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Are you prepared to be a "student" for the rest of your life / programming career?
If not, pick a trade.
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Hmmm... Let me put my mentoring hat on.
Are you bored because you are not stepping up and taking more responsibility? Or because you are overqualified or under worked? There could be a LOT of reasons to be bored.
Being Bored is usually a good sign for programmers. Most of the good ones get bored with repetitive tasks (like I imagine network administration to be).
Since you are NEW to what you are doing, I would advise caution first. If you are bored at your job, and it pays well. GOOD for you. It is a nice problem to have, take up a hobby and have a great life.
If the pay is lacking, then one approach is to get an education on the side, with regards to programming. Go learn stuff. See if you like doing it for 2-4hrs at the end of your work day.
Also, this might allow you to pickup some work on the side, and augment your salary. While learning important skills.
Risk and Reward should always be considered together. I love consulting nowadays. In the past, I hated the weeks that I had of down-time with no clients calling, now I network during those times, and forcibly during my busy times (1 meet a week, in general).
Unfortunately, being new means having no REAL experience. You have to start at the bottom a bit.
Finally, not knowing if you are going to like programming is another challenge.
Here is a programming test for you. If you enjoy solving it in 2 or more ways, then you might be a programmer:
Take a single text file of words (dict.txt), as input.
The output will be (to the screen), ALL of the words on ONE LINE that cane be made by with the SAME letters (no more, or less). Goal is to use the ENTIRE English dictionary to test for efficiency.
Example input:
bat
bit
cat
hims
shim
tab
Example output:
bat tab
bit
cat
hims shim
Words should not be output twice. Your goal should be efficiency. For the entire English(language) dictionary it should NOT take hours. DO NOT Google the answer. Spend the time solving the problem. Then write the code and test it (small dictionary first, then a huge one).
If you ENJOYED solving the problem. And Liked testing the implementation, and even had to figure out how to do the timing/debugging if it was slow. Then you might just have what it takes.
Because programming is FIRST and FOREMOST about Analyzing and Solving problems!
HTH
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Being a solo freelance web developer and making a living is extremely difficult. I’ve been down that road. You need to be current on everything from coding HTML, JavaScript, ajax, CSS stylesheets, input validation and security, a back-end language like C#, SQL and so on, know everything about hosting services, domain registrations and so on, be a page designer, expertise on photo and graphic tools, know how everything works on every browser and how they respond on everything from mobile devices to desktop, interacting with social media, and customers may want to be able to update the website themselves and then a secure admin back-end becomes a whole separate project itself, the technical requirements are endless if you expect to market yourself and get good paying work. You don’t have time to learn or spend time with trial and error you need to know immediately that you can fill their requirements. And that’s the fun part, then you need to find customers, market yourself and be able to spend lots of time writing and developing proposals and mock-ups that may just end-up in your archives. You need to negotiate their expected deliverables so they can see your progress (and a way for them to see your progress), and you need to negotiate your payment(s). Note: Smaller web customers are now using canned do-it yourself drag-and-drop web products and even if you get work with a smaller customer they won’t pay a lot and once the site is done you’re back looking for more work. Freelance web development is tough.
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Never fear. I'm been doing programming/coding for living for more than 26+ years, and demand are kept growing. Developers are in short supply at the moment and by 2020 it is estimate to be 400,000 developers shortage. How much you make depends on how ambitious you are staying up-to-date on emerging technologies. Constant learning and probably not that much different from being IT admin. However, developers generally are paid a bit more than IT admin once you are a bit seasoned. The environment is changing and telecommute, contract and freelance works are becoming more available globally. I working day job, but considering going contract or at least telecommute going forward.
Cheer.
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I have made all my income from software development since 1982. The last 10 years has been as a Freelancer.
A couple points not made yet:
- Programming is an inherently frustrating job. If you can't deal with constant frustration, stay away.
- My advice is always: If you are over 30, you are too old to start out in programming. Not because 30+ people can't learn, but because you need to be interested in programming to make it work for you. This planet is awash with computers, compilers and IDE's. If you have been swimming in this sea of opportunity for 3 decades and haven't yet learn't to program, well you just aren't interested. This advice would go double for a systems/network dude.
