#191 From manufacturing worker to first developer job at age 43 with Thomas Gooch

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Oct 3, 2025

Thomas Gooch, a self-taught software engineer, transitioned from years in manufacturing to his first developer role at 43. He shares the realities of 12-hour shifts and how freeCodeCamp's free curriculum helped him learn programming. Thomas discusses the challenges of switching from JavaScript to Java, the importance of networking, and running meetups to support junior developers. He also reflects on using AI in coding, emphasizing the value of foundational skills over reliance on tools. Thomas's journey is an inspiring testament to perseverance and community.

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ADVICE

Choose Accessible Free Learning

Use free, browser-based resources like freeCodeCamp when you lack money or face corporate firewalls.
Prioritize accessible, comprehensive materials you can open at work or in libraries to keep momentum.

ADVICE

Network Over Blind Applications

Optimize LinkedIn and use networking instead of blind "click apply" job hunting.
Be honest about gaps and accept roles willing to teach missing skills, like Java on the job.

INSIGHT

Second Language Learning Speeds Up

Learning a second programming language is much faster once you know one.
Thomas found Java's strict typing easier to learn after JavaScript experience despite syntax differences.

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He's a self-taught software engineer who got his first developer job at age 43. He spent decades working in manufacturing while raising his kids, before using freeCodeCamp to learn programming. He was able to translate his JavaScript skills into working on enterprise Java apps, and now works at a semiconductor company.

We talk about:

What working 12 hour manufacturing shifts is really like
Why he preferred freeCodeCamp's free curriculum over the paid courses that he tried
When to use AI code generation and when to do it yourself
Having faith in your ability to ultimately get a developer job

Play snake in your browser's address bar [open source repo - links to the game itself]: https://github.com/epidemian/snake

Song of the week: Return of the Space Cowboy by Jamiroquai 1994 https://youtu.be/OPkjnRIdQXQ

News items:

1. Learn how to code your own LLM from scratch with Python with this free 6 hour course. freeCodeCamp just published an in-depth Python course that will walk you through training your own Large Language Model. If you have some basic programming skills and want to get deeper into Machine Learning, this is an excellent place to start. You'll learn about key concepts like Reward Modeling, Supervised Fine-Tuning, Mixture-of-Experts Layers, RMSNorm, RoPE, KV caching, and more. Dive in. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/code-an-llm-from-scratch-theory-to-rlhf/

2. We also published a Python course that will help you build production-ready AI systems. This no-nonsense course will take you step by step through building a sophisticated data pipeline that scrapes training data, cleans it up, and ensures its integrity before feeding it into your model. I love this dude's relentless teaching style. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-an-enterprise-grade-ai-project/

3. freeCodeCamp also published a course on building advanced AI agents. You'll use Python to implement interactive voice agents and intelligent research assistants. This course will even expose you to multi-agent workflows. You'll use sample codebases and popular tools like LangChain and LiveKit to code along at home. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-advanced-ai-agents/

4. Memory leaks are one of the most common performance issues with React apps. This JavaScript tutorial will walk you through the most common ways they afflict your apps. Then it'll equip you with the tools you need to track memory leaks down and fix them. It's chock full of code examples for Event Listeners, Timers, Subscriptions, and Async Operations. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/fix-memory-leaks-in-react-apps/

These are just some of the many open source learning resources the freeCodeCamp community published this week. As you may know, we also launched daily coding challenges, which you can solve in Python or JavaScript – right inside the freeCodeCamp iPhone/Android app. We've got a lot of pots cooking, with tons more courses on the way. Please consider joining the 10,881 kind folks who support our charity and our mission: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate