Ask HN: What's an interesting software development niche?

I thought it was an interesting niche that on the user side (governments, researchers, environmental consultancies, etc.) tend to focus around one big company (ESRI), but on the web side, you have things like Felt.com, Mapbox, etc., and on the app side, Gaia, Handlebars, Trailforks, Alltrails, RidewithGPS, Strava, etc.

Personally I'm drawn to it because of the intersection of software and real-world data, but I've never worked in it full time – just studied it a bit in college and did some side projects.

Fun stuff though.

At one point during some of the development, I remember doing some testing in one of the VR environments and suddenly felt an urge to scratch my nose, so I quickly laid down the VR remote on a nearby table... and a second later heard a loud cracking sound as the VERY EXPENSIVE VR controller smashed into the floor. That was my first "woah" moment where the incredible potential for VR immersion really clicked for me.

I don't know how frothy the VR space is anymore so while I can't necessarily recommend it from a financial perspective it was certainly a lot of fun.

ERP/PLM for aerospace manufacturers can be interesting if you like jets/space. It has the added benefit of filling that 'superman' role thing if you need to be needed. To do it right you basically have to learn every roll at the company.

Medical software can feel meaningful if you don't pick something lame like Epic. Can be cool knowing you improved tens of thousands of lives at a location when you go to a city that has your software/product.

If you want to be the next cool kid at parties like the FAANG people used to be I don't think there is a new one yet. AI already has so much blow back it's definitely not it.

If you make useful music software you can sometimes get to know famous musicians if that interests you.

Some people have started doing some average person empowering AI stuff. A chat bot for me that navigates waiting on hold (because every company is continuously experiencing higher than average volume) or talking to XYZs chat bot until I get to a person would be great. They are going to force me to deal with a bot, I should be able to have my own bot deal with theirs the let me know once it's gotten through their dark pattern firewall.

There was someone on Reddit cataloging company job listings to determine if they are actually real listings that get filled or not. There could be some interesting stuff in that space to push back on the dystopian nightmare that modern hiring has turned into. I feel like that would fill the malicious streak if you have one.

I hear it's fun and a warm community to do Rust dev work on the Linux kernel right now :)

However, I'm not sure that many embedded places will regard web development as prior experience, because it's such a different world.

Thanks for making that! I really like your service, especially after years of griping at ArcMap. I couldn't believe how archaic and buggy and unpolished their software felt, and I'm so glad to see new players trying to make things easier to use.

I try to describe Felt as the Google Docs of maps, and I've used it to plan several road trips for friends and family. It's really cool to see you add more GIS and data import features too. It's great stuff! Thank you :)

Disclaimer: I also tried to apply for a job at Felt once, but didn't pass the technical interview (a frontend animation challenge which I had no experience with). No hard feelings, but if you have any tips about any particular skills that would be worth developing to get better in this space, I'm all ears, and would love to try again in the future :)

Regardless, I appreciate the product you've built. It's always cool to see web apps being pushed forward in fun and useful ways, ESPECIALLY when they try to disrupt old desktop monstrosities.