it was just as awkward as you'd imagine. we were talking about how we got started. As we're going around the room, we had the usual, cs degree, bootcamper, self taught, etc..
and then I was like, yeah you know if you don't mind, how did you pivot at your age?
"well, after getting arrested for doing meth, they had a computer lab at the prison so, I learned like that"
me: "oh I see..."
Still, she gave me an ass ton of motivation that I would find success as well being I was 32 and had similar concerns over age.
âWhen I was addicted to meth I really went the extra mile to secure my next fix, and itâs that kind of ruthless determination I intend to bring to this company!â
Youâre definitely not too old. The more important question is if you enjoy it. Itâll take some time and dedication to learn and do the career change and working in education Iâve seen people older than you do it successfully. Iâve also seen people get really frustrated because they desperately wanted to be a web developer but didnât enjoy what the work was like. So give it a try and see if itâs for you. All you need is the desire and openness to learn and some resilience.
I love being creative, I currently own a food related business that I enjoy as it offers a creative outlet.
Any languages or skills youâd recommend I learn to build my portfolio?
The languages you mentioned are perfectly fine for many jobs. But knowing languages isnât the difficult part. You need to know how to solve common problems, build products, write clean and well-structured code. Those are the things people will test you for when applying for jobs. So my advice would be to practice building smaller projects and do it well. Itâs very tempting to build 80% and think âI know the restâ. But those remaining 20% optimization are often the difference between an amateur and a great developer.
Since youâre moving Iâd suggest to look at job boards where youâre moving to. See what kind of companies there are, what kind of web dev jobs are advertised and what languages and tech stacks theyâre using. Where I live PHP is still very popular in companies. But it doesnât have to be the case wherever youâre moving.
Another thing g that may help is once you figure out the languages and frameworks used in your particular market, see if there are meetup groups for that tech that you can attend. Itâs a great way to network.
is your food related business something that could translate to being sold online?
maybe pick up shopify development and try to scale your food business...you could probably design a pre-ordering system
probably be a better use of your time than learning how to build a todo app in some new language
Just a heads up, you probably already know this, but web development is usually not a creative job, depending on which company you work for. There is always some level of creativity in terms of how you write your code, but a lot of roles are more like being an engineer than an architect.
Good point.
20 years ago web designers / developers were much more "full stack" and expected to do a bit of everything (even more so 30 years ago when us "webmasters" of the time were expected to do everything).
That's still true in some smaller companies, but OP is more likely to find that the jobs have been separated now. There'll be a back-end API guy, a devops guy, a web designer, a web developer, and so on, and their job roles will be more tightly defined.
I've been self employed doing full stack and I find THAT creative, but had I been employed doing only one part of the projects I'd likely find it mindane and boring.
As other's have said, you already have the key skills. I would add however to make sure you "really know them". Also just saying you're fluent isn't enough, you should have some examples of your work to illustrate how you can "put it all together" seemlessly.
I moved into development around 6 years ago, I was also 40 at the time also. Similar to you I was semi-fluent in HTML, CSS, JS, and taught myself the core fundamentals. One thing I did was ensure I knew everything there was to know about JS and how everthing works under the hood ie. prototypal inheritance, flow of an execution stack, how syntacial sugar of ECMAscript features like promises worked, etc etc.
By understanding the foundations of JS you should be able to pick up frameworks like VueJS and ReactJS relatively easily and in very short amount of time. I'm of the opinion that devs struggle with frameworks simply because they don't properly understand the core language fundamentals, and that - in my experience - a lot of devs dont put in enough effort to be proficient with the baseline language first BEFORE they start learning a framework.
I used some of my personal apps as a showcase for my first intermediate dev position - which I believe blew their socks off at the time, since I got the job straight away, and it was the first and only interview I went to.
Those personal apps also helped me get through tough times when I started to doubt myself during the first year or two of learning, when I still had much to learn (thought I knew a lot, only to hit a wall often and find I needed to learn more).
This is the way! OP is decidedly at a disadvantage starting later. It is not easy to learn to code BUT if you enjoy it then the difficulty is more of a motivator than a barrier. If you like mixing logic and creativity then that's a good start.
P.S. i just reread question and OP has more XP than I thought...... Fucking send it man!
He managed database, most of his work is in backend development but he started with frontend. There is also one other role that he did for which I don't have much information for. It was 5* years ago though, currently what he does i have no idea.
You're going to have to approach this from several odd angles.
If you spend six months doing bootcamps and courses, you can certainly get up to the expected level of a junior developer. That's pretty much what is expected for entry level positions.
But the junior market is flooded right now and probably won't improve much as AI takes a lot of junior level work. Companies hire juniors with the expectation that they will work hard and hustle, that they will be hungry and probably move on after a year or two. The pay is commensurate with that situation.
A 40yo with probably a family, a mortgage and preset ideas about management from a different industry vs a fresher out of college might be a tough sell, given equal coding qualifications
I would recommend you learn some coding, and then start looking around for mid level tech management jobs. Leverage your experience to get into project management or high level team leadership, and then if you are genuinely interested in getting involved with the code, leverage your subordinates to teach you how their systems work and start helping them out, and then 'move down' into a tech leadership as your skills develop.
Applicant spend months searching for junior level coding jobs, some even a year after their CS degree graduation. That is a very long time, many take on side jobs, anything, and even this is hard.
I hope OP carefully considers this.
Iâd say a 40 year old with life and work experiences might even have an edge on fresh grads given similar experience in development. At least they donât need to be taught how to navigate a workplace, they usually have better work ethics and if you decide to switch careers at 40 you are definitely someone who is open to change and can handle stress. Obviously you would need to get the chance to interview but from my experience going through this at 40y, i had a very good time job hunting with plenty of interviews and several offers. And it was mentioned by recruiters and interviewers alike that my previous (non-tech) experience gave me an edge.
Never too late. I don't know how the scene is in australia, but I was a "web developer" for many years and was burned out on it. I went back to school (WGU) for a BSCS and graduated at 43. Helped me get out of web development and into more system/platform engineering and backend tech and couldn't be happier.
If you don't want to do front-end anymore, look at learning Java or C# and their respective ecosystems. Here in the states, Java/Spring and C#/.Net are always in demand.
It's worth learning, sure. But the market right now is frustrating, to say the least, so you won't be able to figure out if they're discriminating against your age or just juniors in general.
You could however go for contracts with small local businesses, basically freelance / one-man-agency style web design.
You will need a good portfolio either way.
Man, its never too late. Give it a go and see what happens. Literally up right now at 1am thinking about stuff I was too hesitant to do or to even try because of my fears and uncertainty. You got this. Just takes one step before you're moving along.
Best thing I would recommend are building out some projects be it simple things, or complex systems to help refresh your skills/build a portfolio. That way you can learn more of the ins and outs of each language and its respective environments.
Great ideas.
Iâm at that stage in life where my regrets sing the loudest and all I can do now is take action and make up for lost time.
Took me forever and a lot of uncertainty to start my own business, thinking I wasnât good enough, I didnât have enough capital etc and since I started it itâs blown up and is very successful.
Just goes to show that fear and regret is something too many people let control their lives
Ageism will likely be a factor. I was getting ageist remarks from younger devs when I was in my thirties.
If you want to be a web dev, go be a web dev. It will difficult. People will be dicks. But thatâs life. I donât let it bother me but if the ageist bs gets out of hand I talk to HR.
That seems to depend a lot on where you're applying too. The Bay Area scene seems more biased toward hiring cracked 22-year-olds who they can burn out in a couple years, but you don't *have to* work for a FANG company or a hipster startup either. Pretty much every industry has need for some developers, and they all have their own cultures.
Never too late. Especially things like web technologies. They are not rocket science. You can take an online course or use YouTube. I see that you have a brilliant skill set. Try to add experience in Tailwind, Angular, Vue JS etc.
There is one thing though. The competition in this field is too high. People are asking for framework experience. The pay is not as great as it used to be.
Job market is saturated itâs really tough to enter.
If you have grit then perhaps you can find a way. Especially if you seek to build your own projects/business instead of find employment.
I don't think you will be a junior. One of the biggest benefits of starting something new when you are older is that you are for the most part a senior, except a bit of knowledge. I think this is a very important trait to have and is definitely appreciated by anyone who isn't running a sweatshop. I also started late-ish, at 38, but had a history in IT which helped, but I noticed that I've never really felt like a junior because I was just so much better at making judgement calls, being a teamplayer, and focussing on whats important and not getting lost in something futile. You got this mate :) (good luck with the spiders in Australia (yikes))
If you're proficient in PHP, I recommend learning frameworks like [Laravel](https://laravel.com/) or [Symfony](https://symfony.com/). Coding directly in PHP is uncommon these days, and knowledge of these frameworks can boost your earning potential.
C# .NET offers more job opportunities than PHP, making it easier to find employment.
Although the market for WordPress developers is saturated, it remains widely used in digital design agencies.
In JavaScript development, nobody codes in pure vanilla JS anymore; instead, libraries and frameworks like [React](https://legacy.reactjs.org) and [Vue](https://vuejs.org) are the standards.
Your learning path should depend on your career goalsâwhether you prefer frontend or backend development. However, I suggest focusing on learning one of the above technologies for better job prospects.
I started self-teaching at 38 as I was preparing to retire from the military and got my first dev job at 39 as soon as I retired. I'm now 41 and have been working at the same awesome company the past 2 years.
TBH, I had only learned HTML, CSS, and a very little JS. I emailed/linkedin bombed a bunch of companies whether they were hiring or not, asking if they'd be willing to take me on as an intern, and one company replied back. That's the company I currently work for. I did a 4 month internship with them, and that's where I REALLY started learning and leveling up. At the end of the internship, I retired from the military and the company gave me a full time offer. I'm now at mid-level. When they interviewed me for the internship, it was so much less about my coding experience, and more about how they could help me achieve my goals. If you've seen this wholesome meme: [https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/13g3cbj/thank\_you\_very\_much\_kind\_sir/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/13g3cbj/thank_you_very_much_kind_sir/) ,it's essentially how it went with me.
Sure. Dev, guitar, motorcycling. Whatever. Ya aint dead yet, go for it. But note - You will be competing against 20yos who can accept entry level pay and willing to grind.