- No one here, AFAIK, has given you an honest, direct, answer to your question "Can I make a decent living". The short answer is "no". The long answer is: "Compared with what you can earn now as a systems/network dude - no. At least not for a number of years.".
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Looks awesome 
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So I was contacted by a recruiter agency out of Buffalo regarding a possible position for a major health care company right next to the Albany airport (no names mentioned, but I'm sure you can figure it out.) I thought, what the heck, it's a commute, but maybe it would be a nice change to actually be working with professionals up close and personal, as it were.
After going through the screening hoops with the recruiter, I get set up for an on site interview in Albany. I think, cool, I'll be able to meet people in person, see what they're doing, ask some questions about their challenges, vision, tools, etc. The usual "my interviewing the interviewer" questions.
Nope. I drive all the way up to Albany to discover it's a teleconference interview. WTF? I could have done this in my pajamas, cat on lap, from my home!
Then, the HR person was cold, escorted me into the conference room, escorted me out when it was done. There was no tour of the facility, no other managers / team leads met me, no one else spent any time with me, it was very unprofessional.
The team lead who interviewed me asked a bunch of junior level programming questions. I sort of threw him for a bit when I replied "please don't ask me questions that I can google the answer for." hahaha.
And the clincher was that the rest of the team is Buffalo, so they want me to drive 45 miles every day so I can telecommute from their location. Riiiight. The whole point of working on site for me is to have in-person peer contact!
And then the most amusing thing is, the recruiter gave me the email address of the person who interviewed me so that I could send them a thank you note. No problem, standard practice. I get back a "Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently." I asked the recruiter for a correct email address. No response, after "we" decided I didn't want the job (correct, but zero room for negotiation.)
Morons.
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: the recruiter gave me the email address of the person who interviewed me so that I could send them a thank you note
For what? For simply doing his work?
If you went to the loo there, thank the cleaning-team too.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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It's merely to thank them for their time, not a comment on the validity or usefulness of the interview.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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He gets paid for his time. The person going is also putting in time, but unpaid.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: For what? For simply doing his work?
It's just courteous. 
Besides, it's an opportunity to address some questions that didn't come up in the interview, etc.
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: It's just courteous.
It's hypocrit. An employer is someone who wants to trade money for my time. One does not owe the other anything. Instead of thanking the employer for his time, I expect to be thanked to take the effort to look at yet another "great opportunity".
Courteous is when they do not thank me but compensate my time, as one has to invest to hear the "opportunity".
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: An employer is someone who wants to trade money for my time.
Well yes, when you put it like that. But there's still a human being doing the interview.
Eddy Vluggen wrote: I expect to be thanked to take the effort to look at yet another "great opportunity".
I was.
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: But there's still a human being doing the interview.
So, the correct phrase is "thank you for being (mostly) homo sapiens sapiens"?
It is nonsense to thank the salesman for taking time for the sale, as much as it is nonsense for the salesman to thank the customer. It is a false courtesy, aka sucking up.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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They probably didn't even want you, but company policy dictates they should at least interview x people a month/year.
In this case it's their loss, really.
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Marc's problem is that he's not a gay black female handicapped veteran on welfare. And he has cats.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: And he has cats.
And even worse, no guns! 
Marc
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Believe it or not, I don't really like guns, but I like being a potential victim even less.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: Marc's problem is that he's not a gay black female handicapped veteran on welfare.
How do you know that??? 
If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
Ya can't fix stupid.
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I was wondering the same, just about the cat-part
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Marc Clifton wrote: "please don't ask me questions that I can google the answer for."
"..and get my own articles." I guess you (it seems wisely) omitted to mention your authorship of 200 articles on CP alone.
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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pwasser wrote: I guess you (it seems wisely) omitted to mention your authorship of 200 articles on CP alone.
Actually I didn't (omit that). It's on my resume, and it came up with regards to how I document code -- I love writing!
Marc
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I was giving the interviewer the benefit of the doubt. You have removed the doubt.
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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