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Discussion on: What's your advice to someone over the age of 30 considering a career in software development?

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Vaibhav Namburi

It's never too late 😉

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Andrew Brown 🇨🇦

You're never too late why?

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veebuv profile image
Vaibhav Namburi • Edited

because you're not. Age has and will never be a deciding factor in someone's success. And like i said in my comment above, people at 30 come with something just as important as tech skills which is EQ.

My entire team is 30 > and they're great. One of them started coding 3 years ago at 33 and is incredible in client meetings and product, handles stressful situations really well!

Thats one example, if you look at the landscape of most bootcamp grads, who're smashing it in their careers, you'll see a large % have had careers in other fields, sometimes completely unrelated to tech, but they bring that experience to software and change the game.

I understand your framing, yes - there needs to be goal alignment, for sure, but I wouldn't brush it as too late. Pull the right strings and you can be up and going with money/impact/position etc fairly quicky in dev :) - atleast imo

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Andrew Brown 🇨🇦

I believe we are on the same point and are talking about the same qualifiers which make 30+ developers valuable.

incredible in client meetings and product, handles stressful situations really well!

This is leadership skills

who're smashing it in their careers, you'll see a large % have had careers in other fields,

This is cross-domain skills

So when I'm talking about it being too late, I am saying the industry is going to change in the next 10 years and if you can't keep pace with it you may be unhappy 5-10 years from now or not have a salary which will allow you to pay for what you want in life.

Here in Toronto, you need a collective income of 160K in hopes to own a house.

If remote jobs became more acceptable a 60K job could be a dream true. I've helped a few friends and I would really hope we can foster more remote culture.

In Canada is much tougher than the US where high salaries, cheap houses and remote salaries are more plentiful.