Hey,
I am unhappy with my current job and I seek the strategy to improve my life situation. It took me a long time to sort out my personal problems, so I am rather late to the party, but I finally feel ready and capable to try and learn something new.
I have basic knowledge of how GNU/Linux works and very limited knowledge in C++ programming. I enjoy spending my time on learning new things in that subject and I would like to use it as an advantage to earn money doing it. Yes, hobbies turned into work sometimes ruin it, but I have no better ideas at the moment.
I already figured out that costly professional courses may be a waste of time and money or at least that's what I've read online. The only truly good thing is that they sometimes offer help with finding job at the end of the training, which might make things easier. I am not sure what to think about it.
Is the perspective of choosing a job in the IT field and changing a job realistic at my age and without any formal education? If so, do you have any advice for me on how to even begin the journey?
I know that I did not specify anything, but I'm trying to get an advice before I make any decisions and I will be happy to receive any suggestions.
Cheers!
Being a programmer is a painful experience but we love it!
I've been in the field for 20 years and I don't have formal education in it. For the last 5 years I started to look a bit further in theory, and I wasn't mature enough to understand its relevancy earlier, and it isn't truly needed in the first years.
I think my advice is to figure out if you love the painful process of programming. The feeling of knowing nothing (or very little) about the task at hand, banging your head against the wall until you do, and being proud of the little you achieve that no one else will understand. If you do, you were born a programmer, and you can use that feedback loop to never stop learning, which is really what the job is about.
If you're not cut for programming, you can still enjoy other stuff in IT, like system health monitoring, security, etc. And it's useful to know early that you don't want to be in coding, you can also build a career around those.
For immediate steps, pick a simple language, go to https://adventofcode.com/ and figure a few of the exercises out until you are starting to feel confident. After that you can start thinking about bigger projects.
Let me know how it goes!
I will follow your advice, experiment a little and try to find out how I feel about the possible options. I might come back to this thread later if I have any more questions and I'm glad to be a part of such helpful and encouraging community.
Thanks for the advice and taking the time to share your view on the subject! I appreciate it a lot.