Re:So you're using a weird language
by scarface74 on Thursday October 06, 2022 @10:39AM
(#33108782)
Well, I restarted my career in 2008 after staying at my second job for 9 years and becoming an “expert beginner” - I was doing VB6 (discontinued in 2001) and C++/MFC (Windows). After the struggle I had finding another job when I was ready to leave, I said never again. I completely concentrated on technologies that were marketable.
By 2016, I knew I didn’t want to be “just a developer”. I enjoyed working with customers, leading projects, mentoring and teaching. But I still wanted to stay hands on
I belatedly discovered “the cloud” and realized I wanted to specialize in true “Devops” bringing developers and operations together and working with companies to show their developers how to be “cloud native” (application modernization)
When $BigTech came calling about a pure software engineer position, I really wasn’t interested. I kept talking to the recruiter and she told me about a cloud consulting position where I would be able to be involved in the full life cycle from pre-sales, to delivering a finished product including infrastructure. I jumped at the chance.
Yes, you leave money on the table if you do that (I know I did, I have friends the same age as me who earn a lot more than I do because they went the non-obscure language path early in their career), but at the same time you also bring some purpose into your professional life, which cannot be entirely bought with money.
Or maybe I was the weak one when I didn't see myself programming in something like Java for a living for my entire career (30 to 40 years), again, that would have literally caused me to cry before going to work, in which case, yes, those persons that can surpass that type of feeling should definitely go for the "more money/less interesting programming stuff" route.