How I Switched from Factory Worker to Freelance Developer at 50 Years of Age
Only a few short years ago, I remember it being 3 am working a nightshift at my old printing job. I looked around wondering how I came to be here.
I started working in this industry in 1987 when I was a trainee apprentice. Back then it didn’t seem that bad, the first ten years or so were good. It was a healthy industry. I remember in 2001, I switched jobs and wished I had switched careers instead. From then on it started to go downhill and hit a crisis point in 2008 with the recession.
A Struggling Industry
Printing companies started to drop wages and make people redundant. This industry was not considered environmentally friendly and a lot of publications were starting to convert to digital. Like many of my colleagues at the time, I wanted to change careers but found it difficult to commit because I had responsibilities such as a family and a house to pay for. Because of this I just carried on for another six years.
In 2013 I started to think again about my options and what I could do. I was 44 years old and was worried about being accepted in a job doing something completely different. I then thought about doing something related to computers, but I had no qualifications to my name in that sector.
My wife then suggested that maybe I should look at going to college or university. I never went to university when I was 20, so it could be an opportunity to have a second chance on something I wish I had done at that age. I made the decision I was going to do this and chose to do a computing degree.
In the time leading up to my start date, I luckily had the chance to take voluntary redundancy as I was going to leave anyway. The extra money would help fund my new journey as this course was going to be three years full time in another city from where I live.
It was a scary time and a big risk. A part of me was thinking I must be mad, but I had to try. In September of 2014, I started my course.
Starting University
I remember looking around at all the students starting with me and thinking that there are no other mature students here. “Oh no, I won’t fit in here”. It was too late, and I just needed to get on with it. In the end, it didn’t matter as all the people I studied with became friends and we helped each other out.
It wasn’t an easy course at all. My goal started as wanting to be a web designer, but as with most degrees, I had to study a wide range of topics. Some interesting and some not so much.
It was here that I got my first taste of coding. I had never coded before university. Many of the other students had, so it was quite intimidating. I started with HTML and CSS which I really enjoyed. We then went on to doing Java which I found very difficult. I think back then I still required a lot of handholding, but universities encourage independent research and problem solving which I was not used to at the time.
As time passed by, I came to realize that my passion was with front end web development and I focused all my energy on making that my speciality. By year three I had experienced working with a few new languages including JavaScript and PHP. I also did a module on Web Design using WordPress. It was at this point that I thought I would really like to work with WordPress as a job. I still had the course to finish though.
In July 2017, I graduated from University with a BSc first class Honours. I was happy with this achievement. It required a lot of time and commitment from not only me but also from my family. Life was good.
My immediate thought now was to get a junior developer job locally to where I live. I tried prospecting and applying for jobs. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I didn’t realize the difficulties that lay ahead.
Maybe it was my approach, bad luck, or most likely my age. I don’t know. All I know is that I was not finding a job. This was such a blow to my confidence that I convinced myself that I was too old at 47 to be taken seriously. All the hope I had built up collapsed and I decided to look for a standard job.
I took a job at a local university as an administrator thinking I would do this for six months to pay the bills until a better opportunity came along. Two years later I was still there.
At the beginning of 2019, I made friends with two web developers from the USA. Both also taught web development. Even though I was from the UK we still found plenty of time to talk and I learned so much from them. Both were also freelance developers and suggested that I should do the same.
Becoming a Freelancer
I spent a lot of 2019 learning freelancing and improving on the languages that I had already started to learn back at university. One of my friends ran a Bootcamp which took six months to complete. By the end of it, I felt I had learned a lot. Freelancing felt like a better fit for me and no ageism to be found.
Becoming a freelancer and getting clients are two different things. In order to break into this, you need to be willing to step out of your comfort zone. I started 2020 very tentatively and only wanting to take low-risk jobs or little fixes.
Once I committed to looking for local business client’s things started to click into place. It’s perfectly ok using online freelancing platforms, but one must understand that the competition will be fierce and prices are driven down due to the competing prices of developers from poorer parts of the world.
I did see ageism after leaving university, but If I had experience already behind me at the time, I’m sure I would have found work. Freelancing is giving me that experience. Now I feel my future has options. Carry on freelancing, get a job, or both.
The big lesson here is that you are never too old to change careers. Show confidence, keep focused, keep at it. It can be done. Just never stop practising and keep adding to your portfolio.
I am now a freelance WordPress developer. I am building up a reputation in my local area and getting work. It’s certainly been a journey from working in a factory. It just takes a leap of faith.
