Is 50 too late
Hi All.
A question for people in the industry especially if you have responsibilities for hiring people. I am 50 years old male considering a career change. I have been in IT management side for last 15 years and have been in IT altogether for 20+ years. I learnt C++ for a few months, back in mid nineties. I have never worked as a programmer on a professional level but. Now I want to see if it’s possible to work as a full time c++ programmer. I don’t remember anything today so I will have to start from scratch. But I like C++ so I want to try that. I can’t leave my current full time job (financial reasons) so i have to learn part time. Say roughly 7-10 hours a week. The question is. Is it realistic to expect to get a job for a roughly 52/53 year old ( I am guessing it will take 2-3 years of part time self learning + courses to be qualified for a starting level position) who is mostly autodidact? Or is it too late ? I am a big boy and can take a no. So no need to beat around the bush. Thanks.
Edit : Thanks to everyone who answered and one who offered help. I appreciate you taking time to answer. Based on these answers it seems like I have max 5% chance of getting hired at a decent place. And even those 5% will need me to have specific domain expertise on top of really good language knowledge as no one will be interested in investing in me. Idea of being self employed in the sense of developing my own actual software is also intriguing. Will look at it further. Thanks All 🙏