Well, if you're not sure, then do it over the weekends and at night. Are the hours at work enough that you won't have time in the evenings to work on this other skill?
Is this something where you could first try some of the online courses (Udacity, EdX, Khan Academy, etc) to see if you're actually interested and also able enough to do the job well?
Also, while I worked as a Software Engineer, I was not really doing much in the actual job and felt I was stagnating and falling behind. Most of the advancement in ability came during my free time where I'd try to learn new things, dive into new interests, create software I actually wanted, etc.
Eventually, work hours resulted in less and less time to do things on my own, and the crap at work got more and more irrelevant, tedious, and stupid. Also, management was all about trying to rid you of any competitive edge or anything else that makes you worth anything (or that brings you happiness), so in addition to all that was in place, it was known/realized they were going around each day looking for more ways to ensure every path would lead to a dead end.
It wasn't long before I wanted to quit and before I realized the only way to make it work would be to create my own company (or maybe become a freelancer/consultant).
I think doing it on the side is less feasible because (1) work takes up too much time for me to make meaningful progress in say 6 months, it will be very slow progress (2) I find that the best coding bootcamps also help in getting you a software engineering job which I think will be a lot harder just studying on your own
Is this something where you could first try some of the online courses (Udacity, EdX, Khan Academy, etc) to see if you're actually interested and also able enough to do the job well?
Also, while I worked as a Software Engineer, I was not really doing much in the actual job and felt I was stagnating and falling behind. Most of the advancement in ability came during my free time where I'd try to learn new things, dive into new interests, create software I actually wanted, etc.
Eventually, work hours resulted in less and less time to do things on my own, and the crap at work got more and more irrelevant, tedious, and stupid. Also, management was all about trying to rid you of any competitive edge or anything else that makes you worth anything (or that brings you happiness), so in addition to all that was in place, it was known/realized they were going around each day looking for more ways to ensure every path would lead to a dead end.
It wasn't long before I wanted to quit and before I realized the only way to make it work would be to create my own company (or maybe become a freelancer/consultant).