Career change into Programming

I hate my life. I should have done software engineering instead of mechanical engineering. I'm already 5 years into my career making $75k. Is there any chance of moving into programming with a lateral move or do I have to start over? I don't have much to show for though I have programmed as a hobby on and off since high school. I have made some shitty tools and calculators for work and written some firmware.

Continue with your engineering job for the short term. In the mean time, you should constantly strive to write more software and study to improve your programming and software design skill. Toy programs are good but think about a computer processing idea that you would find useful. If you can't think of any, you can try studying what it takes to study open source software and even contributing to open source projects.

There is absolutely a chance but it won't be fully lateral. Look into programming related to mecheng though. I know a few people who have done this, it's hard, but it is possible.

No, you idiot. Keep your job and learn to love it. Programming is overrated and it's best done as a hobby anyway. You don't need to change profession.

If you like your job, you can keep your job.

Maybe you're just burnt out. Do you hate doing what you do for a living or do you just hate your current job?
Take some time off.

>>6
I don't know what that means. It's only been 5 years (3 years at current role) and I am already losing it my cubicle. I'm to take a leave of absence every 5 years? No one will hire me.

>>4
I don't know if I can. I have like ADHD or something. I'm having a hard time focusing on my work. I design gear motors for stupid trinkets that really shouldn't exist. I've always liked programming. I know some of the stuff that bothers me (paperwork, idiot superiors that change requirements arbitrarily, etc.) will still exist, but programming seems to be more satisfying when you come up with a solution. When I come up with a mechanical design that works, I feel nothing.

>>3
I've only found a couple programming gigs more on the engineering/science side of things. I just applied but looks like I'm shit out of luck because the rest are across the country and I can't move.

>>2
I'll give it a shot.

What if you get tired of programming too?

>>8
Then I'll get a manual labor job or kill myself.

>>9
Good luck with that then. What >>2 proposed is sound advice. Read your SICP, it's an introductory textbook and it's very helpful.

dubs

No, don't read SICP, it's a mental masturbation book for soft freshman brains. Programming is a practical skill not theoretical, just start hammering away at real-world stuff like walking directories recursively or making a hand-rolled news feed.
SICP teaches important things but it's very verbose and filled with irrelevant problems, and actual programming will make you learn all that anyway.

Forgot to add that Python is a great first language as it's simple, has lots of good free libraries, and ample learning materials all over the Web.

>>12,13

I'm not a beginner that's why I was hoping to skip entry the entry level gig. I've read my SICP, K&R2, that one algorithms book, as well as a handful of other programming books. Not a fan of Python unless I have to use numpy. I'm best at C but there are not a lot of C jobs.

"Software engineering" is curry-nigger work. Why would you want to do this for a living?

>>15
I'm not OP but I like it because it's easy enough when you're not hired to solve interesting problems. For this kind of work, the pay is adequate.

it's easy enough when you're not hired to solve interesting problems.

Okay, but assuming one is bored with a mechanical engineering job (presumably because the work isn't interesting), I don't see why he'd want to jump into an equally boring software engineering job.

Anyway, if you're five years in to your job, making a good salary and getting bored, it's probably a sign that you should just start a family. Presumably, you're already in your late 20s, so the chance that you're going to actually accomplish something revolutionary in a completely new field is already pretty low.

>>7

I've always liked programming. I know some of the stuff that bothers me (paperwork, idiot superiors that change requirements arbitrarily, etc.) will still exist, but programming seems to be more satisfying when you come up with a solution. When I come up with a mechanical design that works, I feel nothing.

here's a problem: most programming jobs are not about solving interesting problems. almost no entry-level programming jobs are about that. the most common jobs you'll find will be about maintenance (fixing bugs in old and usually shitty software, usually written by idiots), enterprise development (mind-numbingly boring, labyrinthine software, usually integrated with a database and never released to the general public), web development (which has two distinct types: backend which is like smaller-scale enterprise and frotnend which is all about making things look good with bloated javashit while acting like an obnoxious 'rockstar programmer') and mobile apps (which is either enterprise for mobile or copying what's popular on itunes/play store and hoping someone buys it for a dollar). with your background, you might land a job in something industrial or microcontroller-related but chances are you'll work on same meaningless trinkets you're working on now, just with code instead of CAD.

basically, chances are that if you dislike what you're doing with mechanical engineering, you'll also hate the things you'll be doing as a programmer. most of the work in this field is also boring and unglamourous. most of the work in any field is like that.

my advice: for now, try finding more interesting jobs as a mech-eng. you have 5 years of experience and experience means opportunities so maybe you'll be able to design awesome, big and complex stuff instead of bullshit. look for programming jobs too but only go for them if they're interesting, but most of them aren't. do programming as a hobby and make your programs open source, preferably putting them on shithub or a similar site. do it even if they're trivial and uninteresting. for many employers (especially tech startups but also bigger tech corporations if your future direct supervisor is a technical one; consulting firms and non-tech corporations with IT positions will not give a shit about your FOSS but you don't want to work for them anyway as this will mean eneterprise development), this will count as experience. and experience once again opens up some more interesting jobs.

>>15
Some of us aren't code monkey mental midgets.

Work for Intel, they mostly hire amateurs.

>>20
You should read the story of little endian.