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Discussion on: I switched careers to Software Engineering in my late 30s while nursing a newborn, Ask Me Anything!

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philthegreek76 profile image
Fila

I have been in the hospitality sector for 26 years and always had a passion for coding and learning how things work.
So I have started my journey of switching careers to software development.
I decided to dive into coding in order to create some software for the hospitality and this way change my career.
Any advice will be truly appreciated

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aritdeveloper profile image
Arit Developer

Hello Fila,

Congratulations on choosing to pivot your career to software development! Your plan sounds solid, but instead of building your own software, I would strongly suggest finding an open-source hospitality software that uses a tech stack you'd like to learn, and making regular contributions to that project. This will accomplish several things:

(1) help you learn how to read, understand, modify and even improve other people's code
(2) prove that you are able to collaborate with dev teams - which is vital
(3) prove that you're able to work in a professional environment (which well-managed OS projects approximate)
(4) prove you are comfortable with Git workflow.

Don't get me wrong - you may certainly build personal projects to show off your skills and learning. But do not underestimate the power of opensource participation to prove your potential worth to and impact on a dev team. Even if your first PRs are simply updating their README or other documentation, it's something that shows how you are putting yourself out there.

I wish you all the favor in the world! :)

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