Coding as a career?

For context; I've been coding for well over 30 years now, since I was in my teens. Coding has only ever been a small part of the jobs that I've done, but a few have involved working very closely with coding teams (mostly I did GUI and hardware design officially).

Firstly; you can get a long way learning coding without needing a top-spec' computer. Until you reach the point of doing very advanced coding for games or AI, even a really basic off-the-shelf PC is perfectly capable of being used as a platform for learning to code. For most of the commonly used coding languages you can get all the tools you need absolutely free, and the internet is absolutely full of great tutorials and examples to learn from. It really doesn't have to be expensive to become a capable programmer - in fact, learning how to get the most out of limited hardware can be a very valuable experience.

Those advanced  areas are also only a very small part of the range of software that coders work on - for example; everything from cars to washing-machines use "micro-controller" chips, which are even more basic than your Raspberry Pi, but still work by writing code for them. Other coders might specialise in the "back-end" (behind the scenes code) of internet sites, or become administrators for corporate computer networks. So, if you become good at coding, there's quite a range of alternative career options, and in some areas, the option of being a free-lancer who works from home most of the time.

The most important thing by far is to get plenty of experience at writing code, and to make that experience as broad as you can. For example; you'd be best to learn several different coding languages, and once you're up to speed, to get experience of team-work by working on open-source projects. One of the advantages of coding compared to many careers is that you are much more likely to be judged by what you can actually do in practice rather than formal qualifications (there's an in-joke amongst coders that university graduates with a computer-science degree are usually hopless at coding!)

It's only fair to say that there are downsides, too. Working as a coder can mean working under a lot of pressure to hit deadlines; and the deadlines are often set by managers who don't really understand coding, so can often be very unrealistic. The companies who make games are particularly notorious in this respect (I haven't done it myself, but I've worked with coders who have); they often expect huge amounts of overtime when a deadline is coming up, for example, and can be very quick to replace staff who won't do it.

And of course, there are aspects of being a coder which are just the same as any other job - expectations of socialising with colleagues, psychological nonsense at employee reviews, and all that kind of stuff. However, I have found that working alongside coders can be better in this respect, as there definitely seems to be a higher proportion of people with Aspie-like traits, even if they might not be diagnosable as autistic.

The most important thing I'd say, is that you have to have a passion for writing code - all of the best coders I've ever known have been mostly self-taught rather than having studied formally, and many code as a hobby as well as for their jobs. So I'd recommend doing a bit of on-line research, pick a coding language or two (it doesn't really matter which ones at first - a "scripting" language like Python or Ruby is a good place to start), and just get stuck into it to see how addicted you get! Even if you decide against a career in coding, you may discover that it's a very rewarding hobby.

For context; I've been coding for well over 30 years now, since I was in my teens. Coding has only ever been a small part of the jobs that I've done, but a few have involved working very closely with coding teams (mostly I did GUI and hardware design officially).

Firstly; you can get a long way learning coding without needing a top-spec' computer. Until you reach the point of doing very advanced coding for games or AI, even a really basic off-the-shelf PC is perfectly capable of being used as a platform for learning to code. For most of the commonly used coding languages you can get all the tools you need absolutely free, and the internet is absolutely full of great tutorials and examples to learn from. It really doesn't have to be expensive to become a capable programmer - in fact, learning how to get the most out of limited hardware can be a very valuable experience.

Those advanced  areas are also only a very small part of the range of software that coders work on - for example; everything from cars to washing-machines use "micro-controller" chips, which are even more basic than your Raspberry Pi, but still work by writing code for them. Other coders might specialise in the "back-end" (behind the scenes code) of internet sites, or become administrators for corporate computer networks. So, if you become good at coding, there's quite a range of alternative career options, and in some areas, the option of being a free-lancer who works from home most of the time.

The most important thing by far is to get plenty of experience at writing code, and to make that experience as broad as you can. For example; you'd be best to learn several different coding languages, and once you're up to speed, to get experience of team-work by working on open-source projects. One of the advantages of coding compared to many careers is that you are much more likely to be judged by what you can actually do in practice rather than formal qualifications (there's an in-joke amongst coders that university graduates with a computer-science degree are usually hopless at coding!)

It's only fair to say that there are downsides, too. Working as a coder can mean working under a lot of pressure to hit deadlines; and the deadlines are often set by managers who don't really understand coding, so can often be very unrealistic. The companies who make games are particularly notorious in this respect (I haven't done it myself, but I've worked with coders who have); they often expect huge amounts of overtime when a deadline is coming up, for example, and can be very quick to replace staff who won't do it.

And of course, there are aspects of being a coder which are just the same as any other job - expectations of socialising with colleagues, psychological nonsense at employee reviews, and all that kind of stuff. However, I have found that working alongside coders can be better in this respect, as there definitely seems to be a higher proportion of people with Aspie-like traits, even if they might not be diagnosable as autistic.

The most important thing I'd say, is that you have to have a passion for writing code - all of the best coders I've ever known have been mostly self-taught rather than having studied formally, and many code as a hobby as well as for their jobs. So I'd recommend doing a bit of on-line research, pick a coding language or two (it doesn't really matter which ones at first - a "scripting" language like Python or Ruby is a good place to start), and just get stuck into it to see how addicted you get! Even if you decide against a career in coding, you may discover that it's a very rewarding hobby.