I’m a software developer (desktop/enterprise) working full-time. I made a lateral move to this position without a CS degree. The tech stack in the workplace is niche, down to the language, consequently limiting my marketability. Here and there I picked up some experience with some industry-standard languages on the job (Java, Python, C++, SQL), but in very limited scope. It’s been several years, I’m in my late 30s and in a spot.
I did not expect to be rejected in competitions for years, at 2nd and 3rd interviews, but here we are. Now the market is tougher, and employers have their pickings of candidates experienced with popular technologies. I may be completely screwed, but now racing to save my career.
I have a choice to make. From best to worst, as I imagine:
a) focus on accruing more FOSS contribution experience, highlight this everywhere (including blog/homepage), then network aggressively. How much, I have no idea. Banking on the idea that demonstrated experience trumps everything, and that dinky personal projects like CS graduates do won’t impress, particularly not from an intermediate developer.
b) develop a “big” project e.g. saas, idk. This could require way more time than I’d like, and I don’t want to do it. I still would.
c-1) Pivot to IT. I could grind out certs in the former case in a few months time. Less ideal than coding. Were the market as competitive as it is for software, I’d be placing myself in the same situation, making it a waste of time.
c-2) do this for devops instead (Docker, Kubernetes certs). As I understand it, these are usually senior positions (internal promotions?), so coming in as an outsider without the tech stack exp may not fly.
d) write often, share it, pivot to what may value communication skills like technical sales.
Some wisdom and an extra pair of eyes would be much appreciated. Am I missing something? I’m trying to check boxes to appear like an obvious asset. Maybe broadcasting more will boost trustworthiness, I don’t have a good read on what tracks the most outside of worksplace experience.
I also picked up an AWS cert, for what little that’s worth.
Thanks
Any interest in tech leadership ? Less individual contributor, more team lead?
That would be another avenue to develop
Sure. I wear a lot of hats, but rarely have anyone to lead as we’re a small team. This struck me as an in-house promotion scenario rather than a new hire one, maybe not? What does one do, PMP?
I’d say pmp if you want a feather for the cap.
If you’re experienced with agile you’re already ready to be the tech lead next to some other existing pm. That role generally spends more time reviewing code than writing it, and ensuring your devs have fair requirements and the pm has fair status info. You write some code to tune things up, or prototype ideas for discussion, mostly.
If you want to be 99% done with code, pmp is the way. There you’d focus on documentation and agile stuff
Yeah we’re an Agile and kanban shop. I don’t necessarily want to be done with code, but I would opt for it given no better option. Thanks for the input.
For sure. I’d offer some encouragement too: you are not in a desperate position, your just moving on from what formerly was a more comfortable situation, into uncharted waters.
You are not in a dead end.
Thanks for the kind words, I’ve been trying to keep anxiety in check