Hello, I'd like some advice from our resident developers and anyone who has opted for a significant pay cut in order to change industry and do something more fun.
I'm early thirties, 8 years out of University, and I work in the services sector in London. I'm an account director, which means I manage a team of ten at various levels from graduate through to account manager. My day to day involves a lot of calls and meetings, a lot of strategy, a lot of troubleshooting and putting out fires. Due to my level, I am very client facing but work on the technical side of things rather than the salesy side.
I am sick to death of talking for a living, sick of presenting the same data in new formats over and over, and I miss the hands-on technical work I used to do before I was promoted. It was only Excel and platform work but it had a real sense of accomplishment I haven't felt for a while.
I have also suffered from severe anxiety since my early twenties, which I have never been able to shift, despite CBT and various medications. It's a reoccurring theme at work where I stress and lose sleep in the days running up to an important presentation, and regularly face panic attacks on the day. I inevitably deliver an enthusiastic and well-structured presentation and am praised for the part I play, but then the cycle starts again.
My salary is £60K and I have a nice rented flat in London with a girlfriend of 4 years. She has just graduated from University and with the current climate likely won't be starting work before next year. I'm responsible with my money and have saved enough to be able to pay the bills for a year if I lost my current job.
I am thinking about a change in career direction, and am considering programming. Like all of us on here I have an interest in computers, but I do not have any real experience in coding. Why am I considering a career change into programming if I don't have any experience or knowledge about it? Well a big factor is that I think it could be just about the opposite of what I'm currently doing. It seems like an opportunity to be creative and analytical without having to spend my days faking enthusiasm to a brainless client team who can't decide on what they want.
I've started Harvard's CS50 Introduction to Computer Science and am on week three of eight. The lectures are fascinating so far and am looking forward to moving beyond C. I'm finding the problem sets difficult but I'm confident I'll get through them if I work hard. I don't know which programming direction I want to focus on. I was thinking about picking up a bunch of Udemy courses when I'm done with CS50 and seeing if anything clicks. I am prepared to dedicate a couple of hours every evening after work to educate myself on this. It's difficult to find more time than that.
If I do eventually go down this route - leaving services and starting work in development - I know I'll be taking a significant pay-cut. I'm trying to justify to myself whether it's worth it or not for a better quality of life. I guess it will be an initial drop of at least £35K PA. How temporary would this be? How quickly could I get back up to a similar level of pay? Is there a particular programming language which would offer faster progression than others? From a quick search on LinkedIn there seems to be a lot more jobs in Python than other languages.
I would love to hear from those in the industry, and I'd also love to hear from anyone here who had a similar change of heart early-mid career, and has taken a hit to their lifestyle to focus on something they thought would offer better long term mental-health prospects.
TLDR - Should I move from well-paid, client-facing services position to a entry-level development job and take a significant cut in pay for my mental health well being?
I'm early thirties, 8 years out of University, and I work in the services sector in London. I'm an account director, which means I manage a team of ten at various levels from graduate through to account manager. My day to day involves a lot of calls and meetings, a lot of strategy, a lot of troubleshooting and putting out fires. Due to my level, I am very client facing but work on the technical side of things rather than the salesy side.
I am sick to death of talking for a living, sick of presenting the same data in new formats over and over, and I miss the hands-on technical work I used to do before I was promoted. It was only Excel and platform work but it had a real sense of accomplishment I haven't felt for a while.
I have also suffered from severe anxiety since my early twenties, which I have never been able to shift, despite CBT and various medications. It's a reoccurring theme at work where I stress and lose sleep in the days running up to an important presentation, and regularly face panic attacks on the day. I inevitably deliver an enthusiastic and well-structured presentation and am praised for the part I play, but then the cycle starts again.
My salary is £60K and I have a nice rented flat in London with a girlfriend of 4 years. She has just graduated from University and with the current climate likely won't be starting work before next year. I'm responsible with my money and have saved enough to be able to pay the bills for a year if I lost my current job.
I am thinking about a change in career direction, and am considering programming. Like all of us on here I have an interest in computers, but I do not have any real experience in coding. Why am I considering a career change into programming if I don't have any experience or knowledge about it? Well a big factor is that I think it could be just about the opposite of what I'm currently doing. It seems like an opportunity to be creative and analytical without having to spend my days faking enthusiasm to a brainless client team who can't decide on what they want.
I've started Harvard's CS50 Introduction to Computer Science and am on week three of eight. The lectures are fascinating so far and am looking forward to moving beyond C. I'm finding the problem sets difficult but I'm confident I'll get through them if I work hard. I don't know which programming direction I want to focus on. I was thinking about picking up a bunch of Udemy courses when I'm done with CS50 and seeing if anything clicks. I am prepared to dedicate a couple of hours every evening after work to educate myself on this. It's difficult to find more time than that.
If I do eventually go down this route - leaving services and starting work in development - I know I'll be taking a significant pay-cut. I'm trying to justify to myself whether it's worth it or not for a better quality of life. I guess it will be an initial drop of at least £35K PA. How temporary would this be? How quickly could I get back up to a similar level of pay? Is there a particular programming language which would offer faster progression than others? From a quick search on LinkedIn there seems to be a lot more jobs in Python than other languages.
I would love to hear from those in the industry, and I'd also love to hear from anyone here who had a similar change of heart early-mid career, and has taken a hit to their lifestyle to focus on something they thought would offer better long term mental-health prospects.
TLDR - Should I move from well-paid, client-facing services position to a entry-level development job and take a significant cut in pay for my mental health well being?
. Maybe I can bring something else to the table in the form of project management experience or such.