Like others have said, leverage your domain expertise as much as you can. You may find it difficult to find a job with only a junior programmer skillset in your arsenal. But programming skills combined with an (extensive?) domain knowledge and other skills you've already acquired may tip the scales in your favor. In any case, learning a programming language is not the hardest thing you'll face. Especially since you have at least some background in programming. IMO the real issue is to learn to solve problems, implement your design (solution to the problem) with the language / toolset you're using, and learning to write clear, maintainable code (i.e. to organize your code). One approach you may consider: - write a useful program related to the domain you know a lot about (and your potential employers know at least something about) - start with it as soon as possible. - publish it at the GitHub. This approach has its pros and cons. Here's just a few: + it is easier to ask help if others can see your code + you can ask more experienced people to evaluate your code (and give you advice on how to proceed.) + when you apply jobs, you have something real to show for + it enforces you to pay attention to practical issues + you'll learn your tools in process - you'll better not show a crappy code to your potential employers, so - this is very demanding and the learning curve is steep - it is hard to pick a problem to solve (not too simple, not too big/complex) Also, the time you have given to yourself (a year), is a stretch, even if you make learning this stuff your 'day job'. I guess its not entirely impossible, but man, you better not count the hours. I am experienced programmer (20+ years), but I still learn a lot by reading (good and bad) code other people wrote. You can find good open source projects from the GitHub for this purpose. Maybe even a one that is somehow related to the problem you'll decide to work on. Finally, in your position I would familiarize myself with TDD (test driven development) at least to some degree. Not because you'd need to learn about testing as such (you'll need to, at some point), and not because every employer expects that (they don't), but because it is a good way (IMO) to learn practical problem solving and drive home some important aspects of software design in general. (Even nobody expects a junior programmer to be able to design even a modest scale production quality software system, you'll inevitably do small scale design every time you write co

Wygiwys (what you get is what you see) is the norm. Wysiwyg seems like a distant dream. :)