32 - Too late to start?

[Tombezlar]

So okay I have been here for sometime now on and off and please I need your honest advice. I am a 32 years old with two young children who has never worked in IT before.

I have been a receptionist since my teenage years and have been unemployed for the past 4 years. I have no college degree and well while I was working I never really enjoyed working as a reciptionist.

Recently I have been reading a lot about coding and how it’s a great career. I have played with bit of HTML and CSS in my spare time on site and that’s about it which I have to say I seem to be enjoying it thou I am finding CSS to be hard to grasp some concepts especially when it comes to page layout. Anyway long story short. Does my age, background etc matter in securing a job as a front end developer or I shouldnt really waste my time?

Any advice will be highly appreciated and sorry for my rambling.

[Nick]

It's certainly not too late to learn IT development if you are prepared to make the effort (and reasonably intelligent).
How much your employment history affects your chances of a job depends heavily on the culture of the country you live in.
During the pandemic with so many developers working from home,
there is also the temptation for commercial companies to outsource such work abroad
to people working in countries with extremely low pay.
So specializing in an area where that is less likely might help you.

[retina]

32?

Only 32?

You young whippersnapper; still so much time remaining. Stop holding yourself back.

Actually even if you are 82, or 132, the same advice applies. It's never too late to learn new things.

[MattcAnderson]

Welcome to the team !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Billtorntn]

Originally Posted by Tombezlar

So okay I have been here for sometime now on and off and please I need your honest advice. I am a 32 years old with two young children who has never worked in IT before.

I have been a receptionist since my teenage years and have been unemployed for the past 4 years. I have no college degree and well while I was working I never really enjoyed working as a reciptionist.

Recently I have been reading a lot about coding and how it’s a great career. I have played with bit of HTML and CSS in my spare time on site and that’s about it which I have to say I seem to be enjoying it thou I am finding CSS to be hard to grasp some concepts especially when it comes to page layout. Anyway long story short. Does my age, background etc matter in securing a job as a front end developer or I shouldnt really waste my time?

Any advice will be highly appreciated and sorry for my rambling.

Only 32 I wish I could say the same. I'd just wanna cheer you up, dude. Never too late to learn smth new, especially if you're ready to do this. Life circumstances can be the additional motivation for you.
Look, my brother started his career as a java developer 2 years ago, simply started to learn java online. Then he got some freelance projects. Right now he is involved in a big project.
There are so many ways to start programming - find what's better for you.
Moreover, you can't waste your time by learning

[dcheuk]

Just wanted to provide a motivating example on late starts -

Someone I know from JP in his late 40s with no prior experience in college math (i.e basic analysis/algebra anything beyond differ/linear) got his MA in mathematics and went on to a Ph.D program. He recently passed his quals and is now almost ABD.



Good luck.

[MooMoo2]

Originally Posted by Tombezlar

So okay I have been here for sometime now on and off and please I need your honest advice. I am a 32 years old with two young children who has never worked in IT before.

I have been a receptionist since my teenage years and have been unemployed for the past 4 years. I have no college degree and well while I was working I never really enjoyed working as a reciptionist.

There are a very small number of careers where 32 is too late to start (i.e., air traffic controllers must start their training by age 30). But fortunately for you, IT isn't one of them.

Your background would hinder you a lot more than your age. You have three main challenges - no college degree, two young children, and being unemployed for the past 4 years. Having to overcome just one of them is fairly doable, but having to overcome all three of them is extremely difficult.

[petrw1]

Originally Posted by Tombezlar

So okay I have been here for sometime now on and off and please I need your honest advice. I am a 32 years old with two young children who has never worked in IT before.

I have been a receptionist since my teenage years and have been unemployed for the past 4 years. I have no college degree and well while I was working I never really enjoyed working as a reciptionist.

Recently I have been reading a lot about coding and how it’s a great career. I have played with bit of HTML and CSS in my spare time on site and that’s about it which I have to say I seem to be enjoying it thou I am finding CSS to be hard to grasp some concepts especially when it comes to page layout. Anyway long story short. Does my age, background etc matter in securing a job as a front end developer or I shouldnt really waste my time?

Any advice will be highly appreciated and sorry for my rambling.

My IT department hired a man who got his IT certification at the age of 53.
He was an electrician in the Canadian Army until a severe electrical injury cut that career short. After several other unfulfilling jobs and a failed marriage he went back to school at 51 to study IT.

So, NO, you are nowhere near too old.

Good luck

[xilman]

Originally Posted by petrw1

My IT department hired a man who got his IT certification at the age of 53.

So, NO, you are nowhere near too old.

Good luck

Many employers, in the UK at least, are much more interested in competence and potential than certification.

I have never worked anywhere^* for which I had directly relevant qualifications. For instance, I knew hardly anything about genetics when starting work at FlyBase at the age of fifty or so.

* Not quite true. I did some voluntary work for ExoMol where my DPhil research from 35 years earlier was directly relevant. Didn't get paid for it, neither did I want to be.

IOW: demonstrate competence and apply for posts.