Career change to economics from software engineering I have a bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering with math courses such as Linear Algebra, Statistics, and Numerical methods.  

I have about 2 years of experience as an Engineer. Although I'm fond of programming, I find my current work pointless and mechanical.

I'm wondering if it would be possible for me to switch to a career in economics, preferably doing something that has a direct impact on making people's lives better.

More importantly, would my current skills as an engineer help in such a career switch? I'm passionate about doing work that could one day have considerable impact.

I have found that a lot of universities do accept people from other backgrounds but require them to satisfy econ prerequisites before they can enter. Are these courses offered at community colleges in North America? Or can I take these at a university as a student who is not aiming for a degree?

Lastly, do economics ever serve in the private sector. I'm asking this because it seems that a lot of econ jobs would be as advisory roles in government institutions.

Apologies for not having the right tags. I couldn't find one for career.
If you are looking for a job with a title "economist," I doubt that anyone would look at you if you do not have at least an undergraduate degree in economics (in North America, anyway).

However, you could end up working for a firm that does economics, or financial research. I had a background in control systems engineering, with summer job experience as a programmer, and then ended up working as a quantitative analyst for fixed income. The programming experience ended up being probably the training that I ended up using the most. However, there is a lot of competition to get a job in finance.

Outside of finance, I believe that there is a lot of work in "big data," which involves a lot of programming.

You could end up working with economists, but you would probably not be considered an "economist."

You ask:


  Lastly, do economics ever serve in the private sector. I'm asking this
  because it seems that a lot of econ jobs would be as advisory roles in
  government institutions.


There's a lot of market economists in finance. A few large corporations still have people with the title "economist," but my guess is that most people with economics training have a different title when working elsewhere in the private sector. (As noted by denesp, Google famously has someone wih a Chief Economist title.) Public sector jobs are different in that respect.