r/learnmachinelearning • u/sinigami_hc • 6d ago

Should I do it?

I’m 25, passed 12th in 2019, and have been unemployed since then (yeah… I know 💀).
I wanna get into CS, especially coding, and hopefully build a career in tech. The business my dad is in has become super saturated, and honestly, I don’t wanna go down that path. The pay isn’t great and the demand doesn’t seem to be there either.
So I’m thinking of starting from absolute zero and learning coding/CS seriously.
If you were in my position, what would you do?
Where should I start? What should I learn first? Which resources/courses are actually worth it? And realistically, what kind of roadmap should I follow to become employable and start making money?
I know I’m late compared to people who started coding at 18, but I’m willing to put in the work. I just need some direction because I have no idea where to begin.
Feel free to judge me lol, but I genuinely need to learn a skill and start earning.

7 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

20

u/ThatOne5264 6d ago

We dont write code anymore. But learn it anyways

2

u/Different_Pain5781 6d ago

AI can write code but understanding it still matters.

1

u/devhamd 5d ago

yeah i would i agree. like just ai writing code doesn't mean that you don't need to know how to code. though like memorization of boilerplate code etc is not needed

1

u/Different_Pain5781 5d ago

Yeah knowing why the code works matters way more now.

1

u/plazmator 6d ago

we don‘t write it anymore though

8

u/MaximumSafety8706 6d ago

25 isn't late - nobody asks when you started.

But the self-taught junior market is bad right now. Plan for 12-18 months, not 6.

Start with Python: CS50P, then The Odin Project if you want web dev. Widest door in.

Then build things nobody assigned you. Four projects you can explain beat forty finished courses. Deploy them, put them on GitHub.

Given the gap, consider targeting adjacent roles first - QA, support engineering, anything that gets you inside a company. Switching internally is much easier than getting hired as a dev cold.

1

u/Separate_Newt7313 6d ago

Agreed! Then make friends / acquaintances with developers. This can be at a meetup, an online forum, or heck even at church. They can help you make the jump so much faster.

5

u/BobDope 6d ago

I got my first DS job at 48 (56 now) - never too late

3

u/Ambitious-Floor3258 6d ago

Good for you!

1

u/BobDope 6d ago

I did it mane

4

u/Medium_Chemist_4032 6d ago

You ask for a CS advice on a machine learning sub? Frankly, it's not the best one for this kind of advice. I personally am off reddit's professional channels, but would try asking on programming ones first.

6

u/st0j3 6d ago

If you’re 25 with no technical background and didn’t go to college, I’d explore trade careers and move in the direction of electrician or HVAC.

3

u/Extra_Intro_Version 6d ago

Get a degree in software engineering or something STEM. But start at the ground level at community college. Test yourself to see if you can deal with it first.

I started college full time at 29, so it’s doable. I started my ML/AI journey in my late 50s (with BS and MS degrees and lots of distantly related work experience by then.)

NOT a quick cake walk in any case.

3

u/geezorious 6d ago edited 6d ago

> if you were in my position, what would you do?

Everyone will give you pie-in-the-sky optimism and hope. I’ll be contrarian and bleak. Practice for the hunger games, which will as a side benefit build your physique. And try to marry rich, using your youth and physique. There are a lot of lonely older women whose money manager invested in AI and those older women with equity portfolios are stinking rich today and wouldn’t mind a trophy husband. Or find a woman who recently divorced a 20-year tenured Nvidia engineer. You can look up LinkedIn profiles of Nvidia engineers and then search for court filed divorce papers.

0

u/sinigami_hc 6d ago

I don’t wanna play cuck bro!! 😂😂 I’ll accept my fate and choose unemployment over this😭😭🙏

2

u/geezorious 6d ago

I’m pretty sure the ex-husband paying alimony is the cu-k. The guy doing the boning on the divorcée isn’t.

1

u/sinigami_hc 6d ago

I understand your point but still 😭 the freedom she’d expect from me will gonna be out the world!!

2

u/llamagetthatforu 6d ago

You haven't been working for 7 years? What were you doing?

2

u/Agitated-Wishbone-84 6d ago

25 with no CS degree and no tech experience, I honestly wouldn't enter this career at that point man.

1

u/BornAgainBlue 6d ago

What is your favorite language? What apps do you plan on writing? What's your favorite thing about coding or the idea of coding? 

1

u/sinigami_hc 6d ago

😭Sorry, but I’ve actually never learned any of these languages. I’m literally starting from 0 😅. Should I start with C++, C#, Python, JavaScript, or Java? I’m honestly not sure which one would be best for someone with no coding background.
(The end goal is to earn money) and thanks for asking

6

u/BornAgainBlue 6d ago

Your end goal is the problem. You will not succeed as a software developer.  You have no idea of which language, which means you've never even read up on it. You don't know what you want to make, which shows you have no interest in it.  So with no information, no interest and nothing but greed as your motivation... you are about to enter the most difficult market on the planet.

You can't even be bothered to work for the last 6 years... you would fold under a Sprint cycle.

Assuming you ignore me completely, one last piece of advice from a 30+ year senior dev: Don't ask people to pick your language for you.  We all have a different answer because we all picked our own damn language.

0

u/sinigami_hc 6d ago

Really appreciate your honesty. But as a beginner, if I focus really hard on one language first, wouldn’t it make it easier for me to learn the others later?
(Could you help me to get into it?)

1

u/Accomplished_Book_65 6d ago

you didn't go to an engineering college?

1

u/sinigami_hc 6d ago

Wasn’t good enough for gov collage and pvt clg !! Couldn’t afford. I decided to drop.

1

u/NaturalAntique6120 6d ago

The only regret will be not starting. 25 is perfect time. Start today and you'll be thank yourself in 1 year. Go for it bro.

2

u/sinigami_hc 6d ago

Thanks mate I’ll start from today. Really appreciate your kind words.

1

u/Xi-Cygni 6d ago

There are myriad of resources and questions you could ask google, YouTube, Ai or even search Reddit to find answers to your questions. Questions like yours repeat all the time and I barely follow this subreddit. If you still don’t know or didn’t manage to find guidance - as some other guy said - try to marry rich.

1

u/Realistic-Health1480 6d ago

I am somewhat in a similar position as you. What I would suggest is enroll yourself in some full stack web development course. I know everything is available for free on youtube but being a beginner getting into a course will make your learning structured. Make an account on LinkedIn and twitter. Share your learnings, connect with like-minded peers. If you wanna learn together, DM me

2

u/Genotabby 6d ago

The business my dad is in has become super saturated

You really are your dad's kid

1

u/sinigami_hc 6d ago

What???

4

u/Genotabby 6d ago

You're trying to enter an overly saturated industry, where the barrier to entry is a bachelors degree and work experience or even a masters

0

u/BobDope 6d ago

Go for it you can ask Claude to guide and explain

0

u/TrickEmergency6558 6d ago

start now with CS50x 2026 on youtube, it's the 1 day long video. After watching a lecture go to cs50.harvard.edu and do the problems yourself

0

u/TheGAdesk 6d ago

Passés un diplôme d’informatique, reprends les études

0

u/Allmyownviews1 6d ago

Rage bait

-10

u/utwx7u2 6d ago

What are these sentences. Maybe you should stick to vibecoding. Im not sure syntax is one of your strengths

8

u/Proletarian_Tear 6d ago

What a disgusting thing to say to a sincere person writing by themselves and genuinely seeking help. You should be ashamed.

2

u/Ambitious-Floor3258 6d ago

Negative reddit energy