Reasonable learning curve and who is jumping into a 2nd/3rd career?

Reasonable learning curve and who is jumping into a 2nd/3rd career?
0
#1

First post, so I welcome all feedback. I’m looking for feedback on whether pursuing an alternative career in a coding related role is a realistic goal. I am looking for an alternative or secondary source of income away from my current commercial real estate work.

A little about me. I’m 45 in about six weeks. I’ve worked in finance for 20yrs, largely in investment analysis and asset management. I took a role three years ago that lead me to commercial real estate finance and brokering commercial real estate loans. It is a 100% sales commission role which I enjoy, but am concerned that when rates rise my sales volume will take a hard dip. I’m considering developing coding skills as a plan B. I don’t know how demand for development work will react in a economic down turn, but I imagine it would not be as soft as demand for financing when/if rates materially rise.

My current work allows me to manage my own day and work from home. I could conceivably find 1-2hrs a day to work on coding 4-5 business days a week. If I can find 10hrs a week to code, am fairly logical and above average intelligence (nowhere near a mensa candidate), what is a reasonable expectation of skill set growth over a 6-12 month period?

So my second question is this, how many folks are looking to programming as an alternative career, a plan B skill set, or as a way to augment current income with freelance/contract work? Is there work to pick up at a 15-20hrs a week? Or would that type of work and relatively lite of billable hours be outsourced overseas?

Thanks for any and all feedback. - John

#2

Hi men! Well, my situation is a bit different… I’m 18 yo and don’t know what carrer start next year (I am graduating this year). I have two paths: Arts (Acting) or Programming (courses and codecamps or Sistem Engineer). Maybe I can make both, study acting and make courses at the same time, I think it is possible because the Theater career is not very time-consuming. After that explained, I think that there are jobs to work on as a freelancer, and also, you can make web pages for local bussiness. So, maybe, I am looking to programming as an alternative carrer xP

In 6 months you should be able of make some simple web apps, and also create and manage web pages. But that is if you want to program front-end, back-end and machine learning… I have no idea about those.

Greetings from Argentina crack!

#3

Hey, I am 35 and this spring I thought of programming (front-end) as of reasonable career change. Now 6 month later (with some significant breaks, you know, at this age you have to juggle many things simultaneously), I can find myself barely able to create a webpage utilizing only HTML and CSS. I am seriously concerned about my abilities and whether I can pursue this as a career. Will I ever be able to get a job in this field… rhetorical question.

#4

Reasonable learning curve- I think that varies wildly from person to person. What one person can get in a 3 month period 8-10+ hours a day, five days a week may not be the same as another person in the same time frame… likewise someone could conceivably learn enough or even more in 6-12 months but less time per day.
You know you, that’s the best barometer or yardstick you can use, don’t compare to others.

As for me, this is my 2nd career- I switched 20.5 years ago (let’s just say I’m over 40…) and never looked back though this year I wound up making a slight lateral move from Mainframe to Web Development (I don’t want to give up on Mainframe jobs though lol). My college degree while it got me my first job before IT- had nothing to do with that job or IT lol but it sure helped with drawing parallels with testing and writing test cases (and “lesson plans” or Personal independent living plans…).

Best of luck to you!