I've been a creative for 10 years. Designing, directing, branding, writing etc. but the dog and pony show is getting old. Work life balance is awful. And I dont see anyone over 40 at my agency. But the pay keeps me on the treadmill and I've saved enough to jump off. I've been considering taking a year off and crash coursing a full stack academy. Am I wrong to think that I could break into tech above an entry level? Is the grass not much greener? the intersection of tech. design. and creative is interesting to me and hard skills of coding trump the soft skills I've developed as a salesman of ideas.
30? Don’t buy and green bananas. You should be selecting a burial plot.
burial plot? throw me in the trash
What’s with the rude posts OP ignore them. Someone with something useful to say will come along.
TC?
I career changed into tech at 30. But I knew the niche I wanted to go into and really, it’s what I wanted and should have done all along. Only change if you’re there, not for the money, or you’ll have the same issue in tech in 10 years.
And have you considered switching to a tech job internally, OP? Not sure if that’s an option but might be an easier foot in the door
Being successful in tech takes a lot more than taking some coding bootcamp... It's a competitive field. Also, work life balance won't be any better than your current role, many in tech pull 16 hour days fairly often. I think you are right that the grass is always greener... I was driving to work and passed a road crew, and was thinking "they get to be outside on a beautiful day, they are given specific tasks to work toward each day, and when the clock out they don't have to stress out, or get calls from their boss at 1am to come back to work..."
I miss the total lack of responsibility outside of work hours for sure. Base pay rates weren't bad either. But WLB is better due to flexibility.
I met a guy who was a cop and then a corrections officer for ten years and now works at Splunk as a field engineer. I think if you know how to do somthing people will pay you. But definitely only get into it if you're interested. money can't scratch any itches, only allow you to buy more back scratchers.
Don’t do it for the money, do it because you enjoy spending most of your time perfecting your software engineering skills, as that’s what you’ll have to do to keep up. Other than that, it doesn’t matter when you start.
It’s certainly possible! I’m doing something similar. I think, to be more successful, you should ask around and consider what strengths your current creative background provides you, and train in something that lets you use them. Your creative experience is not wasted in a technical field. The way you do work and solve problems in your creative role can be valuable in tech, and it’ll give you a set of problem-solving tools that your colleagues and completion aren’t likely to have. I know that’s vague, but you don’t have to think of yourself as starting from 0 in your career. You’re starting from 0 in your technical skills, but your 10 year creative career will support you here.
You’re not wrong. You’ll be a crappy dev but still make more money than doing anything else. You tried creative, and found that you’re not creative. So IT is ideal for guys like you who have no talents. I believe you will succeed in this field
Lol
Maybe I'll get into finance and continue to create no value for society for a living. Just like advertising.