That's what I did! I learned Elixir in my spare time and then started a job that used Erlang. There's some quirks that I had to get over, but it wasn't a huge change over.

Shoot me an email if you'd like to connect!

> Erlang, not Elixir, and they rejected me because I am not an Erlang expert

Wow... was this an actual hiring manager or someone, or like an HR person with a checklist?

I've interviewed for one or two Elixir positions where the opposite thing happened: I talked with someone who had a checklist. I haven't done Elixir professionally even though I have extensive Erlang experience and that was that.

There is a pretty stark difference between "has architected an application with OTP components" and "can write linear code in Erlang or Elixir", but even then you'd probably be able to fit someone in unless you're hiring for that kind of senior/architect position.

It was a team decision. I interviewed with the hiring manager and three developers. It sounded like I was the first Elixir person they'd spoken to, and just decided it was outside of their comfort zone.

When I worked at an Erlang shop, the director’s hiring strategy was to hire generalists willing to learn Erlang. He also hired remote, years before the lockdowns. He built distributed teams that builds distributed systems.

Sounds like a nice gig.