Questions from someone curious about switching over to dev work.

Howdy all,

I’m a 36 year old insurance claims adjuster, making ~100k / yr working 60hours/week or so. Toronto ON area.

Opportunity exists to make more in my current job, but requires more hours worked.

Its also a very slow/old field and I’m anticipating some massive disruption coming.

I was recently talking to friends in software who mentioned that salaries are through the roof (90-100k starting if not more with opportunity to move up to the near 200k if you’re good), there are plenty of jobs, and the hours are pretty regular (40ish/wk). They did mention that occasionally you need to oush and work long hours at certain times, but its not refular/often that happens.

Obviously got me intrigued if I can make more working less.

I have no coding experience (outside of moderate – highly proficient excel work), but confident I could learn (my friends mentioned brain station as an option).

I also have a young family and can’t move from slightly west of Toronto.

My questions would be

1)Are my friends accurate in terms of hours/ salary / demand?

2) Does switching at my age/stage seem possible?

3) Does where/what/how you learn significantly affect your value (front vs back end, marketing etc ) or is it all what you like to do?

4) what are some good resources to check out for more information?

5) what is the most in demand, versatile language to learn?

6) Anything else I should think about / ask?

Thanks for reading this far and answering (hopefully) my questions.

If there’s another subreddit that’s more appropriate let me know and I’ll cross post.

Thanks again!!!