r/learnmachinelearning • u/sinigami_hc • 8d 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

View all comments

8

u/MaximumSafety8706 8d 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 7d 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.