Can You Become a Programmer After 30 Years Old?

hey everybody how's it going I'm and Easter quits and in this video what I'm gonna cover is can you still become a programmer after the age of 30 I have received so many emails and comments here on my youtube channel ask me I'm 35 I'm 37 I'm 43 52 can I still become a programmers it's still a field I can get it to and so I've been dying to make a video on this about this topic right so I'm gonna answer the question this video can you still become a programmer after 30 now if you're wondering who I am I'm 80 circuits I'm a self-taught programmer I actually learned the code back in 2014 Alayna my first job in 2015 and right now I'm actually mentoring and coaching everyday people who are looking to make the transition from their non programming career into a programming career so this channel is all about how to cultivate the skills how to learn and also how to get that first job so I highly recommend hey the subscribe button also as well make sure to hit the bell icons to get notifications anytime I put on new video all right so can you still change careers and become a programmer after the age of 30 is there some magical thing that happens after the age of 30 that prevents you or lowers your probability dramatically from actually getting that first job the answer is no the answer is no for many reasons I'm not just being overly optimistic here or just trying to be positive or I'm not sewing something like I really could care less about whether you decide you're gonna do this or not but the truth of the matter is is that there is so much demand for software developers and for web developers that it's sort of like a Wild West I've had lately I love saying that because it's just a crazy time to be alive you can teach yourself to do this you do not have to go to school to do this you can get into the field and get a decent paying job and it doesn't matter about your age now let's be very very clear about this before I even proceed with my argument here is there ageism right is there age bias in the US where I live of course there's age bias there's absolutely age bias the society like what we value society is youth is attractiveness is wealth of course those things are true but that's at a macro at a high level on a day-to-day on a micro level there are many companies out there who are thirsty like they are dying for software developers to come to their company and help them make more money right at the end of the day all companies all they want to do is make money and so they would love to hire a software developer who's 50 years old who's 40 years old but that software developer the idea is they have to be able to produce as much value as they're being paid for so if I'm gonna hire you as a software developer say I pay you 50 K starting out $50,000 in the US dollars you have to increase my bottom line by at least that much at the very least it's probably gonna be more like 1.5 times what you're bringing me in stuff you buy pay fifty thousand I want you to to the bottom line of my company bring at least seventy five thousand dollars back or more and so you have to be able to justify why a company could do that and so like many of these smaller companies that you could potentially get hired at as a software developer or a web developer they are a little bit nervous about pulling the trigger because if they hire you and your skills don't pan out they've now sunk money into you and it just it makes them very conservative about that so going back to the whole age thing if there is a lot of demand here if there are companies who are dying to hire you then they're not gonna give two craps about whether you are 50 years old 40 years old or 30 years old or 20 years old in fact that can even be an asset to you why because they want somebody who's potentially going to stay at their company for a decently long period of time software development or the career of being a software developer at least you know like seeing the landscape and seeing sort of just anecdotal stories from my friends they're constantly moving around all the time right they're not really staying at their companies for very long I tend to see people stay at their companies for about two years before they move on because they can get a better job title at the next company they can get better pay the next company and on top of that too there's usually something exciting they can work on that they've already mastered the previous company so they want to be challenged a bit more so if a company sees that you're coming in you've got family and you're taking care of them it could be an asset to them because they know you're gonna stick around for longer than the two years maybe they're gonna be able to cultivate your skills that as you work for them and you're going to be a very valuable asset for a very long period of time I think just looking at my previous employers who have stayed in touch with it is very frustrating for them to lose good talent because the good talent is not easy to find this career there's just so many there's just such a large pool of applicants so let me leave you off with one last thing here if you are above 30 if you're above 40 or even if you're above 50 or even 60 there's one thing that you really have to be very careful of and that is your beliefs about this right in other words do you believe that you can get into this because your beliefs will ultimately dictate your results right like whatever external things you want you first have to start with your internal beliefs if you believe that this is a young man's game and that the only way you can get a job is in Silicon Valley and you gotta be 21 years old and have gone to Stanford and got a CS degree then what's gonna happen is is you're gonna lose all motivation to even make an attempt to do this because you're gonna say to yourself why even try like why have a tribe this is for young people if they're just gonna look at me and laugh at me because I'm 50 years old or 40 years old then what's the worth and so you need to be very careful about what beliefs you let it so stop reading articles about you know kids are taking over Millennials are gonna make up X amount of work force and they're pushing out all these boomers or whatever it is I don't pay attention to any of that because it doesn't have any effect on you and the individual level what you should really focus on is cultivating the skills that are necessary practicing as much as you can building projects creating a portfolio creating an online presence that allows you to get interviews and allows you to eventually get a job and by the way if you're with me so far but you're still a little bit hesitant because you feel that for you and your specific situation that you have are not able to learn as much at your age right so people think that once they get in their late 30s 40s and 50s that your brain doesn't work like it once did right in your 20s that was the peak and then as you get older things just go down slowly I would highly recommend that you check out the book the brain that changes itself I read this book and it completely changed the way I think about my brain how it works and especially as you get older how your brain can still function at a high level um the basic idea behind that book by the way is that your brain is very plastic it's very malleable and that you can change it to a very large degree no matter what your age is and one of the things that he really focuses on in the book are stroke victims and people who have suffered a stroke which means that parts of their brain literally die off they are still able to regain control of most of their motor functions and even their learning abilities still are high after the stroke and I thought this was amazing because these are people who are in their 50s and 60s who are still able to do this so for those of you who are in your 40s or 50s and you really feel that your just brain just doesn't quite work as it used to what I would challenge you to do is to learn more might try to learn new skills learn programming learning a new language learn a musical instrument and you'll find that your brain will pick things up over time and it will get better they say whatever you don't use you lose right that comes with muscle and that goes with your brain as well and so if you've been not really challenging yourself the last couple years I highly recommend getting back into it you will find that your brain is just as capable as it used to be but you're not using those same parts because maybe your belief system has just caused you to think that you know that's too late for me I can't do it but once you switch over and you start challenging yourself you'll find that your brain lights up and you get really excited about learning again so with all that being said I'm gonna make it very clear I don't think there's any limitations on you once you hit 30 years old I don't think some magical thing happens we're all some people just look at you different I think this can actually be an asset to many of you who are above 30 if you want to make this career change so if you enjoyed this video guys please go ahead and leave a like and also leave a comment below if you agreed or disagreed by the way if you are that person who is a hundred percent committed to making this career change so you want to shift careers and become a programmer I highly recommend checking out my paid membership program where you can work with me one on one to get your career started now if you're interested in the program what I recommend you do is book a free career strategy session to book that session you can actually go down to the description I'll leave a link in the description below during that call what we're gonna do is I'm really gonna ask a lot of questions and try to figure out what your biggest sticking points are what are the issues that are holding you back I'm also gonna work on figuring out the exact goals that you have and from there if the mentorship program is a good fit I'll lay out what that looks like and we can go from there so I highly recommend jumping on that call as soon as possible again I will leave a link in the description below other than that you so much as always for watching and [Music]

Channel: Andy Sterkowitz

Views: 280,416

Keywords: self taught programmer, self taught software developer, learning to code, computer science, software engineer, software engineering, software development, computer programming, programming, software developer, andy sterkowitz, self-taught software developer, code, learn to code, self taught web developer, self-taught programmer, how to get a programming job, programming job with no experience, programming job without degree, programming jobs

Id: oEL6lAdAe_M

Length: 9min 13sec (553 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 19 2020