I'm 33. I learned web basics at 15 (HTML, JS, eventually CSS) and dabbled in that on a personal website till about 25. Meanwhile, I got an English degree, including a single calculus class. At 30, just after the birth of my daughter, exhausted by my stupid day job (not remotely CS related), I started teaching myself Java, then Android dev, then Python. I was on the verge of going over to the .NET dark side when I found a job that wanted Python and Java and SQL and oh, could I teach myself some Objective-C and write a small iOS app? It's with a small company, the benefits are meh and the pay is average for the area and I absolutely love it.
I feel pretty lucky to have stumbled into this. I think it's mostly repeatable with the right company -- small, probably not a traditional development house or major corporation (the company does a lot of industrial automation, PLCs and such, I do the PC side).
I feel pretty lucky to have stumbled into this. I think it's mostly repeatable with the right company -- small, probably not a traditional development house or major corporation (the company does a lot of industrial automation, PLCs and such, I do the PC side).
FWIW, you're exactly the kind of person we hire.