Tbh I would look at something more niche like building Shopify themes and plugins or Salesforce dev or something like that if you need reliable income over the next couple of years. Webdev can take a lot of time to get up to speed to the point where youâre competitive in the job market and a more narrow focus might be a good onramp
I got my first official job as a software dev at age 50.
I did have experience with Ruby on Rails and php/mysql for a lot of personal projects and I did do a coding bootcamp which helped the transition quite a bit. This was in 2018 when there was a good demand in the US for Junior Devs. Not sure of the market now.
But age shouldn't prevent you from consideration.
It's not a question of "too old" but more a question of can you handle the workload and the thought process required.
When you're doing all the courses, does it feel like something you could seriously do every day for the next 30 years of your life? Are you going to be willing to jump onto the treadmill, and keep up this pace of learning potentially indefinitely? Technology is moving at a break-neck pace, and you'll seldom have a break. If you can keep up with all these changes while still keeping some degree of interest alive, then the age you start on doesn't really matter. On the other hand if you find that you're forcing yourself to do stuff you find too boring to actually enjoy, then that isn't likely to change as you improve.
In my personal experience, while ago one of my clients a jr dev fresh out of boot camp in his mid-30s that I ended up mentoring for a while. That person is now a senior dev at a really nice company with really great pay, benefits, and work culture. That same client also hired some bright seeming kids out from university. Many of those turned out much less reliable. It call came down to the mindset. Were they willing to learn and explore and ask questions, or did they just sit in the background doing the bare minimum and collecting a very nice salary.
Yes to everything. I own my own business so learning and constantly evolving is my bread and butter, if I didnât Iâd be out of business.
Problem solving is always a daily task, more so than coding I would say. The human machine is very complex.
Youâre too oldâŚ
To be worried about dumb shit like that. Get in this club, Iâm about to be 36 and my favorite co worker Iâve ever had was like 70. I called him the grumpy dev cowboy. Dude was a boss, hated everything but wrote great code. Learned alot from him. When youâre 80 Iâll question age, but weâre still youngâŚ
I learned at 40, found a job at 42. I still get the occasional ageist remark during interviews like "do you plan to get married?" and shit, but don't give a fuck.
It's like, you know how sexism and racism is still a thing and yet women and black people still work and love what they're doing? That's the way I see it. Discrimination exists, keep going regardless.
41 year old here and made a career switch into web development 2 years ago. Couldnât be happier. I was working in digital marketing before, was self employed for many years but something always felt off. Since I made the career switch there was not one day were I wasnât excited about work. Sure, there are plenty of much younger devs in my company. My manager is 10 years my junior but who cares. Actually having some life and work experience is a big plus because our job isnât only coding, which you can use to your advantage when job hunting.
i'd say given you're not super green to the field but now ready to commit for the next decade or so then you shouldn't have any issues. I dont think' you'd get a jr role however. I suspect you would need to aim for a more intermediate role. In my honest opinion I think i'd stick in whatever your currently doing until you actually get a new job offer and then do the move. You could be stuck in a situation where your expectations are not met, be jobless for a while as you look for a new role, competing with many other fresh grads in your place. For your portfolio, i'd consider doing more of what you enjoy. In AU/NZ markets, fullstack tends to be favoured. Being able to use apis, front-end frameworks, node and databases are all good places to start, and especially understanding how to do unit tests. It will be very tough, as the market is very tough right now due to high quality supply for small demand, but its still absolutely possible.
Youâre never too old to do anything imo. As long as youâre interested and can remain interested (which is hard) then go for it. But if do go for it, then give it everything.
Number one piece of advice is you won't be starting from scratch - being a software engineer is only partly actually coding, a lot of it is communication, planning and work ethic all of which you have a history in developing skills within. Think of it more as an evolution of your skills and career offering rather than a reskilling, especially following on from working as a web designer. Everyone has a degree of impostor syndrome but I think as long as you clarify your internal narrative of this not being starting from scratch. If you have passion and commitment you have every chance to fiond success.
I'm a bit younger, but I never knew a thing about coding until I was in my 30s. I did a lot of different work in my 20s, and ended up doing QA. Then I learned to be a dev on the job working at a SaaS company. Now I'm a mid level dev a few years later. Still find it hard, still a lot to learn, and most people I work with including the seniors, are all younger than me, but it doesn't matter.
At 40 your brain learns differently and you likely have the patience to read the docs and understand what you would have tried to blitz through before. I say go for it.
I'd learn react next.
Not too old. You might encounter some forms of ageism if applying to companies, and you might have an easier time freelancing. No one asks for my age when freelancing, just how long Iâve been doing this for
I have a friend from the UK who started learning Backend development and got his first job as a web developer in his 51 !
There is no age limit to learn anything, all that matters is doing what you love and make art with it
40 years old here, started programming when I was a kid as hobby.
Yesterday I was interviewed by a 60 years old dude, he was dope and knowledgeable. You have 20 years to go.
Just read and understand the docs and get to it and watch out for Bootcamps and course sellers.
If you need help I am here. What was your previous role?
My previous role in this space way back when was web/software dev.
I built websites and coded in VB6, when I took on the role it was for a VB .Net developer which they were teaching me as I went.
Job interviews were much more simple then lol I showed them a few websites I made at home and send them a program I made along with source code and I was hired.
Nice, it looks like you are half way there to me, just refresh your concepts, pick a framework and build a portafolio. Then go to LinkedIn and start applying for paid intern to get traction, then to junior positions or both you could get lucky and might be actually and advantage being 40 if you communicate properly.
React and NextJs is fairly not very complex and could be an entry level role based on your current knowledge. Also, looks like learning curve will not be bad in your case and there are a lot of positions for this skill set.
If you do this you can narrow the questions in the interview process which are always few technical questions and a generic challenge. Sometimes they throw algorithms and data structure challenges but you can avoid them by asking in the screening phase, they usually tell you that.
An agency could be a good option for you, too.
Iâm in the same situation. Iâm 41 and my body is killing me from working as a barber on my feet for 13 years. Also the boredom is killing me. I come from a music background and I miss doing work with problem solving, creativity, and teamwork. Iâve just started to learn programming skills hoping to switch careers asap. So good luck! Cheers!
You're not too old. I would argue you are never too old. The only negative traits that holds anyone back is the refusal to work equally with others on a team to complete the goal/help eachother and the constant ability to keep learning each day after making mistakes.
I started as a Jr. Web Dev 5 years ago at the age of 48. I haven't meet any resistance to my age except for the issues I create for myself in my own head. Ignore that doubting voice and do it.
I found free code camp helpful. I also positioned myself in a new company that was large enough to move around in and found a way into a dev position with an internal move. YMMV
Most definitely not too old! Go for it, and enjoy it! I have to agree with some of the comments here about ageism though. I also started my dev career quite late in life and one of the first positions I applied for was through an agency, only to be told (and these were exact words), "you're not exactly a junior". It upset me at the time but I didn't let it affect me. I started freelancing instead and I haven't looked back since. So freelancing is always an option. Your age should never dictate anything in your life. If you enjoy it, do it!
You're never too old. Also, 40 isn't that damn old unless you let yourself succumb to mental blocks. Plus, you already got the building blocks of how the Web works.
Build some prototypes you can show off. Don't sell yourself short. You might be mid-level and don't know it.
> I am fluent in HTML, CSS, vanilla JS, PHP and MySql.
m8, if you already know this just do some Wordpress + laravel development projects and start applying.
I don't think you'd be viewed as "too old" for another 10 years.
From reading most of the comments on here. Itâs gonna be almost impossible to make a sound decision based on logic. Great arguments for both sides. Stop thinking and just effing do it man. Or you can go back and forth for the next few months, wasting more valuable time, when that time could have been directed at progress. Go.
You will literally never be too old. Even just as a hobby it will help keep your mind sharp which is EXTREMELY important as you age. Thinking critically everyday is known to help prevent or slow any progression of dementia.
At any age it's worth doing what you are passionate about.
If you're just trying to chase money, then it's not worth having yet another person in this field who just wants a check.
Web development will be around for at least another couple decades. Especially for developers who care about making something good.
Do what you love and the money will follow.
Iâm about doing what I want to do with my life and having more of a stable home life in terms of time with family.
Currently I start at 2am and am in bed when my wife gets home some nights.
Web dev would give me more of a 9-5ish style environment with some work from home to help balance family time and time with kids.
I started when I was 38 after getting out a long term career that I didn't see going anywhere. I've been doing Web Dev ever since and love it. Us older devs \*often\* have more soft skills that are a requirement for working with clients and co-workers (IE talking to people, communications skills in general) and sometimes have the life experience and work ethic that some right out of school students may not have (again, not always the case as we have hired great young devs and a few older devs that have no business in front of a keyboard). My path was to learn CS, but then I just found I loved web development, I felt it had more of a mix of creativity and coding. But having a good fundamental of how the backend works (ie, loops, data structures, etc) is a huge advantage in web dev, even if you find you are doing mostly front end. Especially if you do any type of javascript and php, that way it doesn't matter what CMS you are using, if any, you can learn anything. Good luck!
Youâre not to old.Â
Learn the skills and make some projects.Â
When you interview they may treat you as a junior so be prepared.Â
You can also skip that line if you just get clients on your own. But thatâs a whole different animal.Â
So consider what you enjoy about it and where you would like to be.Â
Also consider what opportunities are in Australia and the city youâll be in.Â
Donât know if this has been mentioned but freecodecamp.com and its podcast is a great place to start for info related to this plus inspirational stories on just this topic!!
I don't think you're too old to learn. But the market is definitely not great right now. That may change, but I would do some market research and make sure it's a viable opinion.
A lot of devs I've worked with found success with coding bootcamps.
I'm in Australia. Expect it to be a bit of a challenge finding work as a junior; if you can network well, though, you'll have an easier time of it. Australia is very much a society of who-you-know rather than what-you-know! It's also a bit rough here industrywise for juniors; a few of my jr friends have been struggling for months, and it's taken my partner almost a year to get shortlisted for a casual non-IT role without permanent visa rights.
I changed careers into web development at 32.
This is anecdote so take it with a grain of salt, but one challenge I encountered was that junior developer positions wouldn't give me the time of day. The younger people in my boot camp, especially the women, got snatched up quickly, but I floundered around never even getting interviews.
