I am wondering what kind of career moves I have available to me because I am over the bullshit of desktop support. I have been brushing up on my Linux skills, learning docker, and doing a whole bunch of networking-related things. At this point, I am 46 years old. Would it benefit me to go back to school to learn a skill to help me advance beyond this role? I just don’t know what to do. There are many options, none of them truly low cost and all of them involving a significant amount of risk.
I get that there is no avoiding risk when making a career change so late in life. I was looking at training for Java or Oracle and it isn’t cheap. Maybe given my experience I could teach A+ or Network+? I don’t know. I’ll welcome any ideas right now.
When I graduated I worked for a big corpo as a “.NET/JAVA developer”. I was doing a lot of random different shit but mostly writing unit tests and doing performance testing using tools.
I left around 30 and interviewed for new roles. That was a big wake up call. I knew nothing about coding. Like honestly nothing properly. No idea what classes were, syntax like “static”, “strut”, “async”, “generics T”, “virtual”, “abstract” etc. Somehow during those 8 years I had coasted and knew absolutely nothing. I knew what “Repository” was, but I didn’t KNOW what it DID.
Make sense?
So I ended up watching YouTube videos, taking online classes (Pluralsight) and honestly it was the best thing I’d ever done. Took me 6 months of evening studying and I learnt so much. And it was cheap as well since it was just online follow through lessons.
Start with the basics, do a coding exercise, and repeat.
Currently still a .NET Developer but also Technical Lead/CTO in my late 30s.