Hi,
I'm currently a 3D animator to be honest. for you guys who dont know, animating is a insanely heavy job to do, and I'm a senior (Sr.). But as a CG worker I cant help but notice the power and uprising trend of programming and Artificial Intelligent. So I need your help to have a overall picture of this industry.
A Sr. Animator like me can earn pretty much equal to a normal IT staff. But I see that programmers, or developers as Sr. positions can earn much bigger (in here they can earn around double my wage lol). So I'm wondering if should I start over as a fresh programmer? Is the chance of career high? I know as a fresher I cant expect the salary will be too high, but if the career is promising, with higher wage in the long run, it's worth to try isnt it?
And are there many opportunities of programming jobs out there? I heard that developers in China are in deep stress because the chance of work is getting harder and smaller by time.
And I'm, also curious about AI as well. Is it a bit late now in 2019 to start learning AI (like I'm a fresher with no knowledge of coding at all)? AI's indeed a really promising tech, with various of abilities. I'll be really happy if I can be part of the show!!
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I personally believe there is never a bad time to learn programming.
But it sounds to me like you are thinking about a career change. Depending on where you live, how old you are, your sex, how you plan to "learn", and how much money you have saved up: all could make a big difference on whether this is a "good idea".
There are a lot of programming jobs available in many countries. You might need to relocate to be able to apply to any of them. Much as I hate to say it, programming is considered a "young person's" job: being older will be a handicap especially for an entry level job. As a "fresher" you'll only be qualified for an entry-level job, so you'll need a financial cushion to relocate / take a pay cut.
Unless you're planning on getting a university degree, you'll probably "learn programming" via a code camp or self-taught. Could lead to a challenge being qualified for work.
Any successful "AI developer" who learns via "self-taught" I'd presume to have already had qualified education / experience first.
Not trying to only throw objections in your way: these are just factors to take into account. Demand is high so I'm certain you could switch careers. But I'd also "not quit your day job" at least until you've got a solid new job lined up; I'd also not expect a "senior developer" level of salary "soon".
Please follow-up to let us know how you made out. For good karma, mark a reply as the answer if it helped!
Another part of your equation should be "how much longer can I do CG?" Not knowing anything about the industry, at what point are you "too old" and some fresh kid who knows Maya 2030 replaces you?
Are there opportunities where you currently work? CG or other automation projects, software development teams, etc who might be willing to take on a starter person and let you contribute somehow? Can you leverage your CG / industry experience plus programming ability at work or elsewhere? Move into a QA / lead position?
Finally, I'd ask in some other places, if you haven't already. This is only one random person's opinion and it may be wrong! E.g. try the "ask Hacker news" forum, or some resource specific to your industry.
Best of luck!
Please follow-up to let us know how you made out. For good karma, mark a reply as the answer if it helped!
Because your in CG I would strongly suggest you get started in Java/JavaFX and or Javascript with HTML and CSS. I took HTML/CSS as a first language then had Javascript and HTML/CSS with another class. The sooner you get to understand the syntax and how things work, the better off you'll be.
hopefully you are more enlightened now as to switch to programming or not.I am currently a computer science student and i just started learning python and i think its a pretty cool programming language..would love to hear more on your ideas when you do figure it out totally.cheers