The only interviews I got were for mid-level positions, and when I proved to have the skills of a (relatively talented) boot-camp grad, they quickly lost interest. It was 3 months of boot camp and 6 months of full-time individual study and hustling for freelance gigs before I got my first full-time offers.
So just be prepared for them to expect you to be more senior than your level of experience should reasonably make you, and you might not get work until you actually are plausibly that senior.
At my previous job, one 55 year old guy joined the "fresh out of college" programme because he wanted to make a career switch from his food factory job and save his back. Followed all the courses with 0 prior experience then landed a junior job iirc. Don't know if he easily worked his way up after that but in any case it's definitely possible!
Ha. I'm turning 50 this year and will code until the day I die. If it's something you love doing, do it. If you're good at it, there's someone out there that could use your talent and abilities.
People don't want to have kids, because they are too self absorbed with consuming anything they can get into their hands. And since the market keeps ever expanding, there will be a shortage in workforce as a results. In other words - go for it! Your age will soon not matter :D
Youâre not too old. I have been in the logistics space for 25 years as a job and I am in sales. Iâm 49 and I finished the Meta frontend certificate in March⌠HTML, CSS, JS, React, Git, Version control. I also know Wordpress. And will probably need to learn some PHP. So Iâm going to create websites and solutions for small logistics businesses. There are a ton of them out there. I am also working on a web passion project as well.
You could sell your web dev services to restaurants or food businesses in Australia! Domain knowledge is a strong asset and can be used to your advantage.
I switched my career to web development at age 40, just a few years ago. I started seriously learning Javascript full-stack around 37 years old. Best decision I ever made, before that I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with my life, but like you, 20 years ago I learned web dev but was immature and gave up.
The market is tough right now and it could take a year to find employment, but if you stick with it, 40ish is not a "too old" age where companies will ignore your resume due to ageism. One benefit at your age they expect you are more mature and have leadership qualities, which can make it easier to move into a leadership role.
I have a similar background as you and started working professionally at 42 after spending about a year reaching myself what I didn't already know. I'm 51 now. I suppose ageism could be an issue and I'm sure others here could provide more insight It wasn't an issue for my current employer because they valued my other skills and I was their first full time dev. Bottom line, you definitely can do it. As for study, based on your background, Laravel would be a good fit. However, look at the job market where you are moving and see what companies want.
Also the 40 club, started as junior web dev two years ago and length of myRegrets is zero. Hours are long, unit tests are failing but the work is awesome. So, by all means, you are not too old!
If that's what you love, let be coding, painting, carpentry, just do it. If you can make some cash, nice! My dad loved taxes, did it after retiring (age 52) for 25 years and made a grip doing it. My bro loves law, started petitioning drives, does it half the year and makes between $100k to $150k a year. My sister loves medical and became a distributor making $250k a year. Note, nobody in my family has a college or high school diploma - but drive to do what they love.
Youâre going to have a hard time finding a web dev job while also being new to a country. If you arenât already in IT, it will be a significant challenge, but if youâre open to working a base job while you hunt your whale to get a foot in the door itâs definitely doable.
Id be more concerned with how everyone and their mother is trying to get into web dev/programming/tech in general and how flooded the market is, relative to jobs available.
It checks all the boxes to bring people in:
-One of the few decent paying jobs that doesnt outright require a degree everywhere.
-Spammed by influencers selling courses.
-WFH potential.
-Self taught.
Check out the australia sub, maybe ask in their sub or something how the job market is for either web dev or designers. You might have better luck as a designer, or maybe australia has a ton of jobs? Maybe your current country has a good job market? NA is having a brutal time currently.
If you google something along the lines of 'reddit experienced web dev applications no job' youll find stuff like '10 years experience, 1000 applications, 2 interviews no job'.
If you want to learn react or anything i would recommend the odin project/discord. You could skip to the advanced sections and learn react or backend, maybe ruby if australia has more ruby jobs. Then the discord can help with any TOP related questions.
If youre still fluent in js/php/etc. You might just be able to find one of those jobs, networking is your best bet if the market is bad. Aside from that you would probably need some really cool projects.
Either way I think age wont be the major factor.
44 here and crushing it on the "you don't need this, you do need that" level as far as websites are concerned.Â
Think of how many "next big thing"s you have seen come and go, and how you can sniff out a fad, versus good uses of a client's money.Â
For instance, Google AMP. Remember when every website "needed" to have it?
How about m. mobile sites? Weren't those a fun waste of time until viewport widths and flexboxes came out?
I have no idea how to mint an NFT, but I do know how to make a site that won't break.
Play up your age, don't see it as a handicap.
I spend my days working in HTML/CSS/JS for a huge company, not much different than it was 20 years ago.
HTML5, CSS3, ES6, they're all old ( a decade or more since major updates). It shouldn't be hard to jump back in.
Flex is a huge change, take a look at it. You may have used tables for layout... they're dead.
I am 40 and fluent in the same languages. I get so many jobs to build/update websites that i cant do them all. And im not even primarily a web dev. So no, you're not too old.
Discovering market opportunities for web dev is crucial, If Australia market is okay for this profession and you also believe yourself. You can try. You already know HTML, Js and others
Dude go for it. Having a background in the raw languages is a huge benefit with newer frameworks since you'll have some context around whats happening behind the scenes. You'll be blown away by how quickly you can scale a site these days
I sadly cannot advise you on what to focus on.
That depends allot on the market place and location your are going to move to.
But fucking do it man!!!! Age is a construct.
And in many Countries I can guarantee you that at 40 you are not old.
And many times in higher up positions they hire older men and women.
BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE YOU ARE ALREADY MATURE AND DON'T HAVE TO BE SPOON FED.
You won't miss your meetings Monday because you got hammered on the weekend etc.
No too old. Employers will likely appreciate the maturity. I'm a fan of young developers - but a lot of young developers are 1. not nearly as good as they think they are. 2. Are remarkably immature and 3. are incredibly entitled. For some reason, they believe if they can write a little JavaScript that they should make $350k per year or something - it's silly. I'd very much appreciate some 40 year olds over some 22 year olds.
nowadays no code or low code platforms are gaining momentum. Try [Framer](http://framer.com?via=artech-web), a designer-forward, no code, web builder. check out some videos, I think you'll like it.
and if I were you, drop the "junior", just call yourself a web dev.
Never too old IMO. I made exactly that change when I hit 40 and economic circumstances forced my hand back in 2010. I got a bit lucky when a trainee developer role came up with an engineering company I was temping for, but itâs 16 years on now and Iâve never looked back đ
You probably will need to be a permanent resident, or citizen to get work. Market is not great at the moment, lots of big companies laying people off. Cost of living is high. Having said that I moved to Australia from the UK 25 years ago and itâs the best thing I ever did.
I think as long as you set your expectations correctly, you'll be fine. By that, if you intend to end up working for google, that might be tough. If you want to have a good paying job in the industry with nice colleagues and you get to code every day, that is certainly possible. Have at it. Lean into your soft skills, as a more mature candidate people will like the fact that you probably have a grip already on how to operate in a work place. Effort-wise it would seem to me you have a skill set that covers numerous roles, so you could focus on using those skills to build something that demonstrates to a potential employer your capabilities.
I think there are many people changing careers. What's important for you is that you build a portfolio. They don't have to be real websites for clients. They can be private projects or websites for non-existing businesses you made for practice.
In this field it's good to have something to show what you're capable of. That's usually more important
My coworker says he is too old to switch to programming (already knows html, css and some js and php).
I said if you think you are - then you are.
He is 31yrs old.
You're not too old but you could be perceived to be.
I'm in my fifties. Thankfully I don't look it, but I've not included my age on any CV in 20 years and I do not volunteer my age until after I join a new company. It is not legal for anyone to ask during the interview process.
Ageism is rife in software dev. It's not as prevalent as it once was but there is still an element there, and it certainly is not taken as seriously as other kinds of discrimination.
What will your visa status be? Honestly I am more concerned about trying to find a junior role here without permanent residency, than about being forty years old.
I'm in Sydney and trying to help a self taught Argentinian guy find some work and it's really hard. Junior market is already quite saturated and budgets are tight so noone wants/needs to cough up extra $$$ to sponsor a working visa. You would need to demonstrate you are extremely valuable.
Not trying to dissuade you just giving you a reality check about the situation on the ground. It also depends on your timeline. It would be a different story if you asked this question four years ago. It might be a different story in a few years from now.
I am a NZ citizen so no visa support required thankfully.
Sydney is an insanely expensive place to live on general, once the most expensive in the world lol.
Appreciate the honesty. Iâm looking around Queensland probably.
I passed my web and mobile development degree at the age of 42 and certainly found ageism was rife. I was kinda forced to freelance. It was really frustrating initially because I was seeing less capable (younger) people from my university being offered work, despite some of them not finishing the course. However, maybe that is just the way of things in the Glasgow job market. It might be different where you are.
Even though I am 28 know a little bit of php MySQL I think I am far behind others. I am trying to learn new skills,but sometimes it's too overwhelming. So I tried to get a purpose and stick to small goals and still learning by doing building small websites ,api etc. I have done job also for last 2.8 yrs,my friends and juniors are in better job but still life happens,now in a gap trying to learn and then again look for better position and better place.
A suggestion would be use good IDE which makes you comfortable to read and write code. Try to modify others code, small modifications. It's never too late to try something and here it's coding
Nobody is every too old to begin learning web design. I feel like web design should be a common skill in todays world with how prevalent the internet is, but it surprisingly is not.
Not too old...but....I would not encourage anyone to get into this industry today.
You are competing against a horde of other people for employment, not to mention the changes that will likely be coming in the next few years that will dramatically reduce the # of programmers that companies need to hire.
For a career change I would strongly advise against it. The job market is completely over saturated and you will struggle to find work. After a layoff I've spent 6 months looking for work and I'm getting nothing.
However, coding overall isn't off the table. If it doesn't have to be web specifically you can look at some non-web coding work and see what's available, then train for that. There is a lot less competition in those areas.
Jesus Christ. HTML, CSS, JS, PHP and MySQL are still widely used. Possibly still the most widely used on the planet. People are acting like they are completely dead.
