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Ask HN: What are you doing to stay employable in tech in the next 1-5 years?

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Re: Ask HN: What are you doing to stay employable in tech in the next 1-5 years?

#41

Post by gogobio »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #32
bruce511 wrote: post #13

Stop following the crowd. Where the crowd is, there are lots of people after your job, and if we're honest, probably better than you. I've had one job my entire career (31 years and counting.) It's very niche tech. I'm good at it. There are maybe 10 other people in the world who can do what I do. And they're all overworked. The real value and security in tech is in the edges, not the mainstream.

> The real value and security in tech is in the edges, not the mainstream. disagree. fewer jobs. less turnover. like yourself - 3 decades. better go for the next big thing. whether AI, VR or something. long as it has a barrier to entry. even just complexity.

I heavily disagree. To preface - I have a recent and a successful PhD in Comp Sci. During grad school I've known active grads who jump onto the "next big thing". Well, long story short - almost every "next big thing" eventually dies down, every single one of them ended up being a generic Software Engineer after heavily specializing in the "next big thing" because, unfortunately, the cycle of the next big thing just keeps on rolling and within 3-5 years the current "big thing" may become entirely irrelevant, which ended up being the case for them. I understand this might not be very helpful, but I suggest doing the footwork to figure out the intersection of something you truly have an interest in as well as a tech with a potential and specialize in that.

Re: Ask HN: What are you doing to stay employable in tech in the next 1-5 years?

#42

Post by vasili111 »

meiraleal wrote: post #3

I'm creating a low-code platform using AI to automate my own work (to be more productive) and also trying to learn how to engage an audience on social media (around AI and software development) to use as leverage to get contracts, launch apps and make a profit. As a coder since 2002 (when I was 12 years old), I feel like I got into tech at the right time. Nowadays the new hacker is the people that can amass a big aud…

Which low code platfor do you use?

Re: Ask HN: What are you doing to stay employable in tech in the next 1-5 years?

#43

Post by system2 »

Tommah wrote: post #28
bruce511 wrote: post #13

Stop following the crowd. Where the crowd is, there are lots of people after your job, and if we're honest, probably better than you. I've had one job my entire career (31 years and counting.) It's very niche tech. I'm good at it. There are maybe 10 other people in the world who can do what I do. And they're all overworked. The real value and security in tech is in the edges, not the mainstream.

I would be really interested to hear about what you do. If you don't want to share it in public, you can email me at the address in my profile. I'm always looking for a niche, but I haven't found one that has stuck.

He won't tell you. Nobody would tell well-paying niche to avoid competition.

Re: Ask HN: What are you doing to stay employable in tech in the next 1-5 years?

#44

Post by system2 »

p1esk wrote: post #24
wmoxam wrote: post #16

Game has always been the same, provide value and you'll do well.

How to provide value if gpt-6 (or even gpt-5) can do your job better and faster than you?

What can GPT-6 do for real? Just write single-step code? Whoever is writing that prompt will be a low-skilled person to fix their problem or find out whether they are doing right. No GPT will replace developers. Writers, maybe.

Re: Ask HN: What are you doing to stay employable in tech in the next 1-5 years?

#45

Post by metabro »

system2 wrote: post #43
Tommah wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be really interested to hear about what you do. If you don't want to share it in public, you can email me at the address in my profile. I'm always looking for a niche, but I haven't found one that has stuck.

He won't tell you. Nobody would tell well-paying niche to avoid competition.

You are assuming it’s well paying.

Re: Ask HN: What are you doing to stay employable in tech in the next 1-5 years?

#46

Post by ilaksh »

bruce511 wrote: post #12
ilaksh wrote: post #5

I've been avoiding having a real job for most of my adult life. I am trying to build an online business or two that leverages AI. Such as for fine tuning LLMs or an open source agent hosting system. Although right now I don't have the energy to work on that stuff since I am scrambling to get the next crap Upwork contract.

I say this with respect. If you are following the trend of the moment, your chance of success is low. Everyone and their friend is "working on an AI business" right now. Some might make it. You might be one of them. Most will turn into nothing. Again, with respect, jumping into AI now shows a lack of imagination. If you want to make something of value, you need to get outside the mainstream, be more creative, not som…

The fact that you had to claim it was respectful multiple times indicates that the opposite is true.

I kind of asked to be disrespected by admitting that I am not having an easy life.

I got into generative AI awhile back when GPT-3 came out. A very significant portion of Silicon Valley also switched to AI related efforts. Not from a lack of imagination but because it was painfully obvious how powerful it was.

It's been enough to get by. It's definitely easier to get jobs on Upwork in a trending field.

Since I've been pursuing online business for over a decade and built many for others, I am quite aware of the odds of success.

What you actually informed me about was only your lack of respect.

None of the rest of it was even a tiny bit informative.

Perhaps to are projecting this as a way to defend against your poor ability to adapt.

Re: Ask HN: What are you doing to stay employable in tech in the next 1-5 years?

#47

Post by metabro »

gogobio wrote: post #41
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real value and security in tech is in the edges, not the mainstream. disagree. fewer jobs. less turnover. like yourself - 3 decades. better go for the next big thing. whether AI, VR or something. long as it has a barrier to entry. even just complexity.

I heavily disagree. To preface - I have a recent and a successful PhD in Comp Sci. During grad school I've known active grads who jump onto the "next big thing". Well, long story short - almost every "next big thing" eventually dies down, every single one of them ended up being a generic Software Engineer after heavily specializing in the "next big thing" because, unfortunately, the cycle of the next big thing just k…

Well they’re all employed and given they chased hype they probably are in a tech hub and therefore I’d expect them to be earning above median for their cohort and still working on interesting stuff. How many of these assumptions are wrong?

Re: Ask HN: What are you doing to stay employable in tech in the next 1-5 years?

#49

Post by theshrike79 »

I keep an eye on the trends and kinda dip my toe in a bit so that I know the basics.

Like with AI, I've tried Copilot (in the free beta). I've poked around GPT both on the web and using the API. I've tried local LLM models and StableFusion.

Not going to go all-in on any of that, but I kinda know what's going on and where the tech is at.

Now if someone pays me to take a deeper interest, I already know where to start looking and who to ask for more information.

Also: look for the boring stuff. There's a ton of work in the uncool industries.

There's software in tractors, mining equipment, smart metering etc. It's not the cool whiz-bang stuff where you can rewrite everything in Rust, but on the other hand it's stable work where the software is just a part of the bigger machine and you're usually not writing code with a fire under your ass. Nobody expects 16 hour work days and there's actual work-life balance.

Re: Ask HN: What are you doing to stay employable in tech in the next 1-5 years?

#50

Post by d--b »

Back in school in 2004, I had to make a choice: go into quantitative finance, the stuff was piping hot, and people there made a lot of money OR follow my interest in AI/neural nets, possibly not making much.

I chose finance, then the crises kept hitting. I don't regret it, because I'm still very employable and I did make some money. But to me it's a bit of a missed opportunity.

The point is: don't look at what is hype now, look at what could be good in a few years. My guess is that the next huge thing is robotics.

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