gokulj

Congratulations and Good Luck! Curious about your tech stack choices that allowed you to cover iOS, Android and Web, with a team of one!

Short answer is an absolute yes! Would recommend building programming skills and experience in areas that build on whatever professional, academic experience/credentials you already have. For example, Python+Data Science if you have some math background or have worked in industries that use analytics a lot. Embedded systems if you have worked in auto, hardware/electronics, aviation industries etc. In general, try and use your age and experience to project a well rounded technical ability. Programmers are easy to find, but coders with good domain expertise are more valuable and hard to find. Also very valuable are demonstrable communication skills, especially written. So, if you have maintained any blogs or have had a journalistic stint you can use that to your advantage. Ageism exists no doubt, but a) tech industry continues to be one of the biggest drivers of jobs worldwide b) freelance/remote work based careers to some extent provide 'age irrelevant' opportunities. Overall, welcome and good luck!

1) Transfer your overall web development skills to another language/platform (Go, Clojure, Elixir or JS/Node). For anyone 'spoilt' by the beauty of Ruby, Clojure and Elixir are good choices. Given that you are coding professionally since 2008, you should be able to move into 'adept' category quickly in any of the above.

2) Utilize your Ruby programming expertise and become a Mobile developer !! Check out Rubymotion.com. Code in Ruby for Android and iOS.