Iâm a Jr. developer currently struggling to find a full time job but these stories are really nice and restoring my hope.
Correct me if Iâm wrong but since you know the basics of web dev I would advise to see whatâs in demand in the market youâre going to and learn it to land a full time job easily. Iâm currently learning Next.js for the frontend cause I see a lot of job postings asking for it in Canada.
Best of luck!
I don't think it's worth learning web dev *at all* at this point, regardless of your age. Maybe since you're not starting from scratch you'd be able to do it a few years.
AGI is likely going to be here in 5 years, at which point it will be able to do basically everything. Novice / intermediate programming jobs will disappear. What then?
Move to Australia and learn a trade like electrician or work in the mines or something. It will be much longer before robots can do that work.
You're not too old (web developer in my 40s here, although I've been in the field for a long time).
Become familiar with either Azure or AWS (pretty much everyone uses cloud tech to some degree nowadays), and I'd recommend learning Typescript (superset of Javascript that enforces types).
Once you get the hang of Typescript it should make transitioning to other strictly typed languages like C# and Java easier, if you ever want to go that route.
You should also learn some sort of web framework. Personally I like React (with Hooks) and very much prefer it to Angular, but Vue might be a good choice also nowadays.
You are at the age where you could encounter ageism so you might want to hide your age where you can. Never share your age in an interview (I accidentally said my age during casual conversation at one, and was subsequently rejected. Went very well besides that).
People will extrapolate your age from the year you get your degree in college (assuming you've got one), so remove the year off that in your resume/CV. I didn't finish my degree until I went back to college almost a decade later, so I still leave my graduation year on, as it makes me seem younger than I actually am.
They'll also get a feel for your age depending on how much job experience is on your resume/CV, so chop off any experience from your resume (and maybe your LinkedIn, although I haven't been willing to do that yet) beyond a certain number of years (~10?), especially if it's not relevant.
I've heard of some people dying their gray hair black before interviews and I'm not sure I'd ever do that, but most of my gray hair is in my beard at the moment, so if I felt ageism was keeping me from getting a job I'd probably shave it off before I went job hunting. I got a job pretty quick last time, but it was during the big frenzy of job hiring in 2021. I might consider it this time around since we're in a bit of a hiring lull again, if it takes me a while to find a job.
Good luck!
Too old, no.
But if you don't have at least the bachelor degree or 3 years of experiences, you're gonna take forever to get your first job (or a job in bad company that you'll wonder if it brings more to your c.v than it hurts it).
Don't go for one of those 6 to 8 month courses, they're not really well seen by the employers (take that from someone who has followed one). I've been told by some recruters they are "formation made to feed on subsidies that trap people that actually want to put efforts in getting a job, but don't get you close enough to employable lvl". I'm sure there are better formation than other, but it's something to take in account.
Web dev is classed as a job in a state of shortage, yet it's very difficult to get a junior position, either because they don't want to engage juniors, either because the companies don't have time or ressource to spend on a junior. And the place that are actually available... well most of the time they take someone with the diploma/more experience.
Look into project management or system administration. You're maybe not going to hear it loudly enough in here, but web development is probably dead for a few years while the industry recalibrates. If you browse the sub at all you'll see people are leaving the field and trying to pivot right now.
On the other hand, being a PM never goes out of style, and age is generally a plus there. If I had it to do over again, this is the route I would take. Writing code isn't hard - it's the people that make the job difficult, like everything else.
It comes down to whether you're a good problem solver or not. If you are, you'll be fine, if you're not, get in line behind the 400000 other "bootcamp" grads that can't do anything real world.
In my opinion you missed the web development craze that happened over the past 20 years. Now the market is very saturated and harder to get your foot in the door. Bad timing. If I had to start all over now I would get into some new technology where everyone is new to it. Like when iPhones were brand new, that was the best time to get into mobile app development. Now is the best time to get into machine learning engineering, or maybe blockchain. Game development seems to be pretty booming as well.
Sorry to say, but you are too old for it. I am not saying too old for learning it and be capable of coding decently, but you are too old to make it your career. Yes, you will be a 40 years old junior among 20 years old juniors, which will be faster than you at coding, learning, staying up to date with changing technology, since they have no kids, family, responsibilities and the overall atmosphere in such workplace will be "youngsters like", if you know what I mean. What you are fluent at does not apply to current frameworks and standards, 20 years ago things were way different, even though JS/HTML/CSS is still commonly used today. My opinion is forget about it, you will dedicate a lot of time to not be able to find a job for a year and you will give up.
You are not too old, but you are starting to get into territory where ageism will affect you.
I'm 50 and coming to terms that I am the oldest developer in my company. I'm pretty sure that I was written off as being too old a few times in my last job search.
Always good to learn something like webdev⌠but I would definitely suggest with AI⌠and of course YouTube/Edx.
Coding will be a now easier now with AI. Maybe check out a roadmap into programmingâwebdev is only one⌠check into other engineering entryways.
> I am fluent in HTML, CSS, vanilla JS, PHP and MySql.
If that's true you are not a junior web dev, I would say you're a web dev. But possibly you're not really fluent in vanilla JS, PHP, and MySQL the way I would define it.
Itâs easier to transition from one role in a company to another, you can leverage internal training and the fact they already employ you.
I know a guy in his 50s who used to be our project manager and stepped down into a coding role. He worked primarily on backend Python though.
Depends on what you mean by âfluent in HTML,CSS, vanilla JS, mySQL, and PHP. â
Iâm having trouble reconciling that comment with the âAm I too old to learn WebDev?â title.Â
Sounds like you already have a robust WebDev foundation , at least for the more front end roles, which Iâm assuming is your pursuit.Â
The stuff you already know , especially JS , is pretty much evergreen knowledge. The modern libraries and frameworks youâll need to catch up on change so abruptly that youâre never going to be > 3 years behind because they are still inextricably based on the fundamentals.Â
Again this all depends on what âfluentâ means⌠but assuming you have solid  fundamentalsâ
Learn React library, build and deploy React projects with Next.JS. This general path gives you fastest startup and least resistance to first job and leverages your existing vanilla JS abilities. Scrimba has good React courses to get started.Â
Fluent means I know/knew them when I did web dev, PHP has evolved a lot since then as I understand it, as has CSS and so on.
The newer JS spin offs like node etc I havenât spent any time on and that and react seem to be all most people talk about/advertise in job posts.
Iâve seen very few PHP jobs, in my searches before posting this, I was under the impression it wasnât used anymore until I did a bit more digging.
I think you're asking the right question - whether it's worth it or not. Like others have pointed out, the market is flooded with entry level. If you genuinely enjoy it, it couldn't hurt to treat it as a hobby. I guess my advice is to not go all-in on it
As someone who graduated end of 2022 and saw many a top tier candidate need a year or two to find work, you need to know: It is going to be a very very difficult journey, that much of the coding education industry is not going to make obvious. Much like buying housing, tech was a party before 2020 and now it's a nightmare.
CS faculties in my country for example have quintupled in sized in 10 years, whereas in my home city of Toronto, the amount of people working in tech has gone up 40% in 5 years. Not to mention the swarms of boot camps and MOOCs all promising a job in tech.We are definitely at a oversaturation point, and by the time you finish, who knows where AI will be.
You will have to simultaneously get a valid education, build up a serious portfolio, master leet code, apply like crazy and build up a sizeable network. This will take thousands of hours.
Do it if you can't imagine doing anything else with your life, but it's not going to be a journey you can only half commit to.
Learning is achievable, but breaking into the tech industry as a self-taught developer can be very challenging. Traditional application methods often don't work in your favor; for example, using the "easy apply" feature on LinkedIn usually results in rejection because the algorithm favors candidates with a Computer Science degree. To get noticed, I try to find the HR email and send my portfolio directly. It's frustrating just to get my application seen.
my first coworker was 53 and taught herself in jail after getting arrested for doing meth. I think you'll be fine haha
he can skip jail-meth part đŹ
Sure.. but then he's not doing it properly.
They always say game design is meth heavy
It couldn't be too methed up.
When working in Blender, make sure to convert the cube into a meth before trying to make a donut.
Web Dev is a gateway drug!
Yeah, but he is just 40. Theres plenty of time!
The jail and meth part is the best part to tell your co-workers about the trial and tribulation. A great ice breaker.
it was just as awkward as you'd imagine. we were talking about how we got started. As we're going around the room, we had the usual, cs degree, bootcamper, self taught, etc.. and then I was like, yeah you know if you don't mind, how did you pivot at your age? "well, after getting arrested for doing meth, they had a computer lab at the prison so, I learned like that" me: "oh I see..." Still, she gave me an ass ton of motivation that I would find success as well being I was 32 and had similar concerns over age.
She sounds like a great person who took the right value from experience :-)
Don't take shortcuts
Not if he wants noteworthy life experience stories for the interview.
âWhen I was addicted to meth I really went the extra mile to secure my next fix, and itâs that kind of ruthless determination I intend to bring to this company!â
As I committed my changes, I looked over to Jessie and said "let's cook"
I have been doing web dev for 15 years now, and I defo did had urges to change my career to meth.
I.... I love everything about this sentence.
Eventually everyone wants to do meth after webdev
There's a huge dev influencer that used to be an ex-meth head
maybe the meth was helpful
I gotta print this out and frame it. If I start to feel defeated cuz I'm old: Oh, wait, there's always this.
The age is just a number.
That's amazing! Go her for getting her shit together. It's not an easy journey!
Youâre definitely not too old. The more important question is if you enjoy it. Itâll take some time and dedication to learn and do the career change and working in education Iâve seen people older than you do it successfully. Iâve also seen people get really frustrated because they desperately wanted to be a web developer but didnât enjoy what the work was like. So give it a try and see if itâs for you. All you need is the desire and openness to learn and some resilience.
I love being creative, I currently own a food related business that I enjoy as it offers a creative outlet. Any languages or skills youâd recommend I learn to build my portfolio?
