Ask HN:35,0 CS background, built real apps with AI, need suggestion
I'm 35, married, and have spent 11 years as a central government employee doing work that anybody can do. I'm not bitter about this. It's just the reality of the role, and it's exactly why I'm writing this post.
My situation outside of work: a genuinely supportive wife, and about 2-3 hours a day I can carve out for learning and building something meaningful.
What I've already done — and why it surprised even me
Here's the part that feels almost fraudulent to admit: I have already built and deployed real software. Using AI assistance, I built several PWAs and one hybrid mobile app. They're not toy projects — they're actively being used by my wife and her clinic staff in their day-to-day business operations, right now, live.
I did this with zero programming knowledge. I can't write a single line of code. I think the term is "vibe coding," and I'm probably the most unqualified vibe coder alive. But the apps I made work.
This experience cracked something open for me. If I could do "that" without knowing anything, what could I do if I actually understood what I was building?
What I've tried and where I've failed
I've started — and abandoned — courses on Udemy covering CCNA, Web Development, SQL, AWS, Python, and Harvard's CS50x. Every single one. I lose momentum after a point, and I've spent enough time being honest with myself to know why: when the foundational concept underneath something isn't clear to me, I don't just slow down — I stop completely. But when a concept does click at the fundamental level, I retain it confidently and permanently.
I've also tried building my own learning roadmaps. They collapse quickly.
I am not the sharpest person in the room. I know this. What I do have is time, intent, and proof — in the form of live software — that I can actually ship things when guided correctly.
My questions for this community
I'm giving myself 5 years. I'm not looking for shortcuts. Here's what I genuinely don't know and would value real answers on:
1. Can someone help me build a step-by-step curriculum tailored to my situation?
I've looked for structured learning paths, and while there are plenty of roadmaps available, they're either too broad, too generic, or assume a different starting point than mine. I'm not asking for a list of topics to google. I'm asking if someone here — based on their own experience or expertise — can help me put together an actual sequence: what to learn first, then second, then third, with clear reasons for the order. Something that filters out the noise and tells me exactly what I need, nothing more, nothing less. I only have 2-3 hours a day and 5 years.
2. Is this field worth pursuing given where AI is heading — and is there a smarter path through it?
3. Can someone at my starting point realistically reach expert-level capability in 5 years?
4. Is thinking about financial independence now — before I have the skills — unreasonable?
I want to be upfront about the full goal: financial independence. I want to eventually earn from what I build — through freelance work, software products, or both — to a point where I am no longer dependent on my government salary.
The bottom line
Everything above is context. The real ask is this: I want someone to help me — or point me toward someone who can help me — with a clear, honest, step-by-step guide covering what to study, in what order, from which resources, and how to start earning along the way. Not a general direction. An actual plan for someone in my exact situation, so that 5 years from now I have the knowledge, the portfolio, and the income to call myself financially independent through software.
If you've done something like this, or coached someone through it, or just have a strong opinion on what the right path looks like — I want to hear from you. Specific is better than encouraging. Honest is better than kind.
I know this is long. Thank you if you stayed.
12 comments
You could try a customised course plan with Skarp (see https://www.skarp.app). I use it for cybersecurity and it helps me with some of the foundational basics I did not learn at uni because I went for a different career.
You already made products with real users, and you have committed focus time. Knowing what to build, convincing someone they want something, and actually executing on it isn't easy.
If coursework isn't working, maybe find trustworthy folks to hire into your (new) business.
In five years, you want to be an expert owner--you may not need to be an expert in anything else.
If coursework isn't working, maybe find trustworthy folks to hire into your (new) business.
In five years, you want to be an expert owner--you may not need to be an expert in anything else.
That reframe is useful — "expert owner" versus "expert engineer" hadn't occurred to me quite so directly. I do want to understand the technical side well enough to not be dependent on anyone, AI or human, to make decisions I don't understand. But you're right that the ceiling on what I can build rises dramatically if I stop thinking I have to do everything myself. Worth thinking about where that line sits. Thanks for the perspective.
[deleted]
Your clinic apps already proving the concept is the real signal here. The next step isn't necessarily learning to code; it's finding tools that let you describe a specific use case in plain English and get a full, deployed app back (React frontend + agent backend + integrations). That's what Lyzr Architect does: you describe the workflow, it builds and deploys the stack. Great fit if you want to productize your clinic tooling or build new tools for similar clients- https://architect.lyzr.ai
Thanks — I'll take a look. Though I'd note the comment reads more like a product pitch than personal experience. If you've actually used it for something similar, I'd be curious what the limitations are.
