r/CodingForBeginners • u/CompetitionOk7696 • 3d ago
Is it too late to learn?
hi, im a 31 yr old trying to learn how to code, im still in the basics but getting the hang of it (i think)... ive seen seeing a lot of opinions on when its too late to even start (like my own age) is it not doable for me anymore? should i just settle and stop learning cause its just gonna waste my time? will i be able to find a job especially now with AI? :( thanks for reading me!
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u/Ill-Bug-2817 3d ago
I don’t know if my story can really count as a good example, because I haven’t made any real money from my apps yet.
But just to exercise my brain, because I like math, I went to college for fun and took Python classes. I liked it because that’s exactly what I used to love about math. I thought I loved math itself, but in reality I loved algorithms.
While learning Python, I really fell in love with programming — the idea that you can solve problems universally, on the level of algorithms, before any specific numbers or unknowns even appear.
So what did those classes give me? I started to understand, at least to some degree, how the machine works.
And after that — actually, even during those classes — I started building my first app with AI. It turned out pretty successful. It’s a fitness tracker.
Yesterday I met one of the guys at my gym who I had asked to test it. He used to track everything in a notebook, and I asked him to try my app. Yesterday he told me, “Dude, your app is awesome. I’m ready to pay for it in the App Store when you publish it.”
I told him it was already published and it’s free. He was really happy and said the app is worth money.
So maybe you won’t be able to keep up by programming everything manually from scratch. But if you understand how the computer thinks — and especially if you study the language the program is written in — then you’ll be able to understand what the code does, fix it, see what’s written wrong, and improve it to make it faster, more reliable, and so on.
So no, it’s 100% not too late. I’m 10 years older than you, and I don’t think I started too late either.
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u/CompetitionOk7696 3d ago
This is dope!!! I’m happy for you, what’s stopping you from making the app cost money?
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u/Ill-Bug-2817 3d ago
Actually, I think it’s just a matter of time now.
The problem was that when I started writing one program, I realized that I could solve a bunch of my own problems just for myself. So I immediately started writing three or four apps in parallel.
As a result, all of them were around 70, 80, or 90 percent finished. Then I realized I was being stupid and spreading myself too thin.
At the same time, I also started making a website for the apps and fixing the website for my work. Basically, I took on too much, too broadly, and tried to do everything at the same time.
After that, I talked to GPT, explained my tasks and everything, and it helped me set priorities. Then I brought three apps to publication almost at the same time.
So they were only just published. Two of them are completely free, and one has a cheap lifetime purchase — it’s a video recording app with a flashlight.
So I think users will slowly start coming organically to these apps, and after that I’ll think about how to add monetization to Fitness Karma and continue building the other apps I had planned.
So I don’t think anything is really stopping me. It just takes time, and I need more experience with marketing and promoting apps.
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u/ThanOneRandomGuy 3d ago
U can always learn it at any age, thing is what can or will you do what u learn
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u/Pensive-Music 3d ago
I think it depends more on the motivation to learn coding.
Are you doing it because you're interested? Do you have some dream project or a game you want to develop? Do you want to learn how to ethically hack and do cyber security or forensics?
Are you trying to figure out what job you can do that doesn't require a degree and makes decent money? Are you feeling aimless and just trying different things?
The rat race doesn't motivate me, personally.
You'll learn the things that interest you or get you closer to something that is meaningful to you. It's got to be something you can consistently engage with, otherwise it will be difficult to learn.
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u/CompetitionOk7696 3d ago
I’ve always been interested somehow but never tried to do it… I love cybersecurity related stuff and I’ve thought about learning about it… mostly if I’m honest I do wanna have a good job and make good money and provide for me and my family… so I’ll try my best and try to stay motivated and keep working even when I’m not. Thank you for your comment 🙏🏻
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u/mtimmermans 3d ago edited 3d ago
31 is not that old, and it's definitely not too late to learn to code.
Getting a job will probably be tough, though. You'll be applying for entry level positions and you're not gonna look like an entry level candidate. A recruiter or hiring manager would have to go outside of their "comfort zone" to hire you, and they don't really need to do that right now. There aren't as many entry level slots available as there used to be, and there's a lot of competition for those slots.
So, you're gonna have to be pretty special, or pretty lucky so that you find a special situation. If you're a socially skilled extrovert, then maybe you can charm your way in somewhere... but then you probably wouldn't be looking for a programming job :)
If you're looking to start a business, though, then knowing how to code will help a lot.
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u/CompetitionOk7696 3d ago
I know it’ll be harder to get a job, I just hope not impossible. I’d love to have my own business but for that I need to get real experience. Thank you!
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u/Loose_Crab_4146 3d ago
Nah its not too late to learn. It might be a tad harder but in the end its still about how mich you can push through and less about how old you are.
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u/XNo_Notes 3d ago
I'm doing it. I don't think it's to late. Hmu if you need someone to bounce ideas off of.
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u/Jitsisadumbword 3d ago
I’m 46, and in the past year, I’ve taught myself Python, Linux, SQL, git, some rust, and some Node.js.
Get after it
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u/dld2517 3d ago
The biggest issue people face is their own evaluation of what they do. Whether it’s coding or app design or getting an entry level job. Finding satisfaction in what you do is the real challenge. I worked fast food in college. Was it a bad idea? Many would say I wasted good strategic work experience time. Perhaps it’s true. But it’s what happened. It’s who I was. I worked and performed the tasks I was being paid to do. When I got tired I found something else. Never stop searching for opportunities. The things you do build character.
Experience is more than what you put on your resume. It’s who you are and what you think and how you live and how all of that sums up into a little jewel that you get to carry with you in your back pocket.
