mid-career transitions from a business to a technical role

Question

I'm a business guy teaching myself some programming for two reasons:

1) I'm the only non-coder at a small software company; the only person who can't get under the hood in some useful fashion. I'd like to feel more empowered to help and I want to be better able to explain and debate our technical decisions.

2) I'm getting hooked on programming. I find it stimulating, challenging and refreshingly pure (it runs or it doesn't) compared to the ambiguity of my day job.

Can you point to specific examples of business people making transitions to more technical roles later in their careers? (I'm 40)

Answer 1

Although not a specific example, it wasn't so long ago that universities didn't have programming courses, and all programmers were people transitioning from other disciplines.
You will bring with you knowledge that the developers in your company may not have. Have fun and enjoy the challenge

Answer 2

Me. I was a trader (on Wall Street) in the early 90's. Started writing dBase apps that would query and report against various data that made my job easier. Soon, half the trading floor was using my code. :)

And from there it was down hill. My last trade was in 1996.And I am still writing code.

PS: Forgot, I'm 45.

Answer 3

How about a Forestry major who ended up in Microsoft?

Answer 4

I have a friend who started life as a stone mason, then went back to university in his late 30's and got a first-class honours degree in finance/information systems. He's now working as a business intelligence developer at a large investment bank. I've known quite a few others who made a career switch into programming, including someone who I would rate as some of the better developers I know.

So Yes, I'd say it's possible.

Answer 5

One thing in your favour is that programmers have to completely learn a new skill-set every 5 (to 10?) years anyway. For example, if you are working with 40-year-old .NET programmers, chances are 5 years ago they were working on COM+ applications. The only constant in our business is change, so basically - if you can cope with the transition from business specialist to technology specialist, you'll fit right in. Just don't expect it to be a once and for all thing; it will keep on changing for the rest of your career.

Having said that; the most useful programmers are often not pure technology specialists, and a sound understanding (based on experience) of a particular business domain is worth its weight in gold. That alone should be enough to ensure that if your employer is at all enlightened, they will support you in this change.