HACKER Q&A
📣 hmfigueiredo

Hitting Restart at 40


TL;DR: How can one restart a career and move to research (or any other area for that matter) at 40?

Hi HN crowd!

I've been climbing the corporate ladder for most of my career, with some degree of success, mostly in big consultancy, currently leading a team of around 140 consultants. My background is in software engineering, and corporate ladders are mostly incompatible with sticking with the engineering side of things (I usually put it as evolving from engineer to manager to salesman).

I'm at a point in my career where I feel a change is needed, and research has always been something I'd love to do, and where I feel I could contribute with actual value to actual people.

The thing is, I'm about to turn 41, never worked in research, and wouldn't know the first thing about starting a career in that space.

Any tips on how to do it? If it helps, and in the current economic context, how would you advise someone on how to restart a career at 40?


  👤 andi999 Accepted Answer ✓
Are you financially independent? Then stop working, get into a PhD programm this is usually training for research.