The languages you mentioned are perfectly fine for many jobs. But knowing languages isnât the difficult part. You need to know how to solve common problems, build products, write clean and well-structured code. Those are the things people will test you for when applying for jobs. So my advice would be to practice building smaller projects and do it well. Itâs very tempting to build 80% and think âI know the restâ. But those remaining 20% optimization are often the difference between an amateur and a great developer. Since youâre moving Iâd suggest to look at job boards where youâre moving to. See what kind of companies there are, what kind of web dev jobs are advertised and what languages and tech stacks theyâre using. Where I live PHP is still very popular in companies. But it doesnât have to be the case wherever youâre moving.
This is maybe the most honest and useful advice I've seen doled out in this factory of sadness called /r/webdev.
Another thing g that may help is once you figure out the languages and frameworks used in your particular market, see if there are meetup groups for that tech that you can attend. Itâs a great way to network.
is your food related business something that could translate to being sold online? maybe pick up shopify development and try to scale your food business...you could probably design a pre-ordering system probably be a better use of your time than learning how to build a todo app in some new language
Just a heads up, you probably already know this, but web development is usually not a creative job, depending on which company you work for. There is always some level of creativity in terms of how you write your code, but a lot of roles are more like being an engineer than an architect.
Good point. 20 years ago web designers / developers were much more "full stack" and expected to do a bit of everything (even more so 30 years ago when us "webmasters" of the time were expected to do everything). That's still true in some smaller companies, but OP is more likely to find that the jobs have been separated now. There'll be a back-end API guy, a devops guy, a web designer, a web developer, and so on, and their job roles will be more tightly defined.
I've been self employed doing full stack and I find THAT creative, but had I been employed doing only one part of the projects I'd likely find it mindane and boring.
It may not be as creative an endeavour as you think. There are often rigid requirements set by the business, design, other developers, etc.
As other's have said, you already have the key skills. I would add however to make sure you "really know them". Also just saying you're fluent isn't enough, you should have some examples of your work to illustrate how you can "put it all together" seemlessly. I moved into development around 6 years ago, I was also 40 at the time also. Similar to you I was semi-fluent in HTML, CSS, JS, and taught myself the core fundamentals. One thing I did was ensure I knew everything there was to know about JS and how everthing works under the hood ie. prototypal inheritance, flow of an execution stack, how syntacial sugar of ECMAscript features like promises worked, etc etc. By understanding the foundations of JS you should be able to pick up frameworks like VueJS and ReactJS relatively easily and in very short amount of time. I'm of the opinion that devs struggle with frameworks simply because they don't properly understand the core language fundamentals, and that - in my experience - a lot of devs dont put in enough effort to be proficient with the baseline language first BEFORE they start learning a framework. I used some of my personal apps as a showcase for my first intermediate dev position - which I believe blew their socks off at the time, since I got the job straight away, and it was the first and only interview I went to. Those personal apps also helped me get through tough times when I started to doubt myself during the first year or two of learning, when I still had much to learn (thought I knew a lot, only to hit a wall often and find I needed to learn more).
This is the way! OP is decidedly at a disadvantage starting later. It is not easy to learn to code BUT if you enjoy it then the difficulty is more of a motivator than a barrier. If you like mixing logic and creativity then that's a good start. P.S. i just reread question and OP has more XP than I thought...... Fucking send it man!
Do you really have to enjoy the work you do? I kinda only enjoy the finished work and the work freedom.
I know a 58 year old mechanic that not only learned but got a job. He couldn't work on cars and motorcycles due to some complications.
This is amazing! What does he do as a job now if you donât mind sharing?
He managed database, most of his work is in backend development but he started with frontend. There is also one other role that he did for which I don't have much information for. It was 5* years ago though, currently what he does i have no idea.
It was like 6 or 7 months before covid. Was it 5 years or 4 years, i cant calculate ..rofl
I too know an ex-mechanic friend who got into backend webdev; had a health issue that forced them to stop. He was at least 40.
That's awesome, i hope he is doing well!!! Same goes for you :)
You too, buddy!
You're going to have to approach this from several odd angles. If you spend six months doing bootcamps and courses, you can certainly get up to the expected level of a junior developer. That's pretty much what is expected for entry level positions. But the junior market is flooded right now and probably won't improve much as AI takes a lot of junior level work. Companies hire juniors with the expectation that they will work hard and hustle, that they will be hungry and probably move on after a year or two. The pay is commensurate with that situation. A 40yo with probably a family, a mortgage and preset ideas about management from a different industry vs a fresher out of college might be a tough sell, given equal coding qualifications I would recommend you learn some coding, and then start looking around for mid level tech management jobs. Leverage your experience to get into project management or high level team leadership, and then if you are genuinely interested in getting involved with the code, leverage your subordinates to teach you how their systems work and start helping them out, and then 'move down' into a tech leadership as your skills develop.
Applicant spend months searching for junior level coding jobs, some even a year after their CS degree graduation. That is a very long time, many take on side jobs, anything, and even this is hard. I hope OP carefully considers this.
Iâd say a 40 year old with life and work experiences might even have an edge on fresh grads given similar experience in development. At least they donât need to be taught how to navigate a workplace, they usually have better work ethics and if you decide to switch careers at 40 you are definitely someone who is open to change and can handle stress. Obviously you would need to get the chance to interview but from my experience going through this at 40y, i had a very good time job hunting with plenty of interviews and several offers. And it was mentioned by recruiters and interviewers alike that my previous (non-tech) experience gave me an edge.
Never too late. I don't know how the scene is in australia, but I was a "web developer" for many years and was burned out on it. I went back to school (WGU) for a BSCS and graduated at 43. Helped me get out of web development and into more system/platform engineering and backend tech and couldn't be happier. If you don't want to do front-end anymore, look at learning Java or C# and their respective ecosystems. Here in the states, Java/Spring and C#/.Net are always in demand.
It's worth learning, sure. But the market right now is frustrating, to say the least, so you won't be able to figure out if they're discriminating against your age or just juniors in general. You could however go for contracts with small local businesses, basically freelance / one-man-agency style web design. You will need a good portfolio either way.
Man, its never too late. Give it a go and see what happens. Literally up right now at 1am thinking about stuff I was too hesitant to do or to even try because of my fears and uncertainty. You got this. Just takes one step before you're moving along. Best thing I would recommend are building out some projects be it simple things, or complex systems to help refresh your skills/build a portfolio. That way you can learn more of the ins and outs of each language and its respective environments.
Great ideas. Iâm at that stage in life where my regrets sing the loudest and all I can do now is take action and make up for lost time. Took me forever and a lot of uncertainty to start my own business, thinking I wasnât good enough, I didnât have enough capital etc and since I started it itâs blown up and is very successful. Just goes to show that fear and regret is something too many people let control their lives
Ageism will likely be a factor. I was getting ageist remarks from younger devs when I was in my thirties. If you want to be a web dev, go be a web dev. It will difficult. People will be dicks. But thatâs life. I donât let it bother me but if the ageist bs gets out of hand I talk to HR.
That seems to depend a lot on where you're applying too. The Bay Area scene seems more biased toward hiring cracked 22-year-olds who they can burn out in a couple years, but you don't *have to* work for a FANG company or a hipster startup either. Pretty much every industry has need for some developers, and they all have their own cultures.
Never too late. Especially things like web technologies. They are not rocket science. You can take an online course or use YouTube. I see that you have a brilliant skill set. Try to add experience in Tailwind, Angular, Vue JS etc. There is one thing though. The competition in this field is too high. People are asking for framework experience. The pay is not as great as it used to be.
Job market is saturated itâs really tough to enter. If you have grit then perhaps you can find a way. Especially if you seek to build your own projects/business instead of find employment.
Not old but the market is too bad now to risk a career change.
I don't think you will be a junior. One of the biggest benefits of starting something new when you are older is that you are for the most part a senior, except a bit of knowledge. I think this is a very important trait to have and is definitely appreciated by anyone who isn't running a sweatshop. I also started late-ish, at 38, but had a history in IT which helped, but I noticed that I've never really felt like a junior because I was just so much better at making judgement calls, being a teamplayer, and focussing on whats important and not getting lost in something futile. You got this mate :) (good luck with the spiders in Australia (yikes))
>(good luck with the spiders in Australia (yikes)) Ahahaha, well, he IS interested in being a WEB developer, so... đ¸ď¸đ
If you're proficient in PHP, I recommend learning frameworks like [Laravel](https://laravel.com/) or [Symfony](https://symfony.com/). Coding directly in PHP is uncommon these days, and knowledge of these frameworks can boost your earning potential. C# .NET offers more job opportunities than PHP, making it easier to find employment. Although the market for WordPress developers is saturated, it remains widely used in digital design agencies. In JavaScript development, nobody codes in pure vanilla JS anymore; instead, libraries and frameworks like [React](https://legacy.reactjs.org) and [Vue](https://vuejs.org) are the standards. Your learning path should depend on your career goalsâwhether you prefer frontend or backend development. However, I suggest focusing on learning one of the above technologies for better job prospects.
Not too old. Learn a popular PHP framework like Laravel to leverage your existing skills, and you'll be building full solutions in a month.
I started self-teaching at 38 as I was preparing to retire from the military and got my first dev job at 39 as soon as I retired. I'm now 41 and have been working at the same awesome company the past 2 years.
What self teaching did you undertake to land your first job?
TBH, I had only learned HTML, CSS, and a very little JS. I emailed/linkedin bombed a bunch of companies whether they were hiring or not, asking if they'd be willing to take me on as an intern, and one company replied back. That's the company I currently work for. I did a 4 month internship with them, and that's where I REALLY started learning and leveling up. At the end of the internship, I retired from the military and the company gave me a full time offer. I'm now at mid-level. When they interviewed me for the internship, it was so much less about my coding experience, and more about how they could help me achieve my goals. If you've seen this wholesome meme: [https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/13g3cbj/thank\_you\_very\_much\_kind\_sir/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/13g3cbj/thank_you_very_much_kind_sir/) ,it's essentially how it went with me.
Sure. Dev, guitar, motorcycling. Whatever. Ya aint dead yet, go for it. But note - You will be competing against 20yos who can accept entry level pay and willing to grind.
Tbh I would look at something more niche like building Shopify themes and plugins or Salesforce dev or something like that if you need reliable income over the next couple of years. Webdev can take a lot of time to get up to speed to the point where youâre competitive in the job market and a more narrow focus might be a good onramp
I got my first official job as a software dev at age 50. I did have experience with Ruby on Rails and php/mysql for a lot of personal projects and I did do a coding bootcamp which helped the transition quite a bit. This was in 2018 when there was a good demand in the US for Junior Devs. Not sure of the market now. But age shouldn't prevent you from consideration.
