After eight years in mining I made the jump to coding. However, my coding quickly changed to infosec. So definitely miners can make this jump. This is highly biased, but I would say that many blue collar workers bring a very different work ethic as compared to other workers in the software industry. Miners especially have a comradery that I have not heard of in other industries. In addition to this 80+ hour work weeks were definitely the norm in many mining industries. This type of work ethic has somewhat set me apart from many of my peers.