find a service vendor then sub contract; they might let u work remotely. after several projects u can be on ur own.
Ask HN: Any Hope? Developer Switching from MS .Net Development to Free and Open?
11–16 of 16 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any Hope? Developer Switching from MS .Net Development to Free and Open?
#12Remote work is easily attainable. Build something of your own, throw it up on Github, and make it nice. That, combined with your 15 years of experience in other technologies, should easily qualify you for a pretty nice position.
Sidenote: it's insanely stupid for hiring managers to disregard people because they have 15 years of experience in the wrong technology. Someone with that much experience ought to be able to learn pretty much anything relatively quickly. If it's a sticking point during the hiring process, I'd bring that up.
Re: Ask HN: Any Hope? Developer Switching from MS .Net Development to Free and Open?
#13Nothing prohibits writing code using Node outside of the workplace.
Re: Ask HN: Any Hope? Developer Switching from MS .Net Development to Free and Open?
#14You may want to check out Mike Gunderloys blog[1]. He was also an MS developer for 15 years before he switched to open source technologies.
Re: Ask HN: Any Hope? Developer Switching from MS .Net Development to Free and Open?
#15The grass is always greener on the other side.
Bash is usable, but is a bit of a pain, its scripting facilities are very bad, for anything serious you will probably want to use another scripting language anyway.
Most tech looks quite good from a distance, once you really start using it you will most definitely run into issues. That might be one reason a lot of us are always jumping to different tech without getting proficient in anything.
Also, unless you live on the Microsoft campus and aren't allowed to leave there are bound to be a lot of options available, maybe you didn't find them or you are too focused on node.
You might want to look into Cygwin to get some Unix tools going. Putty is also pretty good. If you need more you can install Ubuntu on virtualbox or any other combination of OS and VM you might prefer.
By all means keep pursuing remote node work, but keep an open mind and don't miss out on easy improvements available to you right now.
Re: Ask HN: Any Hope? Developer Switching from MS .Net Development to Free and Open?
#16I was in a very similar situation 4 years ago when I switched from 100% .NET work in my local area to 100% Ruby/Rails work remotely.
The first suggestion would be to join a Javascript developers meetup in your area. If there isn't one, start one on MeetUp.com. Network with other folks who are interested in these technologies and start collaborating with a few of them on some interesting side projects. You may even find an development manager that wants to hire experienced folks interested in learning Node, EmberJS, etc.
Once you have something significant to shop around to more influential folks, it's just a matter of time before you'll land your first gig away from .NET land.
The only caveat is you should plan to take a pay cut for your first non .NET gig, because it will likely be at a small company or startup and they will discount your experience. Once you have a bit more experience, you should be back to your old .NET salary in no time by switching to a larger shop within a year or two.
Good luck!