Ask HN: Are my goals realistic?

If programming/building things make you happy, then hack away! Everyone deserves to be happy. If other's judge you, it's their loss.

As for the practical realities of finding work and dealing with race/gender/etc, there are options there too. You can start with simple self-projects, little vanity websites or apps, to build your repertoire. You could leverage these as experience to do work online, rent-a-coder or craigslist gigs. If you want to get a 9-to-5, say that you took some time off to work on personal projects or do some consulting, and point to anything notable you've built.

If you get stuck trying to build something or grow a consultancy, ask here or on one of the StackExchange sites. Lots of people willing to help.

I think you'll be penalized for not fitting people's ideals of what they are looking for (recent college grad, cs degree, etc.), but if you're open about the fact that you're switching focus to more technical work, I don't think you'll be penalized EXTRA simply because your work history is not easily traceable for the past two or three years.

My advice would be don't be afraid. Its easy for me to say but the entire HN community is built on people with a love and a passion for programming. Are we all afraid to admit it? Maybe some of us are. But the majority of us are very proud of our achievements and are driven by the dream that we may one day change the world.

I'm afraid because deep inside me there's a voice telling me that I loved before and there's no consistent correlation between my feelings and what I can achieve.

I know personally that I do much better at things that I love. If you're paid to do it as a job... bonus!

Now just love and passion won't get you anywhere. You need to find something to focus your talent and energy on, define a plan, and meticulously execute it.

Be prepared to acknowledge that sometimes you need to pivot because you've settled on wrong assumptions. Do it swiftly, and analyze the rights and wrongs to learn from them.

Just so that you know I've been through a similar process. It never ends. But if you trust your instincts things will only keep improving in your life.

There are many places in the world where programmers are in high demand, making it somewhat easier to get into than some other fields. That being said, it can be a big and complex field, so don't expect to learn everything in a year.

Don't pretend you're more experienced than you are, but stress your willingness to learn. For some people (companies, positions) lack of experience will be a problem, but not for everyone.

Go make something public (github perhaps). Start small! It's not going to be.., ehrm, that great. But that's not the point. The goal is to improve and show that you can actually do this.

It's perfectly reasonable to explain a work-history gap with "training/investing in yourself for a new career".

It wouldn't be a bad idea to do some pro-bono work for non-profits or something open-source, to reference on an interview. It doesn't need to be big.

There will be places that judge you on all of the things you mention, but programming is one industry where being able to do the job matters more for enough people to make a difference. If you can actually do the job, you'll find one.

Here's solution:

Focus on one single, really exciting thing that will overpower your fears [of failure, or success, of being hurt, of being disapproved by others, of getting too old, etc...].

Focus on it for at least one month at the expense of anything else. Become ruthless in achieving it.

This focusing will make fears irrelevant and will guide you out of darkness.