Tell HN: From bartending to managing cloud infrastructure

Someone on HN once recommended I share this story, and I've been seeing a lot of "how do I get into tech in my 30s" and "can I switch careers" posts, so I figured I'd post.

I'm 37. I spent my twenties bouncing all over the place; did a stint in the Army Reserves while shooting for liutenant bars that didn't work out (failed out of college and I was in ROTC). Did construction, real estate, grew weed in Denver for a year (legally), ended up bartending for roughly a decade. It was great in my early 20s. Not so hot to watch my age group get raises and salary increases.

I have my GED and never finished college - left with a record-setting 1.2 GPA (I have severe ADD and I wasn't properly medicated, there were other problems too). Seemed like there was this universe of 'good jobs' that were simply not in the cards.

So there I am, in my early 30s, struggling to make NY rent and watching folks get promoted and getting married and buying houses and all that stuff. I was lucky enough to have friends that worked in tech, and I've always liked computers, and I'm so totally out of options. So, I start asking - can this be done? How do I go about it?

Responses were encouraging and daunting - "it can be done, but do you know what you're getting yourself into?" was the gist of most. I visited a friend in Utah, who happened to lead a tech team. He has a pet project he doesn't have the time to do, and offers to mentor me if I move to Utah and work on it. I credit him with providing the support I needed to feel confident that I could do this. Didn't end up completing the thing before I had to move on, but I learned enough to teach myself.

Spent the next year trying to figure out how to keep a roof over my head while teaching myself. I I couchsurfed for a while, trying to balance self-teaching with being a good guest (I failed at this at times). Got my second break when I found a place that I could afford, just moments before a cruise ship was reported to be in quarantine with some novel virus or some such.

Covid ended up having a huge silver lining for me; now I had time to work with no distractions. I joined the recurse center (1) and did a batch. I lived, ate, and breathed code. Built until my brain hurt.

Right after quarantine ended I got my first job - off the HN whoishiring boards (2). And with not a moment to spare - I was pushing up against my credit limit in ways that I'm still recovering from.

My advice to people that find themselves hounded by the money / career hounds and wonder if they can get into tech is as follows:

- Making this kind of change is an emotional journey first and a technical / intellectual one second. It is incredibly taxing to stick to it and many, many times it will look hopeless. Get in touch with your fears, insecurities, etc and work on those. Face the demons. You are bigger than they are, or they wouldn't fit in your head.

- Get hungry. Seek out information greedily. Get that google-fu up. Realize that any and all questions you have along the way have an answer that can be found, if not on the internet then through other programmers, which leads to... - Find community. Nobody does this totally alone. You won't be the first, and you shouldn't try to. Most of what I know came from someone else.

- Eliminate those things in your life that have control over you. I had a gaming addiction that I had to kick to do this - might be different for you. Oh yeah, I mothballed my facebook as well. Wasn't contributing to the goal so out it went. Be brutal with yourself, it will pay off.

- If you have any format of processing disorder like I do, for god's sake get help. Unmedicated I'm totally useless, and being real with myself about that was a necessary component to my survival.

- It can be done.

1 - https://www.recurse.com/

2 - https://kennytilton.github.io/whoishiring/

edit: formatting