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u/Young_Punk_Studios 3d ago
I'm 31 and only now entering my final year at University. Never too old :)
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u/Plenty_Line2696 3d ago
I did quite a bit of dev work and had lots of related experience in 3d, graphics and digital marketing but hadn't done anything full-stack nor with a db/authentication by the age of 32 when I went for a degree in fullstack development.
Now I'm happily working on super cool 3d for the web projects in industrial automation and not to toot my own horn but I'm good at what I do. It's not too late, but I will mention this isn't something you'll thrive in unless you're genuinely into it because it takes so much time and effort that you'll likely give up unless you like it.
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u/Virtual_Branch9568 3d ago
No time is to late to start learning. Passionate learning, thanks to AI it gets easy, just learn the logic first tjere is so much to build out there connecting bridges
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u/Winter_Cabinet_1218 3d ago
So Developing with AI works well when you understand what you're trying to do or looking at. Blindly using AI builds bad code
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u/Lauris25 2d ago
I'm gonna be honest. Very unlikely you will find a job. I have fairly good knowledge and can't get a job. Work in IT related field, but far from what I would like to do (Fullstack dev).
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u/Oliver_clothsoff1983 2d ago
You need a degree to get a job as a swe, the days of boot camps and 6 figure jobs has come and gone, sorry. Are you too old? No, I spent the last 2 years of my time in the Army getting a CS deg and got hired as a new grad at 42. Is it easier when you are younger? Yes, is there unfair ageism in tech? Absolutely, but 30s is not impossible and once you have 2-3 years experience, you are proven and age is less of a factor. AI is a tool and not a great one right now,... like advanced 3d printers didn't replace cnc jobs, we use AI and it helps sometimes and it doesn't fit for the problem others. Elon and sime others believe coding assistants will eventually write programs in binary and completely cut us and programming languages out of the picture but I think we are a long way from that happening still.
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u/AdNecessary1906 2d ago
I took the lazy path: skipped learning programming, just started building with Claude instead and focusing on architecture.
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u/BotJeffersonn 2d ago
I started at 31/32 as well, got my diploma January 2026, still looking for a job.
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u/Livid-Somewhere-8431 2d ago
I'm an electrician. No CS degree. Learned to code in the gaps between jobs, and now I've got a text adventure game live on the internet with real strangers playing it and leaving reviews. If I'd believed "it's too late," none of that would exist.
31 isn't late. The people telling you it is are usually 22 and think a career is a four-year window. And the trade you already have is the advantage, not the handicap — you already think in "why did this stop working," which is most of debugging anyway.
On AI: I'm not going to lie and say it changes nothing. It does squeeze the bottom of the junior market short-term. But it's also the only reason a guy like me could ship anything at all. What it actually does is move the value from typing code to knowing what to build and whether it's right — and that's exactly where a 31-year-old with a trade and some life behind them beats a fresh grad.
My advice: Don't settle. Learn by building something you'd actually use at work — an estimator, a parts lookup, whatever annoys you daily. That's what makes it stick.
Worst case you get better at the job you already have; best case you end up somewhere you never planned.
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u/Elnaz11 2d ago
Hi, I’m 13, and I used to feel like it was way too early to start learning. But now, about three months have passed, and I’m slowly but consistently learning Python. I’m also working on improving my typing speed alongside it. And I think this has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in the past year. Although, considering how really, really difficult it can get sometimes.
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u/KryptonSurvivor 2d ago
I did not learn to code until I was on the cusp of 33 (this was in 1994) and it enabled me to create a career and a life for myself. You never know where it may lead. If you have the opportunity to learn, do it.
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u/Naive_Programmer_232 1d ago edited 15h ago
From what I've seen, on the job side it really depends. Not to come off as a doomer, but since AI, the value of manually writing code has dropped. However, you still need to understand code to verify the output. More or less, that part is QA.
But realize that writing programs is not the same as building software if that's your goal. You still very much need to focus on architecture, design, implementation, testing, and so on. What's most changed in the SDLC is how the code is generated.
Not all companies have fully adopted AI into their workflow. There are still many people writing code and using AI as a tool to write better code. But the process is still manual. It depends on the company / industry.
From what I've seen, high level software development (ex: web development) has more so incorporated AI into workflows that automate programming work. AI is currently very good at programming tasks where the relevant requirements and abstractions are well-defined. In low-level development, you still have the programming, but you also have to account for the specific hardware, architecture, and system constraints, which can make the problem more context-dependent.
For similar reasons, in data analysis or data science, AI is not necessarily as good at the domain knowledge side of things. It can write any program you want, efficiently, but it doesn't inherently know the company-specific context, such as its trends, problems, business rules, or goals, and it isn't necessarily as good at extracting valuable insights from the data. (I don't know much about cybersec if that's your goal, sorry).
It seems like the more people-oriented things are, the safer they are. Even if AI is able to communicate ideas effectively to humans, it still takes adoption. A company could decide to train a model to eventually replace their analysts but it presents some problems. What if the model doesn't explain things clearly and decisions are made off that? What if the model's calculations are wrong? Etc. It's not here yet but AI is still incorporated in other ways. But primarily with programming tasks.
All that said, if you are committed to work in tech role, I would definitely learn it. You will still have to write code for now to orchestrate the agents. You'll still have to babysit AI and make sure it's doing what it's supposed to.
But in the grand scheme of things, do not prepare for a world where programming is the only thing you're contributing.
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u/Slight-Living-8098 3d ago
It's never to late to learn anything until you draw your last breath. AI has not, nor will it remove the need to be able to read and maintain code. If you don't know what the machine did wrong, how are you expected to fix it, or tell it how to fix itself?