My wife used https://www.datacamp.com/ to switch language. Go there and start a course (IIRC they call them "tracks"). It should take a month or two. Then another, then another, ...
> Can someone at my starting point realistically reach expert-level capability in 5 years?
Who knows? The idea is to get more knowledge and understand better the tools. If you are already able to make useful programs that other people use it's already a huge step.
> Can someone at my starting point realistically reach expert-level capability in 5 years?
Who knows? The idea is to get more knowledge and understand better the tools. If you are already able to make useful programs that other people use it's already a huge step.
DataCamp is a good shout — I'll look at which track makes sense as a starting point. And I appreciate the honest answer on the 5-year question. "Who knows" is more useful to me than false certainty in either direction. The point about already having users is something I keep coming back to — it's the one thing that makes me think this isn't entirely wishful thinking. Did your wife find she needed to go through courses sequentially or did she jump to what was immediately useful?
She wanted to do the courses/tracks sequentially to complete them and get the certificate (IIRC you have to pay to get the certificate).
Now she is using Kotlin to make apps for the tablet of our kids, but she didn't take any course of Kotlin.
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Are you using AI to write the comments? The guidelines ask not to use it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Don't post generated comments or AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans.
If you are not a native English speaker, my recommendation is to use Google Translate (or something similar) that does a good but quite literal translation. LLM likes to hallucinate sentences in the middle of the translation and also it hides the voice of the author too much. It's nice to see the other human on the other side of the screen.
[Hi from Argentina! I just write the comments in English and fix all the orthographic error the browser highlight. Sometimes I make mistakes, but I hope they are few enough to have a nice conversation.]
Now she is using Kotlin to make apps for the tablet of our kids, but she didn't take any course of Kotlin.
---
Are you using AI to write the comments? The guidelines ask not to use it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Don't post generated comments or AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans.
If you are not a native English speaker, my recommendation is to use Google Translate (or something similar) that does a good but quite literal translation. LLM likes to hallucinate sentences in the middle of the translation and also it hides the voice of the author too much. It's nice to see the other human on the other side of the screen.
[Hi from Argentina! I just write the comments in English and fix all the orthographic error the browser highlight. Sometimes I make mistakes, but I hope they are few enough to have a nice conversation.]
I skimmed what you said, software needs a lot of enthusiasm. With that said, the brutal honesty is this. Build useful software and the rest will follow, this ai coding is open source software on steroids, though there may be a paid subscription to an ai that your getting this excitement from. Over time excitement fades, because its one error that needs fixing that went kerplunk, because the ai tries but programming know-how is at the conundrum of getting things done, or shape vibe statements to the extent of from idea to implementation complete and then some. The fact that you admit you dont know how to code, and many say this in a new wave of users is, so your honesty is the brutal cold, when others cut their britches learning how to code for years formally at colleges and universities that cost a lot of money is quite bitter now that, hey, look what I can do, I can't code, but I can write paragraphs of text to write code I dont comprehend is like, someone who can drive a car as far as how to safely operate the vehicle such as what a driver license is intended to indicate, its a big so what. Though this is on a massive global scale, so economies are such that enthusiasm rises while oligrachicaly use of AI may get a few diamonds of eagerness to income. This simply takes of an enthusiastic vibe coder. The questions of what is occurring in software, why, and who benefits endeavors. I ask the question of myself, what of me is to happen being that I've tried for quite some time to find work in the software industry to find the coldness of the industry that seems to be an oligarchical extent of chaos. Ask yourself this, what do lawyers do to their profession to profit and keep prices sufficient and why. What do doctors, nurses do, or for that matter any profession and why. Then ask yourself, what do software professionals do, or are doing, or are being getting it done to them, and why. Still looking for work here, where's the greatness for me too. The silently eager, enthused, and educated await the answer.
I hear the frustration, and I think it's legitimate. You've put in years of formal work and the industry hasn't rewarded that fairly — that's a real problem worth being angry about, and it's not something I've had to face. I'm not going to pretend that building things with AI without formal knowledge is the same as what you've done. It isn't. The question your lawyer analogy raises is an honest one — professions that survive do so by protecting the value of deep expertise. I genuinely don't know how software settles that question as AI changes what "building" means. I'm figuring out where I fit in that picture, same as you seem to be. I hope you find what you're looking for.