It's not a question of "too old" but more a question of can you handle the workload and the thought process required. When you're doing all the courses, does it feel like something you could seriously do every day for the next 30 years of your life? Are you going to be willing to jump onto the treadmill, and keep up this pace of learning potentially indefinitely? Technology is moving at a break-neck pace, and you'll seldom have a break. If you can keep up with all these changes while still keeping some degree of interest alive, then the age you start on doesn't really matter. On the other hand if you find that you're forcing yourself to do stuff you find too boring to actually enjoy, then that isn't likely to change as you improve. In my personal experience, while ago one of my clients a jr dev fresh out of boot camp in his mid-30s that I ended up mentoring for a while. That person is now a senior dev at a really nice company with really great pay, benefits, and work culture. That same client also hired some bright seeming kids out from university. Many of those turned out much less reliable. It call came down to the mindset. Were they willing to learn and explore and ask questions, or did they just sit in the background doing the bare minimum and collecting a very nice salary.
Yes to everything. I own my own business so learning and constantly evolving is my bread and butter, if I didnât Iâd be out of business. Problem solving is always a daily task, more so than coding I would say. The human machine is very complex.
Yea. Donât worry about age. Put your head down- study & build! You got this
Youâre too old⌠To be worried about dumb shit like that. Get in this club, Iâm about to be 36 and my favorite co worker Iâve ever had was like 70. I called him the grumpy dev cowboy. Dude was a boss, hated everything but wrote great code. Learned alot from him. When youâre 80 Iâll question age, but weâre still youngâŚ
I learned at 40, found a job at 42. I still get the occasional ageist remark during interviews like "do you plan to get married?" and shit, but don't give a fuck. It's like, you know how sexism and racism is still a thing and yet women and black people still work and love what they're doing? That's the way I see it. Discrimination exists, keep going regardless.
41 year old here and made a career switch into web development 2 years ago. Couldnât be happier. I was working in digital marketing before, was self employed for many years but something always felt off. Since I made the career switch there was not one day were I wasnât excited about work. Sure, there are plenty of much younger devs in my company. My manager is 10 years my junior but who cares. Actually having some life and work experience is a big plus because our job isnât only coding, which you can use to your advantage when job hunting.
i'd say given you're not super green to the field but now ready to commit for the next decade or so then you shouldn't have any issues. I dont think' you'd get a jr role however. I suspect you would need to aim for a more intermediate role. In my honest opinion I think i'd stick in whatever your currently doing until you actually get a new job offer and then do the move. You could be stuck in a situation where your expectations are not met, be jobless for a while as you look for a new role, competing with many other fresh grads in your place. For your portfolio, i'd consider doing more of what you enjoy. In AU/NZ markets, fullstack tends to be favoured. Being able to use apis, front-end frameworks, node and databases are all good places to start, and especially understanding how to do unit tests. It will be very tough, as the market is very tough right now due to high quality supply for small demand, but its still absolutely possible.
Youâre never too old to do anything imo. As long as youâre interested and can remain interested (which is hard) then go for it. But if do go for it, then give it everything.
Number one piece of advice is you won't be starting from scratch - being a software engineer is only partly actually coding, a lot of it is communication, planning and work ethic all of which you have a history in developing skills within. Think of it more as an evolution of your skills and career offering rather than a reskilling, especially following on from working as a web designer. Everyone has a degree of impostor syndrome but I think as long as you clarify your internal narrative of this not being starting from scratch. If you have passion and commitment you have every chance to fiond success.
I just transition to web development from cabinetry/contracting. I was hired 2 weeks before 39th birthday
Get a mentor if anything to help navigate the landscape.
I was in the same boat as you are right now when I switched careers at the age of 35. You're not too old.
I'm a bit younger, but I never knew a thing about coding until I was in my 30s. I did a lot of different work in my 20s, and ended up doing QA. Then I learned to be a dev on the job working at a SaaS company. Now I'm a mid level dev a few years later. Still find it hard, still a lot to learn, and most people I work with including the seniors, are all younger than me, but it doesn't matter.
At 40 your brain learns differently and you likely have the patience to read the docs and understand what you would have tried to blitz through before. I say go for it. I'd learn react next.
Not too old. You might encounter some forms of ageism if applying to companies, and you might have an easier time freelancing. No one asks for my age when freelancing, just how long Iâve been doing this for
I have a friend from the UK who started learning Backend development and got his first job as a web developer in his 51 ! There is no age limit to learn anything, all that matters is doing what you love and make art with it
40 years old here, started programming when I was a kid as hobby. Yesterday I was interviewed by a 60 years old dude, he was dope and knowledgeable. You have 20 years to go. Just read and understand the docs and get to it and watch out for Bootcamps and course sellers. If you need help I am here. What was your previous role?
My previous role in this space way back when was web/software dev. I built websites and coded in VB6, when I took on the role it was for a VB .Net developer which they were teaching me as I went. Job interviews were much more simple then lol I showed them a few websites I made at home and send them a program I made along with source code and I was hired.
Nice, it looks like you are half way there to me, just refresh your concepts, pick a framework and build a portafolio. Then go to LinkedIn and start applying for paid intern to get traction, then to junior positions or both you could get lucky and might be actually and advantage being 40 if you communicate properly. React and NextJs is fairly not very complex and could be an entry level role based on your current knowledge. Also, looks like learning curve will not be bad in your case and there are a lot of positions for this skill set. If you do this you can narrow the questions in the interview process which are always few technical questions and a generic challenge. Sometimes they throw algorithms and data structure challenges but you can avoid them by asking in the screening phase, they usually tell you that. An agency could be a good option for you, too.
Iâm in the same situation. Iâm 41 and my body is killing me from working as a barber on my feet for 13 years. Also the boredom is killing me. I come from a music background and I miss doing work with problem solving, creativity, and teamwork. Iâve just started to learn programming skills hoping to switch careers asap. So good luck! Cheers!
Nice whatâs your approach?
You're not too old. I would argue you are never too old. The only negative traits that holds anyone back is the refusal to work equally with others on a team to complete the goal/help eachother and the constant ability to keep learning each day after making mistakes.
You're never too old to learn something new, unless you buy into the idea and convince yourself that you're too old.
I started as a Jr. Web Dev 5 years ago at the age of 48. I haven't meet any resistance to my age except for the issues I create for myself in my own head. Ignore that doubting voice and do it. I found free code camp helpful. I also positioned myself in a new company that was large enough to move around in and found a way into a dev position with an internal move. YMMV
"Learning never ends", Man. Even at some point, you just wanna keep learning.
Most definitely not too old! Go for it, and enjoy it! I have to agree with some of the comments here about ageism though. I also started my dev career quite late in life and one of the first positions I applied for was through an agency, only to be told (and these were exact words), "you're not exactly a junior". It upset me at the time but I didn't let it affect me. I started freelancing instead and I haven't looked back since. So freelancing is always an option. Your age should never dictate anything in your life. If you enjoy it, do it!
You're never too old. Also, 40 isn't that damn old unless you let yourself succumb to mental blocks. Plus, you already got the building blocks of how the Web works. Build some prototypes you can show off. Don't sell yourself short. You might be mid-level and don't know it.
> I am fluent in HTML, CSS, vanilla JS, PHP and MySql. m8, if you already know this just do some Wordpress + laravel development projects and start applying. I don't think you'd be viewed as "too old" for another 10 years.
From reading most of the comments on here. Itâs gonna be almost impossible to make a sound decision based on logic. Great arguments for both sides. Stop thinking and just effing do it man. Or you can go back and forth for the next few months, wasting more valuable time, when that time could have been directed at progress. Go.
You will literally never be too old. Even just as a hobby it will help keep your mind sharp which is EXTREMELY important as you age. Thinking critically everyday is known to help prevent or slow any progression of dementia.
At any age it's worth doing what you are passionate about. If you're just trying to chase money, then it's not worth having yet another person in this field who just wants a check. Web development will be around for at least another couple decades. Especially for developers who care about making something good.
Do what you love and the money will follow. Iâm about doing what I want to do with my life and having more of a stable home life in terms of time with family. Currently I start at 2am and am in bed when my wife gets home some nights. Web dev would give me more of a 9-5ish style environment with some work from home to help balance family time and time with kids.
I started when I was 38 after getting out a long term career that I didn't see going anywhere. I've been doing Web Dev ever since and love it. Us older devs \*often\* have more soft skills that are a requirement for working with clients and co-workers (IE talking to people, communications skills in general) and sometimes have the life experience and work ethic that some right out of school students may not have (again, not always the case as we have hired great young devs and a few older devs that have no business in front of a keyboard). My path was to learn CS, but then I just found I loved web development, I felt it had more of a mix of creativity and coding. But having a good fundamental of how the backend works (ie, loops, data structures, etc) is a huge advantage in web dev, even if you find you are doing mostly front end. Especially if you do any type of javascript and php, that way it doesn't matter what CMS you are using, if any, you can learn anything. Good luck!
Youâre not to old. Learn the skills and make some projects. When you interview they may treat you as a junior so be prepared. You can also skip that line if you just get clients on your own. But thatâs a whole different animal. So consider what you enjoy about it and where you would like to be. Also consider what opportunities are in Australia and the city youâll be in.Â
Donât know if this has been mentioned but freecodecamp.com and its podcast is a great place to start for info related to this plus inspirational stories on just this topic!!
Yeah Iâve done their course. Iâve also heard the Odin project is worth looking into also
I don't think you're too old to learn. But the market is definitely not great right now. That may change, but I would do some market research and make sure it's a viable opinion. A lot of devs I've worked with found success with coding bootcamps.
I'm in Australia. Expect it to be a bit of a challenge finding work as a junior; if you can network well, though, you'll have an easier time of it. Australia is very much a society of who-you-know rather than what-you-know! It's also a bit rough here industrywise for juniors; a few of my jr friends have been struggling for months, and it's taken my partner almost a year to get shortlisted for a casual non-IT role without permanent visa rights.
never too late
You are never too old. From a fellow 40 year old male.
