How do I switch careers into tech from a completely different field?

Realistic, common, and your existing career is an asset rather than a handicap — but the transition is usually 12-24 months of consistent effort alongside your current job, not three months. **Start by choosing a target role specifically.** 'Get into tech' is too vague to plan. Software engineering, data analysis, QA, technical support, product management, technical writing, UX, DevOps, solutions engineering — these have very different requirements and very different distances from where you are. Some are much shorter jumps: data analysis, QA, technical support and technical writing are frequently more accessible entry points than software engineering, and they often lead there internally. **Then use the bridge that most career-changers miss**: your domain knowledge. A nurse moving into health tech, a teacher into education technology, an accountant into fintech, a logistics manager into supply chain software — you're not a beginner competing with 22-year-old graduates. You're someone who understands a domain the company sells into and is acquiring the technical layer. That combination is genuinely rare and companies pay for it. Target the industry you already know. **The practical sequence:** 1. Pick the role and find three real job descriptions for it. Those are your syllabus. 2. Learn the core skill consistently — 8-12 hours a week, sustained. Consistency matters far more than intensity here, because this is a long game around an existing job. 3. Build three projects, at least one applying your existing domain knowledge. This is the portfolio piece that makes you memorable. 4. Look for internal moves first. Transferring within a company you already work at is the highest-probability path by a wide margin — you have the relationships and the trust, and 'move to the data team' is easier than 'get hired by a stranger'. 5. Network into the target field before you're ready. Meetups, communities, informational conversations. **The honest difficulties**: you may take a pay cut initially, you'll compete with people who have degrees in it, and the first job is by far the hardest. Also, learning around a full-time job is genuinely tiring, and most people who quit do so around month four when the novelty has gone and the finish line isn't visible. **What works in your favour**: professional maturity, communication skills, project experience, and knowing how organisations actually function. Managers value these highly and frequently find them missing in technically stronger candidates. Being in your thirties is not the disadvantage it feels like — the median developer is older than the stereotype suggests.