In today’s economic climate, few industries offer job security like a career in technology does. As a result of the ongoing global tech skills gap, there is an ever-expanding demand for proficient coders.
While jobs related to computer programming are growing rapidly, all businesses in a multitude of industries rely on coding in some form. If you’d like to help close the skills gap, earn a position in a lucrative industry, or strengthen your existing career, learn to code online.
According to the 2018 Stack Overflow Developer Report, which surveyed more than 100,000 developers, about 25% of programmers are over the age of 35.
Furthermore, one-third of professional developers on Stack Overflow only learnt to code in the past five years, which means a fair number of older developers learnt to code recently. In fact, almost 12% of developers who work in the industry only learnt to code in the past two years.
It’s clear people are learning to code at any age and securing rewarding and successful jobs in tech companies.
You have years of work experience behind you, which translates into real-life problem-solving traits.
Your emotional intelligence and resilience are likely to be higher.
Your presence on a coding team contributes to diversity.
You understand the rewards of patience and persistence, both of which are vital skills for coding.
In short, it’s never too late to learn coding; there’s no real age limit. In fact, an 82-year-old Japanese woman recently taught herself coding and created a pretty good iOS app, which has been downloaded over 50 000 times already! Unsurprisingly, she learnt via mentorship. The bottom line: if you’re keen to become a developer, go for it, no matter your age!