I'll chime in with my own path as I've just about completed the switch at the age of 33.
TL;DR: Try fiddling and customising existing code (like a wordpress site) to see if you enjoy coding. Try different technologies and types of development to see what fits best in your head. Make use of free learning sites like codecademy and udacity. Find projects to build / tasks to work on within your social circles. When it comes time to find a job - be aware that bringing you up to speed is an investment for an employer, but there are employers out there who will do that for you so don't get disheartened if at first you don't succeed.
I started out with web development in order to make a portfolio for some photos. Like a lot of people, I ended up with a wordpress site and theme that wasn't quite the way I wanted it to be. So I started tweaking and along the way found out that I had some pretty strong opinions on how the thing should work, and got real satisfaction converting my vision into reality using code.
That lead me to dig deeper into web development and trying a variety of technologies and frameworks. I would do courses on codecademy, follow tutorials from udacity and pluralsight (pro-tip - you get 3 months of access to pluralsight free when you sign up (also for free) to the Microsoft Dev Essentials program) and various other guided learning exercises. I didn't really have a path or goal in mind, I was just trying stuff out to see what seemed to fit in my head the best. The things that interested me most were more back-end oriented, but whenever I looked up how to be a good back-end developer I got put off by scary words like algorithm complexity analysis and data structures. I figured that, without a CS degree, I was better off doing front-end.
Then a friend, who had started a small company of his own with an API as its primary product, asked if I wanted to do some work for him. The task was to build a web interface that helped him test his API with some frequently-used requests. He's a great guy and so this ended up being my first paid development task.
Soon after that, an opportunity arrived for me to switch what I was doing on a full-time basis, so I started applying for development jobs. But in the various interviews I went into, it seemed like there was always something missing in the recipe - I was lacking in unit testing experience, or the development team at the company was too small to dedicate the time to a real junior developer.
So I ended up finding a traineeship program that offered 3 months of training, followed by 9 months of work placement for those looking to start a career as a developer. I didn't really need the training, but I did need their network of contacts and their assurance (to the employer) that I was a candidate worth taking a chance on.
They found me a placement at a payment solutions provider where I've now been a full-time, full-stack member of the development team for 8 months. The ability to ask questions to a more-experienced group of developers and just work on code 8 hours a day has really accelerated my learning. And as a bonus, most of the work I do is on the back-end, which I'm finding to be the natural fit that I always suspected it would be.
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I'll chime in with my own path as I've just about completed the switch at the age of 33.
TL;DR: Try fiddling and customising existing code (like a wordpress site) to see if you enjoy coding. Try different technologies and types of development to see what fits best in your head. Make use of free learning sites like codecademy and udacity. Find projects to build / tasks to work on within your social circles. When it comes time to find a job - be aware that bringing you up to speed is an investment for an employer, but there are employers out there who will do that for you so don't get disheartened if at first you don't succeed.
I started out with web development in order to make a portfolio for some photos. Like a lot of people, I ended up with a wordpress site and theme that wasn't quite the way I wanted it to be. So I started tweaking and along the way found out that I had some pretty strong opinions on how the thing should work, and got real satisfaction converting my vision into reality using code.
That lead me to dig deeper into web development and trying a variety of technologies and frameworks. I would do courses on codecademy, follow tutorials from udacity and pluralsight (pro-tip - you get 3 months of access to pluralsight free when you sign up (also for free) to the Microsoft Dev Essentials program) and various other guided learning exercises. I didn't really have a path or goal in mind, I was just trying stuff out to see what seemed to fit in my head the best. The things that interested me most were more back-end oriented, but whenever I looked up how to be a good back-end developer I got put off by scary words like algorithm complexity analysis and data structures. I figured that, without a CS degree, I was better off doing front-end.
Then a friend, who had started a small company of his own with an API as its primary product, asked if I wanted to do some work for him. The task was to build a web interface that helped him test his API with some frequently-used requests. He's a great guy and so this ended up being my first paid development task.
Soon after that, an opportunity arrived for me to switch what I was doing on a full-time basis, so I started applying for development jobs. But in the various interviews I went into, it seemed like there was always something missing in the recipe - I was lacking in unit testing experience, or the development team at the company was too small to dedicate the time to a real junior developer.
So I ended up finding a traineeship program that offered 3 months of training, followed by 9 months of work placement for those looking to start a career as a developer. I didn't really need the training, but I did need their network of contacts and their assurance (to the employer) that I was a candidate worth taking a chance on.
They found me a placement at a payment solutions provider where I've now been a full-time, full-stack member of the development team for 8 months. The ability to ask questions to a more-experienced group of developers and just work on code 8 hours a day has really accelerated my learning. And as a bonus, most of the work I do is on the back-end, which I'm finding to be the natural fit that I always suspected it would be.