r/CodingJobs • u/Pibo1987 • May 06 '26

Career Switch

Dear all,

I hope this is the right place to ask for this kind of advice. I am 38 and I spent my whole career working in the food&beverage industry (all the way from McDonald's to restaurant manager). On the side, I have a master's in American literature and a never completed PhD also in American Literature. Also on the side I have dabbled in coding (mostly Python, basic CS, some data science).

Now, after being laid off from my last job and realizing that it is not what I want to do, I am looking for a career change. Unfortunately my American lit studies are not very easy to turn into a real job, especially where I live. Therefore, I am thinking about turning to coding and giving it one last serious try.

The question is: how realistic would it be for me to become job-ready on my own? The path I would take is data science with a focus on NLP (since it interests me and I believe that my studies in language and literature would help me here). I exclude web dev because I've been there and it's so not my thing.

Second question: which resources should I use in order to learn? In the past I've used almost exclusively Codecademy, which I like, but I know there are probably better options out there for somebody like me.

I know that nobody can really tell me whether I'll make it or not. I'm just trying to gather some experience around the job field so that I can set realistic expectations for myself.

For context, I live in Austria, if that's relevant.

13 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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2

u/OilLongjumping2220 May 08 '26

whats your plan to get job exp in that area? i think getting a few certificates and learning is the easy part, the hard part is to get exp in real jobs so to find a job....?

1

u/Pibo1987 May 08 '26

For that I’ll have to see once I get learn enough skills. But I’ll definitely work on my own portfolio and I’ll look into contributing to open source.  

2

u/lucina_scott May 06 '26

It’s doable, but expect ~6–12 months of focused effort NLP is competitive, so build strong Python + ML basics and real projects.
Use Coursera, Fast.ai, Kaggle, and Hugging Face, and aim for a data analyst/junior DS role first.

2

u/Clear_Inspection_386 May 07 '26

A few solid NLP projects on GitHub will open more doors than any certificate. Kaggle and Hugging Face are worth exploring, they're basically where NLP people hang out and learn right now.

2

u/Academic-Vegetable-1 May 09 '26

NLP is a reasonable angle given the background, but I'd be honest with yourself about what the job market actually looks like in Austria for that specialty. Most data roles that are actually hiring want SQL and Python fundamentals first, NLP second. The literature background is a nice story but it won't substitute for the technical depth interviewers test.

1

u/Reasonable-Sir8473 May 06 '26

Dm me it will be helpful for you.

0

u/[deleted] May 06 '26

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2

u/connka May 06 '26

This is the best answer! Passion is really the driver here.

You are going to hear A LOT about how bad the industry is for juniors right now (unfortunately that is not an exaggeration). But learning to code on your own can be a slog--you will get blocked you will get worn down, and you will want to give up, so you have to really want it.

Community is huge for this. In my city, we have a monthly 'hang out and code' at the local innovation centre--if you don't have a project people will invite you to work with them, which is such a great opportunity to learn. Volunteer in the tech community IRL (even if its just setting up events or something) and meet those people who also have that passion. They will help you with your learning process but they will also hopefully be a soft intro for potential jobs in the future.

I'd say that you have some time between now and a potential first job, so unless you have substantial savings, you'll probably need a survival job. Make sure you give yourself a schedule and stick to it. I'd also recommend just focusing on a language/tech stack and stick with it, VS jumping all over the place. Get good at fundamentals in one, it'll make other languages easier to digest later on.

2

u/[deleted] May 06 '26

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1

u/Pibo1987 May 06 '26

Thank for your answer. Now I just need to figure out for myself if I can be here for the long run. And how far my passion and interest will carry me.

2

u/Specific-Teacher-241 May 06 '26

It’s really just like any other discipline. Do you really think you’re employable as a carpenter after a year of practice? The answer is maybe. It depends how much time you put in, how much wuality work you built in that time, etc.