordable options through Coursera.
Georgia tech is cheap, but it's not an entry level program. You would get roasted without any programming skills / several classes of pre-work
Eh. May be better to go with a formal program in your situation. Software development is not an easy field to break into. Especially in 30's. Maybe look into program management or project management type roles?
Completely doable. Got my first DS + Dev gig @ 36 at a startup in Palo Alto. Self taught C++, later switched to JVM languages. Given your experience, startups would be a place to target as there is usually a need to perform multiple tasks until you find your niche. Do it now cause you'll be asking yourself the same question at 40 and in all likelihood, it will be harder than 35 to break in and study.
Thanks! Appreciate it!
Get Linux, use a Raspberry Pi. All compilers there. Great starting platform..IMHO
Thanks man!
Never too late to leetcode
This.