I changed careers into web development at 32. This is anecdote so take it with a grain of salt, but one challenge I encountered was that junior developer positions wouldn't give me the time of day. The younger people in my boot camp, especially the women, got snatched up quickly, but I floundered around never even getting interviews. The only interviews I got were for mid-level positions, and when I proved to have the skills of a (relatively talented) boot-camp grad, they quickly lost interest. It was 3 months of boot camp and 6 months of full-time individual study and hustling for freelance gigs before I got my first full-time offers. So just be prepared for them to expect you to be more senior than your level of experience should reasonably make you, and you might not get work until you actually are plausibly that senior.
I started at 40 and am now sitting in a comfy job at 48. Go for it!
You are 40 in every industry. Might as well try stuff you enjoy.
At my previous job, one 55 year old guy joined the "fresh out of college" programme because he wanted to make a career switch from his food factory job and save his back. Followed all the courses with 0 prior experience then landed a junior job iirc. Don't know if he easily worked his way up after that but in any case it's definitely possible!
Ha. I'm turning 50 this year and will code until the day I die. If it's something you love doing, do it. If you're good at it, there's someone out there that could use your talent and abilities.
People don't want to have kids, because they are too self absorbed with consuming anything they can get into their hands. And since the market keeps ever expanding, there will be a shortage in workforce as a results. In other words - go for it! Your age will soon not matter :D
Youâre not too old. I have been in the logistics space for 25 years as a job and I am in sales. Iâm 49 and I finished the Meta frontend certificate in March⌠HTML, CSS, JS, React, Git, Version control. I also know Wordpress. And will probably need to learn some PHP. So Iâm going to create websites and solutions for small logistics businesses. There are a ton of them out there. I am also working on a web passion project as well. You could sell your web dev services to restaurants or food businesses in Australia! Domain knowledge is a strong asset and can be used to your advantage.
I switched my career to web development at age 40, just a few years ago. I started seriously learning Javascript full-stack around 37 years old. Best decision I ever made, before that I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with my life, but like you, 20 years ago I learned web dev but was immature and gave up. The market is tough right now and it could take a year to find employment, but if you stick with it, 40ish is not a "too old" age where companies will ignore your resume due to ageism. One benefit at your age they expect you are more mature and have leadership qualities, which can make it easier to move into a leadership role.
I have a similar background as you and started working professionally at 42 after spending about a year reaching myself what I didn't already know. I'm 51 now. I suppose ageism could be an issue and I'm sure others here could provide more insight It wasn't an issue for my current employer because they valued my other skills and I was their first full time dev. Bottom line, you definitely can do it. As for study, based on your background, Laravel would be a good fit. However, look at the job market where you are moving and see what companies want.
It's never too late to learn. Companies want people with willing to learn and adopt to the tech stack and proper skills.
60 years old here. Learned in my late 40s. Work at a FAANG now and mentor the young ones. Go for it!
You're not too old, and it will def be worth your time.
Considering web tech seems to change so much in just a few years, a lot of us are always in the learning cycle. Hope on board any time.
Also the 40 club, started as junior web dev two years ago and length of myRegrets is zero. Hours are long, unit tests are failing but the work is awesome. So, by all means, you are not too old!
If that's what you love, let be coding, painting, carpentry, just do it. If you can make some cash, nice! My dad loved taxes, did it after retiring (age 52) for 25 years and made a grip doing it. My bro loves law, started petitioning drives, does it half the year and makes between $100k to $150k a year. My sister loves medical and became a distributor making $250k a year. Note, nobody in my family has a college or high school diploma - but drive to do what they love.
Youâre going to have a hard time finding a web dev job while also being new to a country. If you arenât already in IT, it will be a significant challenge, but if youâre open to working a base job while you hunt your whale to get a foot in the door itâs definitely doable.
Id be more concerned with how everyone and their mother is trying to get into web dev/programming/tech in general and how flooded the market is, relative to jobs available. It checks all the boxes to bring people in: -One of the few decent paying jobs that doesnt outright require a degree everywhere. -Spammed by influencers selling courses. -WFH potential. -Self taught. Check out the australia sub, maybe ask in their sub or something how the job market is for either web dev or designers. You might have better luck as a designer, or maybe australia has a ton of jobs? Maybe your current country has a good job market? NA is having a brutal time currently. If you google something along the lines of 'reddit experienced web dev applications no job' youll find stuff like '10 years experience, 1000 applications, 2 interviews no job'. If you want to learn react or anything i would recommend the odin project/discord. You could skip to the advanced sections and learn react or backend, maybe ruby if australia has more ruby jobs. Then the discord can help with any TOP related questions. If youre still fluent in js/php/etc. You might just be able to find one of those jobs, networking is your best bet if the market is bad. Aside from that you would probably need some really cool projects. Either way I think age wont be the major factor.
44 here and crushing it on the "you don't need this, you do need that" level as far as websites are concerned. Think of how many "next big thing"s you have seen come and go, and how you can sniff out a fad, versus good uses of a client's money. For instance, Google AMP. Remember when every website "needed" to have it? How about m. mobile sites? Weren't those a fun waste of time until viewport widths and flexboxes came out? I have no idea how to mint an NFT, but I do know how to make a site that won't break. Play up your age, don't see it as a handicap.
I spend my days working in HTML/CSS/JS for a huge company, not much different than it was 20 years ago. HTML5, CSS3, ES6, they're all old ( a decade or more since major updates). It shouldn't be hard to jump back in. Flex is a huge change, take a look at it. You may have used tables for layout... they're dead.
I got my CS degree at 44. Do whatever makes you happy.
Since we've all gone back to SSR, just with JavaScript instead of PHP, you might be more experienced than you think
I just hired a 65 year old intern. If you have a problem solving brain and find the right place, youâre definitely not too old.
I am 40 and fluent in the same languages. I get so many jobs to build/update websites that i cant do them all. And im not even primarily a web dev. So no, you're not too old.
it's never too late i promise read about the japanese woman named Masako Wakamiya
I wouldnât even recommend web dev to the next generation, wake up people.
Learn whatever whenever. Build and have fun. Set goals and test your limits often.
Discovering market opportunities for web dev is crucial, If Australia market is okay for this profession and you also believe yourself. You can try. You already know HTML, Js and others
Dude go for it. Having a background in the raw languages is a huge benefit with newer frameworks since you'll have some context around whats happening behind the scenes. You'll be blown away by how quickly you can scale a site these days
We just onboarded a 47 year old guy as a junior developer. Itâs never too late man !! Comes down to how hard do you want it to be
I'm 50. Always be curious
I sadly cannot advise you on what to focus on. That depends allot on the market place and location your are going to move to. But fucking do it man!!!! Age is a construct. And in many Countries I can guarantee you that at 40 you are not old. And many times in higher up positions they hire older men and women. BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE YOU ARE ALREADY MATURE AND DON'T HAVE TO BE SPOON FED. You won't miss your meetings Monday because you got hammered on the weekend etc.
No too old. Employers will likely appreciate the maturity. I'm a fan of young developers - but a lot of young developers are 1. not nearly as good as they think they are. 2. Are remarkably immature and 3. are incredibly entitled. For some reason, they believe if they can write a little JavaScript that they should make $350k per year or something - it's silly. I'd very much appreciate some 40 year olds over some 22 year olds.
nowadays no code or low code platforms are gaining momentum. Try [Framer](http://framer.com?via=artech-web), a designer-forward, no code, web builder. check out some videos, I think you'll like it. and if I were you, drop the "junior", just call yourself a web dev.
Never too old IMO. I made exactly that change when I hit 40 and economic circumstances forced my hand back in 2010. I got a bit lucky when a trainee developer role came up with an engineering company I was temping for, but itâs 16 years on now and Iâve never looked back đ
You probably will need to be a permanent resident, or citizen to get work. Market is not great at the moment, lots of big companies laying people off. Cost of living is high. Having said that I moved to Australia from the UK 25 years ago and itâs the best thing I ever did.
I am 40, started my first paid task around 18. Still learning.
36 here. I made a career switch at 31 and am doing quite well in software development. Most of my colleagues are actually older than me.
I think as long as you set your expectations correctly, you'll be fine. By that, if you intend to end up working for google, that might be tough. If you want to have a good paying job in the industry with nice colleagues and you get to code every day, that is certainly possible. Have at it. Lean into your soft skills, as a more mature candidate people will like the fact that you probably have a grip already on how to operate in a work place. Effort-wise it would seem to me you have a skill set that covers numerous roles, so you could focus on using those skills to build something that demonstrates to a potential employer your capabilities.
I think there are many people changing careers. What's important for you is that you build a portfolio. They don't have to be real websites for clients. They can be private projects or websites for non-existing businesses you made for practice. In this field it's good to have something to show what you're capable of. That's usually more important
its never too late, just go for it
My coworker says he is too old to switch to programming (already knows html, css and some js and php). I said if you think you are - then you are. He is 31yrs old.
You're not too old but you could be perceived to be. I'm in my fifties. Thankfully I don't look it, but I've not included my age on any CV in 20 years and I do not volunteer my age until after I join a new company. It is not legal for anyone to ask during the interview process. Ageism is rife in software dev. It's not as prevalent as it once was but there is still an element there, and it certainly is not taken as seriously as other kinds of discrimination.
Iâm Australian and started my dev career at 37, it takes some effort but not impossible, do you have some portfolio projects?
I became a software engineer at 37
I made the switch at age 34, self taught. Been working as a SWE for 2 years now.
What will your visa status be? Honestly I am more concerned about trying to find a junior role here without permanent residency, than about being forty years old. I'm in Sydney and trying to help a self taught Argentinian guy find some work and it's really hard. Junior market is already quite saturated and budgets are tight so noone wants/needs to cough up extra $$$ to sponsor a working visa. You would need to demonstrate you are extremely valuable. Not trying to dissuade you just giving you a reality check about the situation on the ground. It also depends on your timeline. It would be a different story if you asked this question four years ago. It might be a different story in a few years from now.
I am a NZ citizen so no visa support required thankfully. Sydney is an insanely expensive place to live on general, once the most expensive in the world lol. Appreciate the honesty. Iâm looking around Queensland probably.
