> 2. Take the time to level up on one or two foundational skills whose barriers to entry are combinations of tenacity and intelligence, or tech stacks that are very close to a foundational skill. Something like "Fart App Framework" is not a foundational skill because it becomes obsolete in a very short amount of time. Things like mathematics, statistics, hard sciences, cryptography, security, etc. will carry you through the rest of your career and create a moat.
I've understood this for a long time, and especially over the last year of unemployment it's seemed more and more relevant, but I've never been able to figure out how to do it.
The thing about building your career on "Fart App Framework" is that it's feasible to break into it no matter your background. This sector of software development does not have a lot of gate-keeping, not only in the sense of academic credentials, but also in the availability of entry level work. It's not uncommon for someone to be able spend some time learning "Fart App Framework" to the point where a company considers them skilled enough to employ them.
But for most of the suggested foundational skills I don't think I've ever seen entry level work available. I've definitely seen jobs for developers in the hard sciences, statistics, etc., but more than often they're looking for an established domain expert, with an established history in a particular niche. My understanding is that the early experience in these industries is gained through things like getting the right internship or going through the academic post-grad grind, things not usually accessible to people outside of academic institutions.
To expand a little more concretely, I've occasionally seen over time job listings in some of the suggested areas. Most commonly, I see jobs looking for a developer in [hard science]. The impression I get from most of these jobs is that they're looking for "[hard science] PhD who can write code" or at least "Developer with 10+ years of experience writing code for [hard science]". The often tend to be more specialized that just [hard science]. While I could hypothetically spend years of my life trying to learn and work on projects in [hard science], at the end of the day without any relevant degree, "real experience", and with my professional history (and thus majority of my resume) screaming "Fart App Framework developer" am I really ever going to be competitive with people who do have those things? The market is much smaller than that for Fart App Framework developers anyway. I've focused in hard science here, but I think the same about mathematics, statistics, cryptography, etc.
Security seems to be the biggest outlier. I don't want to waste too much space talking about security work and its many forms, but in any form, it seems to be much more accessible for people without a "correct" background, more like general software development.