Career change at 36 yo to SDE. My story so you know you can too.

No CS/math degree or SDE internship required! I’ll keep some info vague as my SDE job is at a small company. I’ve worked in a different industry for about a decade and just about 2 years ago I began looking into SDE. I self taught python, did hackathons, self taught Django. I was hooked. When I say self taught, it was mostly via YouTube tutorials. Then took classes, few at community college then a program similar to bootcamp but more extended. Job hunt was brutal. Applied to about 200 places, got about 15 responses, half in part from networking/referrals. Did really well on behavioral questions but poorly on the technicals as I’m still working on my leetcoding. Did well on behavioral bc I understand what interviewers want to hear: team player, problem solver, enthusiasm. I never lied but I tailor my answers/experiences to keep their interest. Eventually with 1-2 months of working on my leetcoding with help of mock interviews, I got 2 job offers and it was impressive how telling the recruiter you have another offer boosts the TC offer tremendously. Lessons from this 2 yr journey (worked part/full time throughout all this and could have easily done it in shorter time but it just happened to work out that way for my situation): 1. SDE career favors the bold (proactive) vs how I met a lot who say they’re interested but just too lazy/passive. 2. My age has never been a problem, rather an advantage in social skills and behavioral questions 3. Don’t underestimate the important of leetcoding 4. Met many strangers and friends of friends who went totally out of their way to help in various ways. Networking has been surprisingly easy among the tech/development world. Not working for Kaiser, just an old email. Prefer that you DM for specific questions TC 120 #software #swe #engineering #careerchange #nontraditional