Making the change from Fibre Optic Tech to Front-end Dev at 37

[BraZef]

Hi all,

I have been working as a fibre optic and structured networking tech for the past 8+ years.
I haven't had a decent income in the past year, and I am not getting any responses with online applications.
It takes a lot out of a person to just not hear anything.

I would like to make a career change and do front-end/Wordpress development.
I have been playing with Wordpress for 4 or so years and know HTML5 and CSS3 well. Conservatively 60%.

I am currently on freecodecamp.org learning code.

I am planning on skipping Javascript for now, and learn JQuery, Bootstrap, and PHP.
Then I want to design and develop a couple of Wordpress themes and sites for myself. Maybe a plugin or two if I have the skill.

My question is:
Will anyone hire me?

I don't want to spend all my time on this just to be stuck in the same position.
If I am not able to find a position with these online and self-taught skills, then I'll rather dial it back a bit and focus most of my energy on finding a network cabling job.

 

[r4nd0m]

My question is:
Will anyone hire me?

Counter question: Can you program useful things using your existing domain knowledge and how much value does your existing knowledge bring to bear?

Dude, if you can code and can demonstrate your value, then yes of course you are hireable. The question is what will you be coding and how can you leverage upon your current skillset to get an edge?

You seem to be approaching things from a front-end perspective, which is fine, but you need to ask yourself just *exactly* what you want to be programming. Websites? UX/UI? Mobile Apps? Services? Cloud? IoT? Machine Learning?

The stuff you're studying now is also a bit old, but good to know nonetheless. I think React is the current favorite child of web development and also mobile.

Maybe try and get into services/backend programming. Especially network side that can leverage your existing knowledge, though that depends on how useful what you already know is. Maybe look at ISP's/networks and see how you can position yourself in there.

 

[BraZef]

Counter question: Can you program useful things using your existing domain knowledge and how much value does your existing knowledge bring to bear?

That is a bloody good question. I'll have think on that.

The stuff you're studying now is also a bit old, but good to know nonetheless. I think React is the current favorite child of web development and also mobile.

I'll have a look at that.
The reason I am on those languages is because it is what Wordpress uses but it was always just for a start.

Thanks a lot for the advice. You opened my mind to other possibilities.