Myra Thomas wrote:I'm a reporter for Dice.com looking to interview someone who became a programmer for the first time after 40. That's the gist of the story---job advice for older new entrants in the field. Contact me as soon as you can.
Myra Thomas
I am 41.
I took some certification and wrote the first projects, but still have to propose my self to the job market, so I am still working as financial analyst, mainly because being +40 could be more smart to become medior instead than propose myself as junior.
I did this choice for an emotional reason and a logical one.
The emotional one, is that I have always dreamt to become a coder since I was six, but for some reasons I did not accomplish that.
The logical reason is that I read on the Economist three years ago that my financial profession could disappear in few years because of the technology, so I found subsequent to take a part time and starting to pursue my dream.
this decision originated because I casually had confirmation of my coding soft skills in a financial project.
I wrote a financial software in VBA and I loved it. So instead to pursue the money of a job as data analyst or business (IT) analyst, I decided the counterintuitive step to become a coder( usually is the other way around). I am fascinated by a world where the software you write speaks much more than whatever performance review based on ( wannabe) SMART processes.
I can tell you I learned in these 2 years of self study that coder is not something you can improvise but can be the most fulfilling intellectual experience an human being could have.( Possibly apart reading Plato and composing classical music)
Maybe you can improvise yourself as marketing manager but programmer... not way, if you are not focused, persistent, curious, passionate and meet a minimal IQ requirements necessary for the continuous (&& fascinating) problem solving steps you cannot become a (good) developer.
A snippet of code can have a real harmonic beauty, but the majority of the people cannot see it because they lack the building blocks to understand it, just like a blind human being cannot unfortunately see the colors.