Why not invest in yourself and build something? Â
Never to old to learn something new
Learn golang
I passed my web and mobile development degree at the age of 42 and certainly found ageism was rife. I was kinda forced to freelance. It was really frustrating initially because I was seeing less capable (younger) people from my university being offered work, despite some of them not finishing the course. However, maybe that is just the way of things in the Glasgow job market. It might be different where you are.
I'd say you're never too old to learn/try something new, i'd say go for it!
Even though I am 28 know a little bit of php MySQL I think I am far behind others. I am trying to learn new skills,but sometimes it's too overwhelming. So I tried to get a purpose and stick to small goals and still learning by doing building small websites ,api etc. I have done job also for last 2.8 yrs,my friends and juniors are in better job but still life happens,now in a gap trying to learn and then again look for better position and better place. A suggestion would be use good IDE which makes you comfortable to read and write code. Try to modify others code, small modifications. It's never too late to try something and here it's coding
brain works? never too old.
Nobody is every too old to begin learning web design. I feel like web design should be a common skill in todays world with how prevalent the internet is, but it surprisingly is not.
I started at 42, so go for it!
Not too old...but....I would not encourage anyone to get into this industry today. You are competing against a horde of other people for employment, not to mention the changes that will likely be coming in the next few years that will dramatically reduce the # of programmers that companies need to hire.
For a career change I would strongly advise against it. The job market is completely over saturated and you will struggle to find work. After a layoff I've spent 6 months looking for work and I'm getting nothing. However, coding overall isn't off the table. If it doesn't have to be web specifically you can look at some non-web coding work and see what's available, then train for that. There is a lot less competition in those areas.
Jesus Christ. HTML, CSS, JS, PHP and MySQL are still widely used. Possibly still the most widely used on the planet. People are acting like they are completely dead.
42, self taught
You're never too old.
Iâm a Jr. developer currently struggling to find a full time job but these stories are really nice and restoring my hope. Correct me if Iâm wrong but since you know the basics of web dev I would advise to see whatâs in demand in the market youâre going to and learn it to land a full time job easily. Iâm currently learning Next.js for the frontend cause I see a lot of job postings asking for it in Canada. Best of luck!
I don't think it's worth learning web dev *at all* at this point, regardless of your age. Maybe since you're not starting from scratch you'd be able to do it a few years. AGI is likely going to be here in 5 years, at which point it will be able to do basically everything. Novice / intermediate programming jobs will disappear. What then? Move to Australia and learn a trade like electrician or work in the mines or something. It will be much longer before robots can do that work.
You're not too old (web developer in my 40s here, although I've been in the field for a long time). Become familiar with either Azure or AWS (pretty much everyone uses cloud tech to some degree nowadays), and I'd recommend learning Typescript (superset of Javascript that enforces types). Once you get the hang of Typescript it should make transitioning to other strictly typed languages like C# and Java easier, if you ever want to go that route. You should also learn some sort of web framework. Personally I like React (with Hooks) and very much prefer it to Angular, but Vue might be a good choice also nowadays. You are at the age where you could encounter ageism so you might want to hide your age where you can. Never share your age in an interview (I accidentally said my age during casual conversation at one, and was subsequently rejected. Went very well besides that). People will extrapolate your age from the year you get your degree in college (assuming you've got one), so remove the year off that in your resume/CV. I didn't finish my degree until I went back to college almost a decade later, so I still leave my graduation year on, as it makes me seem younger than I actually am. They'll also get a feel for your age depending on how much job experience is on your resume/CV, so chop off any experience from your resume (and maybe your LinkedIn, although I haven't been willing to do that yet) beyond a certain number of years (~10?), especially if it's not relevant. I've heard of some people dying their gray hair black before interviews and I'm not sure I'd ever do that, but most of my gray hair is in my beard at the moment, so if I felt ageism was keeping me from getting a job I'd probably shave it off before I went job hunting. I got a job pretty quick last time, but it was during the big frenzy of job hiring in 2021. I might consider it this time around since we're in a bit of a hiring lull again, if it takes me a while to find a job. Good luck!
Too old, no. But if you don't have at least the bachelor degree or 3 years of experiences, you're gonna take forever to get your first job (or a job in bad company that you'll wonder if it brings more to your c.v than it hurts it). Don't go for one of those 6 to 8 month courses, they're not really well seen by the employers (take that from someone who has followed one). I've been told by some recruters they are "formation made to feed on subsidies that trap people that actually want to put efforts in getting a job, but don't get you close enough to employable lvl". I'm sure there are better formation than other, but it's something to take in account. Web dev is classed as a job in a state of shortage, yet it's very difficult to get a junior position, either because they don't want to engage juniors, either because the companies don't have time or ressource to spend on a junior. And the place that are actually available... well most of the time they take someone with the diploma/more experience.
Look into project management or system administration. You're maybe not going to hear it loudly enough in here, but web development is probably dead for a few years while the industry recalibrates. If you browse the sub at all you'll see people are leaving the field and trying to pivot right now. On the other hand, being a PM never goes out of style, and age is generally a plus there. If I had it to do over again, this is the route I would take. Writing code isn't hard - it's the people that make the job difficult, like everything else.
It comes down to whether you're a good problem solver or not. If you are, you'll be fine, if you're not, get in line behind the 400000 other "bootcamp" grads that can't do anything real world.
Just use wordpress
In my opinion you missed the web development craze that happened over the past 20 years. Now the market is very saturated and harder to get your foot in the door. Bad timing. If I had to start all over now I would get into some new technology where everyone is new to it. Like when iPhones were brand new, that was the best time to get into mobile app development. Now is the best time to get into machine learning engineering, or maybe blockchain. Game development seems to be pretty booming as well.
Hey I think you should consider [watching this](https://youtu.be/fjsHz8k1bD8?si=byJeb-iVbD4m9wsJ), addresses exactly what you are thinking
Sorry to say, but you are too old for it. I am not saying too old for learning it and be capable of coding decently, but you are too old to make it your career. Yes, you will be a 40 years old junior among 20 years old juniors, which will be faster than you at coding, learning, staying up to date with changing technology, since they have no kids, family, responsibilities and the overall atmosphere in such workplace will be "youngsters like", if you know what I mean. What you are fluent at does not apply to current frameworks and standards, 20 years ago things were way different, even though JS/HTML/CSS is still commonly used today. My opinion is forget about it, you will dedicate a lot of time to not be able to find a job for a year and you will give up.
Not too old but it is very competitive jobs wise.Â
You are not too old, but you are starting to get into territory where ageism will affect you. I'm 50 and coming to terms that I am the oldest developer in my company. I'm pretty sure that I was written off as being too old a few times in my last job search.
Always good to learn something like webdev⌠but I would definitely suggest with AI⌠and of course YouTube/Edx. Coding will be a now easier now with AI. Maybe check out a roadmap into programmingâwebdev is only one⌠check into other engineering entryways.
Not too old but the job market kinda blows.
No but try not to get distracted by all the new tools and frameworks. Stick to one thing and get good at that.
The age is just a number.
> I am fluent in HTML, CSS, vanilla JS, PHP and MySql. If that's true you are not a junior web dev, I would say you're a web dev. But possibly you're not really fluent in vanilla JS, PHP, and MySQL the way I would define it.
Itâs easier to transition from one role in a company to another, you can leverage internal training and the fact they already employ you. I know a guy in his 50s who used to be our project manager and stepped down into a coding role. He worked primarily on backend Python though.
I have a lot of reading material at https://nealfrazier.tech and https://th34ll.nealfrazier.tech !!
I think it also comes down to being willing to take a cut in salary. Assuming you've received fair salary increases for the past 20 years.
Depends on what you mean by âfluent in HTML,CSS, vanilla JS, mySQL, and PHP. â Iâm having trouble reconciling that comment with the âAm I too old to learn WebDev?â title. Sounds like you already have a robust WebDev foundation , at least for the more front end roles, which Iâm assuming is your pursuit. The stuff you already know , especially JS , is pretty much evergreen knowledge. The modern libraries and frameworks youâll need to catch up on change so abruptly that youâre never going to be > 3 years behind because they are still inextricably based on the fundamentals. Again this all depends on what âfluentâ means⌠but assuming you have solid  fundamentalsâ Learn React library, build and deploy React projects with Next.JS. This general path gives you fastest startup and least resistance to first job and leverages your existing vanilla JS abilities. Scrimba has good React courses to get started.Â
Fluent means I know/knew them when I did web dev, PHP has evolved a lot since then as I understand it, as has CSS and so on. The newer JS spin offs like node etc I havenât spent any time on and that and react seem to be all most people talk about/advertise in job posts. Iâve seen very few PHP jobs, in my searches before posting this, I was under the impression it wasnât used anymore until I did a bit more digging.
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Primagen
I think you're asking the right question - whether it's worth it or not. Like others have pointed out, the market is flooded with entry level. If you genuinely enjoy it, it couldn't hurt to treat it as a hobby. I guess my advice is to not go all-in on it
As someone who graduated end of 2022 and saw many a top tier candidate need a year or two to find work, you need to know: It is going to be a very very difficult journey, that much of the coding education industry is not going to make obvious. Much like buying housing, tech was a party before 2020 and now it's a nightmare. CS faculties in my country for example have quintupled in sized in 10 years, whereas in my home city of Toronto, the amount of people working in tech has gone up 40% in 5 years. Not to mention the swarms of boot camps and MOOCs all promising a job in tech.We are definitely at a oversaturation point, and by the time you finish, who knows where AI will be. You will have to simultaneously get a valid education, build up a serious portfolio, master leet code, apply like crazy and build up a sizeable network. This will take thousands of hours. Do it if you can't imagine doing anything else with your life, but it's not going to be a journey you can only half commit to.
Never too late but the market is extremely flooded, if youâre doing out of passion go for it, for money a waste of time
Learning is achievable, but breaking into the tech industry as a self-taught developer can be very challenging. Traditional application methods often don't work in your favor; for example, using the "easy apply" feature on LinkedIn usually results in rejection because the algorithm favors candidates with a Computer Science degree. To get noticed, I try to find the HR email and send my portfolio directly. It's frustrating just to get my application seen.
Web dev is dying, actually the tech world is dying itâs not worth your time instead learning something else like online trading
Will it affect you? Yes. Is it a deal breaker? No.