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Learning to code and changing careers

socratez
Posts: 94 Forumite

I currently have a job and a career that I am doing well in, but I would like to learn a skill that could enable me to change careers to something more home based. I am thinking of learning to code in my spare time. Would it be possible for me to learn to code and reach a high enough level to gain employment from it? Has anyone done this?
Thanks in advance
Thanks in advance
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Comments
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What language, what field of development. You can start as a junior developer with little or no experience (with the appropriate pay though). I work with a guy who joined as a junior developer having work previously as a groundsman, hes now a senior developer with a car.0
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Do you know anything about coding at the moment, or is it just something which has gained your interest as a potential career path? Whether or not you could reach a high enough level to gain employment is unanswerable. Many coders did start by doing it at home, many as kids. I worked in IT for best part of 40 years but for me coding or programming was not a route I wanted to take. I found it incredibly boring an repetitive, but each to their own.0
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The problem with specifically coding working from home as a uk employee is that you are competing with people in countries that pay much lower salaries. Here is an example that will hopefully illustrate better what I mean: I myself work from home (not as a coder), a new software development department in our company has been created and has engaged a team of coders based in Poland because by their own admission why should they pay uk wages for it. This by the way is a team at the top of their game specialising in AI and predictive modelling. My advice is that if you want to work from home then coding is not really the place to be looking to focus on.0
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Thanks for the feedback, what area would you suggest if not coding?0
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Thanks for the feedback, what area would you suggest if not coding?
What type of work do you enjoy doing? What do you consider to be your key strengths? What is your current job and could you perhaps work from home for at least part of time...?
Also, why are so keen to be home-based? The reason as I ask is that it's not all it's cracked up to be in my view - you necessarily have to spend a lot of time on your own in the same environment - it takes some getting used to.0 -
I looked into coding but underestimated the amount of work it will take to get to a good standard.
If you really want to there are some online courses in Khan Academy etc to try out. If you can't get through those due to boredom or difficulty, then coding might not be for you.0 -
Personally I would say if it interests you, then learn how to code in your own time. It'll boost logic and problem solving skills if nothing else.
Depending on what you know will determine where you start. If you know literally sod all it may be worth looking at something very simple like the kids get taught, something called Scratch. a bit more advanced is HTML (the language of web pages) and then things like Python, Pascal and what not, then programming for Android...
The big languages like C++, Visual Basic and what not can follow on. Microsoft Visual Studio will handle all these (bar Scratch) in one package.
Note that learning to code will not be quick, it will not be easy and until you knock up a piece of software that is useful enough that people want to pay you for it, coding by itself will not generate income for you.0 -
Go on codeacademy and give it a go
https://www.codecademy.com/learn
You get a free 7 day trial so you can see whether this is something you want to do (or have the aptitude to do)
Good luck!0
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