I would like to have this kind of transition to the Compiler world.
It's a fairly easy transition to do, once your bank account is empty you're halfway there.
From web developer to database developer in 10 years
11–20 of 80 posts
Re: From web developer to database developer in 10 years
#12I enjoyed reading this. It could be because I'm thinking of doing more of system/network programming (and learning Zig). I've spent the last 6 years in the JavaScript land and bored of yet-another-bundling or SPA-like pattern. So there's hope that with consistency and patience, one could build expertise in a totally different area
I'm also interested in more low level or systems programming, though I am coming from a mostly backend/system integration background. I feel like a roadblock is that I am self taught, and though I have been doing software engineering professionally for 15 years and software as a job for 20, I still can't call myself an engineer legally. I certainly know I can do the work, but I worry about hiring being wary of a lack…
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Re: From web developer to database developer in 10 years
#13> But my background kept leading hiring managers to suggest putting me on cloud teams doing orchestration in Go around a database rather than working on the database itself.
This is extremely annoying. This also means if your first job is doing X, it is very difficult to break into Y even if you know quite well about Y, and even have side projects. I have tried attaching cover letters indicating even if my current experience is in X, I am quite familiar with Y, to no luck. (No one reads those stuff).
Re: From web developer to database developer in 10 years
#14> But my background kept leading hiring managers to suggest putting me on cloud teams doing orchestration in Go around a database rather than working on the database itself. This is extremely annoying. This also means if your first job is doing X, it is very difficult to break into Y even if you know quite well about Y, and even have side projects. I have tried attaching cover letters indicating even if my current ex…
Is there a way to work around this?
Re: From web developer to database developer in 10 years
#15> But my background kept leading hiring managers to suggest putting me on cloud teams doing orchestration in Go around a database rather than working on the database itself. This is extremely annoying. This also means if your first job is doing X, it is very difficult to break into Y even if you know quite well about Y, and even have side projects. I have tried attaching cover letters indicating even if my current ex…
To me it seems like the majority of recruiters barely read past company name and job title.
I switched from Dev to SRE at the same company, and within like one week of remembering to update LinkedIn job title, the random recruiter messages switched from Dev to "oh we are looking for someone like you with lots of SRE experience" (having worked in SRE for So yea, it's difficult to get traction for something that isn't already your job title.
Re: From web developer to database developer in 10 years
#16On a similar note: I've been listening to various podcasts with Allan Judd for probably more than 10 years now. It's amazing to see someone go from a FreeBSD docs contributor and talented systems administrator to C programmer and ZFS developer.
You have to have serious motivation to not just stay with what you know, but it's a nice kick in the butt to the rest of us to see that it can be done, with you put in the work.
Re: From web developer to database developer in 10 years
#17> But my background kept leading hiring managers to suggest putting me on cloud teams doing orchestration in Go around a database rather than working on the database itself. This is extremely annoying. This also means if your first job is doing X, it is very difficult to break into Y even if you know quite well about Y, and even have side projects. I have tried attaching cover letters indicating even if my current ex…
Is there a way to work around this?
Lie on LinkedIn, get a foot in the door and explain in the interview
Re: From web developer to database developer in 10 years
#18>I held out while unemployed
Watching Eaton's journey online was very inspiring but sadly I have also seen a lot of people doing this to no avail. This is eerily similar to how musicians do busking until they got noticed by a record label.
Re: From web developer to database developer in 10 years
#19> But my background kept leading hiring managers to suggest putting me on cloud teams doing orchestration in Go around a database rather than working on the database itself. This is extremely annoying. This also means if your first job is doing X, it is very difficult to break into Y even if you know quite well about Y, and even have side projects. I have tried attaching cover letters indicating even if my current ex…
Is there a way to work around this?
references, apply for a company rich enough to fund various projects ( like crypto company, if your moral compass allows ).
Re: From web developer to database developer in 10 years
#20My experience (as a non-CS person) has been that aside from where there is a very large maths component which might block people without further academic-style study (and I wouldn't necessarily even count ML in that, since the maths needed for much of ML is relatively low level, it's certainly not graduate school level understanding maths), there are relatively few areas of software which have high barriers to entry in actually doing stuff - where the barriers are are people willing to take a risk on letting you have a go. That's usually much much easier once you're in a company than if you're applying for a role from the outside.
Every time I've felt like I didn't understand something and felt overwhelmed at the scale at a task, 3-6 months down the line of throwing myself at the problem and trying to understand it, I've realised it's not as hard and part of the barrier was just the unfamiliar terminology and unfamiliar tools. Sure, there is a degree of needing to learn new stuff - which is true in any job and in life - to do new things. But those barriers are not normally insurmountable. That's been true for me in basically every area. It is also why I'm fairly willing to give people a chance, so long as they are able to demonstrate some knowledge which would be able to transfer.