11–20 of 108 posts
If you leave a job at a large company when you have no savings then nothing we can say will make any difference. Do whatever your heart wants.
I'll suggest learning a real-time operating system like VxWorks, and then writing code for embedded systems. Lots of challenge, interesting projects (robotics, etc), often safety implications that require a mature attitude towards quality control.
Modern computing has become far too generalised for the same sort of development - without all the levels of abstraction you've encountered, it'd be nearly impossible to develop something in a reasonable timeframe. I'm not defending it, but I think if you tried to develop something using such classical methods, you'd end up taking 10x as long creating the finished product. Price of progress I'm afraid.
Perheps I'm in a bubble but everything seems to be running on stock Ubuntu VMs nowadays, occasionally disguised as Docker images. Either that, or iOS/Android. As for the game, our very own patio11 and tptacek have developed something a lot like that but with the end goal of getting you a job aside from all the fun: http://starfighters.io/
More of different linux variants actually. Amazon, for instance, provides their own version called "Amazon Linux" which is based on RHEL/CentOS for their aws servers. I've also seen many use Debian for their servers (In fact, Debian/Ubuntu doesn't differ much technically on the server side, but Debian's simplicity and FOSS-friendliness drives many towards it).
http://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs/embecosm-compiler-engineer
Have you considered embedded software? What you describe and long for (including all the constraints) seems to match the needs and challenges of embedded development. Example of places would include TI, Intel, Atmel, etc., and also hardware makers that use their chips.
Of course it depends on what your definition of end-to-end is, as the rabbit hole can always go deeper.
I am 36 and been contracting full time since I was 22. Really I was only an employee at my first programming job. The concern that you have is of technology stack. The concern you are alluding to is how to stay relevant when being an older person. The first concern is easy. Stick with some fundamentals. JavaScript for example is a perfect choice. By now we should all know JavaScript and another example is the Dom API…
I haven't had much problem with this. I don't compete on price because I can't bid lower than someone who has a cost of living 10x less than mine.
One thing I've learned is that the higher your rates go, the less the global market matters. Few companies are willing to pay for $100+ an hour out of country contractors.
Even if you're not charging that much, you can always find companies who are just more comfortable with someone in country. Many companies want someone they can reasonably fly in if the need arises, or just someone who is subject to the same legal jurisdiction if things to completely wrong. IP theft is a huge problem in developing countries and legal remedies are very difficult when dealing with international disputes.
You can definitely find work in Asm/C level today, at hardware manufacturers mostly (silicon vendors usually) Or look into today's C: Go and Rust
Errr... sounds like you don't want what to do what the job has become these days. Actually sounds like you don't even want to be working. Have you thought about doing something else entirely, try to find something you enjoy?
You won't find many startups hiring someone to do the kind of work the OP is looking for, but there's still plenty of C and assembly programming going on.