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I didn’t go to college for a degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering. My first career was in helping people do well on standardized tests and get admitted to the universities and graduate programs they wanted. I specialized in getting people into medical school.However, I was not in a position to balance an entrepreneurial life and raising three children on a single income. So, last year, when my family and I moved to the United States, I attended a coding boot camp and got a job in IT.Now, I do DevOps in one of the top 20 Fortune 500 companies.Like you, I began my IT career at age 27. Now, we all are different; my story isn’t your story and it’s not my place to tell you what to do, but I can share a few things that might be of some help:The computer doesn’t know how old you are. If you type in the right code, the right things happen; if you type in the wrong code, the wrong things happen.Since you’re 27, you’re probably at a stage in life where you have more responsibility than you did when you were 18. You have things to take care of, and the kids have nothing but time. There’s nothing you can do about that necessarily, but you can make the most of the time you have by not wasting it frivolously like most college students do.Understanding the basics of electronic computing is something that most people just don’t “get.” If you can get through Automate the Boring Stuff with Python and Nand2tetris, both of which are completely free, you will have a much better background in programming than most people graduating college with a relevant degree. Sure, they might have taken the systems class or the algorithms class, but you just figured out the basics all by yourself.Once you get the basics down, you can learn a marketable skill. A good entry point is to be a “Full Stack Web Developer,” which means that you write both code that runs in the web browser as well as code that runs on a server. You can learn a lot about this by trying projects after learning the basics first!Keep on learning; many people just study to get that first job and then put on the cruise control. If you’re going to do that, get out of the IT field now; If you actually care about continued learning and are willing to prioritize it outside of work, then go for it and you’ll likely make it!Focus on problem-solving. IT is a field that is problem-solving where a lot of the solutions just happen to use code. Never lose sight of the bigger picture.Learn architecture from people who are actually good at it. If you do, your solutions will be amazing; if you don’t, your solutions will be bad.Once the computer stuff becomes easier (and it will with time), you’ll be able to get both the computer and your fellow employees to do what needs to be done. At that point, you will be a solid candidate for promotions, raises, and so-on.Good luck!

Suitability of being a Developer, can be judged by simple answers of Yes/No from the following:Do you get frustrated if you can't complete a task?Do you like solving problems?Do you get bored very easily while trying to solve an issue?Have you tried creatively (using non-book knowledge), to speed up the performance of an algorithm? (forget big-O for a second, most people don't even remember the notation values, just use single threaded performance calculated by milli-secs, time it from start to completion)Do you even like coding? (Did you become a programmer out of your own choice?)Do you like opening stuff (gadgets) just to see how it works, does curiosity drive you?Do you hate Math? (not a requirement but it tells you how you deal with problems out of your comfort zone)Edit 3: Know that questions 1, 2, 5 having a No as an answer would mean this career is not for you, because those points basically describe's a day of a developer's life. You have to work towards solving a problem or completing a task.You can get an interview, and then you can get the job. But if your intentions are fundamentally wrong or if you are living a lie, then you have to stop and re-think. You will not survive even if you get the job (8 or 80 fails wont matter). If you hate or don't like 70% (any 5) of the points above, please re-think this career choice.Edit 2:So I'm adding some pro's and con's to it too for long term judgement of this profession for future prospective students.Pro's:User-13704867577774767219 in comments pointed out that, its quite a stable career even if you're mediocre, which is true, and it pays well.Very portable skills, you can move your knowledge from company to company, location independent (except if your programming in the north pole, in which case you have bigger problems)Continuous learning curve: If you are a geek, this is a great career. If technology drives you, you don't have to worry here.Once you become a specialist, you will be high on demand and companies would be willing to pay you higher salaries for your experience.You solve real-world problems.You can get good training opportunities if the company values employee skill advancement, but not all companies can afford this.Con's:Once you think you are pro at something, you will only realize that there is someone far better than you on the internet who started 5-10 years earlier.As any desk job, it will slow your metabolism and/or make you tired/lazy quite fast, as a result, you belly will also increase with your bank balance, but this is prominent in any desk job, only difference is, this job will mentally exhaust you too, as high degree of focus and commitment is required.If you get easily frustrated or have anger management issues, you will alienate people by taking out your frustration on them, these can be colleagues, friends or family, I know one from each in the same profession.Outsourcing Problem: There is someone who is willing to work for it at 1/4th your pay in a country with a lower exchange rate.You'll have to keep updating your skills and be on top of technology if you don't want to stagnate.Burnout (psychology): Long hours, tight deadlines and no personal/social life and Stress. Most software developers have to sacrifice their own time to make meet deadlines with no extra pay or overtime. (25% or more work on avg (50-60 hours/week), but I would say doctors have to do even more because they are on call on any emergency, fortunately the web-server's or personal computer's crashing do not kill people.)Credit: Took me 2.5 years of self learning even after having a Software engineering degree to get a game developer's job. If you think getting a job is hard, you have no idea what you have to deal with when you are actually on it, what will you do if you hate your job after 3 years in it? Jump ship?Edit 1: Please focus on your strengths in terms of what you like, its not too late to change career but the sooner you realize the better. When your 40 and want to jump ship to a new career path, its going to be hard.You can train a person to code via formal education, you can't make him think like an engineer, its basic fundamentals of how your brain works, not your fault.In lay-man terms, I can teach you how to play a musical instrument, I can't teach you how to create symphonies.

Am sure you have read about DevOps and related things in lot places like blogs etc..Very less articles discuss about becoming DevOps engineer irrespective of candidate's background.First thing which you need is mindset. A simple yes or no. Whether you want to become a DevOps engineer or not.If the answer is Yes. Then you know the reason as well.Reason can be many1. Demand.2. Latest3. More into cloud and beyond4. R and D opportunity5. Continuous learning6. Well paid7. You forsee good future8. You like nature of workAs it involves coding, automation, systems and its broad spectrum.Now, the 'How' partIf you care good at troubleshooting Unix issues (somewhat windows) , basics of Unix networking, if you are also regular user of unix os and comfortable writing scripts to automate things. Then, you are one step close.These days even college students are good at Unix. You should be able answer Unix interview questions.Basic understanding of software development process. Mainly1. Coding and compiling (build process)2. Testing (types of testing , automation testing etc)3. Release and versioning.Types of software processes methodologies and their differences.Example : Waterfall model and agile methodologies.If you can explain how a software is defined and what are all the phases it has to undergo for a software until it is consuned by end user. You are very much there.Better good at any scripting language like ruby or python as they in demand these days. Java is also fine. This is something every fresh graduate claims as his core skill. You should be able to crack a coding interview.Introduce yourself to public cloud platforms like AWS or Microsoft azure. And their couple of famous services. A weekend course will help you even get certified.Now the crucial part. To get hired you need to know tools which are trending and are widely in use. Recruiters are always looking for candidates with these skill set..1. Chef or puppet - configuration management2. Jenkins - Continuos integration3. New relic, Nagios, sumologic, splunk - different kinds of monitoring4. Apache , tomcat, jboss - web servers5. Dockers (more weightage)6 months is more than enough to transform yourself to DevOps engineer from dummy.That's it..I can be reached [email protected] free professional training.