Functional Reactive Programming (2016) uses examples in Java 8. Manning Early Access Program (MEAP) recently announced Fabulous Adventures in Data Structures and Algorithms, which uses C#.
That is to say, within languages there is still plenty to learn.
There's the operating systems and hardware route, systems programming, low-level stuff. Maybe not immediately applicable to present work.
There's cloud and DevOps, observability and monitoring. Hard to start that unless there's already a "digital transformation" initiative.
But you could segue to an ML platform while working out a data-driven ML thing.
React (frontend) is fine, but how's the backend knowledge? Would you use Spring and Hibernate, .NET Core, or Node.js?
Maybe work on some side projects and develop a portfolio? Blog about issues you've solved, handy shortcuts, migration tips, or discuss YAML pipelines?
Don't know about certs. Spinning up from Terraform (Gitops) seems eminently more hands-on.
There's also formal reasoning and software validation. Provers, constraint solvers, and dynamic programming. Operations algorithms and management science, optimization and the like.
You can do a blog about retro programming to find clients which have your stack. I read about group of developers who were writing in Cobol in 2010s. Because this software were in use and still in use somewhere. The guy who wrote about it was a developer with decades of experience, but no one wanted hire him because of the age. Then he found other developers in the same situation and run a company to support software written in outdated languages
You can write old-styled software for those who have nostalgic feelings about good old times, or support solutions written for old platforms. Instead of been thinking about it as of trash, think about it as it is retro
Read the book Smartcuts and see if you can use one of the 9 ideas the author talks about to move to a new situation (review here: https://www.jjude.com/smartcuts/)
Since you have work experience in backend (doesn't matter java / c#), and AWS certifications, leverage them. I would advice against going to front-end at this moment. FE is comparatively a different beast.
Without knowing lot of your details (your domain, residence etc), here are some options that I could think of (some of which I have done in 30 years of experience).
- move to a company that uses the same tech but in a different domain (say logistics to finance) and then jump from there to a company that uses a modern tech (finance legacy tech to fintech company using rust or go)
- within the same domain can you create a portfolio of side projects which are all aligned in some way - say if you are in retail, can you create projects on teraform scripts to deploy .net projects to multi-cloud (gcp, aws, azure); or for supporting blue-green deployment; idea is to use your "modern" knowledge within legacy but creating public portfolio to showcase your "modern" knowledge.
- find a local leader that you admire (if you go to city-wide tech conferences or something like that you can find some like this), and ask them if you can help them with something as a side-hustle. They don't have to pay but they have to write a recommendation on LinkedIn for your work. Most tech leaders who talk have some projects going on and they struggle with their time. You can help while building a good portfolio
- combination of some of the above
Do a combination of content creation (git projects, video streaming of coding, writing on LinkedIn ...), building a network, and obtaining social proof (recommendations). This will help you get good jobs.
First you learn the technology stack you want to go into really well on the side. Get to the point where you can explain the intricacies of how you “used the tech” (even though you didn’t) to the point where when someone ask you deep details of what you did on your job, what tradeoffs you made and what you like don’t like about the technology you can explain it.
I would have no ethical qualms about doing whatever is necessary to get a job in today’s environment.
Now is far certifications? They are meaningless and no one takes them seriously. They are multiple choice tests that any idiot can pass by memorizing a few concepts from ACloudGuru. Interviewers don’t take them seriously at all as far as having competence.
I have 7 active AWS Certs and at one point had 9 out of the then 11. I got my first one without ever logging into the AWS console and my next 4 within the first 6 months. They were never about getting a job. They served as a guided learning path to help me know what I didn’t know as I became the defacto cloud architect at a startup.
Not even AWS Professional Services (former employee) the internal cloud consulting arm at AWS cares about certification as a hiring criteria.
I now work as a staff cloud consultant specializing in app dev + cloud working full time at a 3rd party cloud consulting company. I got my start on AWS dealing with migrating from .Net Framework to .net Core on AWS at the startup.
No one is going to hire you because you studied MLOps on the side doing toy projects when there are plenty of people with real world experience looking for jobs.
Your other bet is working for a company that has a mixture of .Net framework and they are moving to .NET Core and other modern tech and then volunteer to work on more modern tech at your new job.
Thank you. I was afraid someone would end up saying employers don't give a damn about personal projects. I've came across this settlement before as employer only care what you did in your day job.
As for stack, I can definitely see demand for Python/node.js for early startup companies where I prefer to be in as of now and move away from enterprise.
On the certification side, my genuine reason is to have structured approach to learn some topic. What is your opinion on picking up Azure and learning the "admin" side of it, like managing group policies or enabling rbac? I might be impatient but this part of azure solution architect perquisites really makes me loose interest in cloud route. Like the fun stuff comes later.
On certification, I can also try to pursue machine learning route by Deeplearning ai or Google.
MLOps does sound something exciting to do since I enjoy tinkering with Linux and deployment.
I'll be honest, I don't want to get myself more onto .net framework. .net core is still fine but what I've seen, there is way more demand for Python/node.js
I don’t have anything against Azure as a servíce. But Azure is mostly popular among “the enterprise” and government. Microsoft shops naturally tend to prefer Azure. If you want to work with startups and get out of “Big Enterprise”, Azure isn’t what you should be focused on.
On the other hand, going from .Net Framework to .NET Core + Azure may be the path of least resistance to get into a
modern ecosystem. Despite what you read on HN, most developers work in boring old enterprises.
As far as startups, ageism is real. But it is more nuanced. They will hire older developers. But only in if you have the experience “you should”. They offer me jobs when they want someone strategic, and knows the modern tech scene.
But understand, the issue with focusing on “in demand” skills is that everyone is doing it and it’s almost impossible to stand out - it’s a shit show out here right now. You’ll have a lot less competition in the Microsoft ecosystem and it will be a lot easier to convincingly tell a tale about using modern MS technologies.
I am not however discouraging you from leaning deep into the JS ecosystem, its table stakes and has been for 20 years.
> Java and legacy C# development
Functional Reactive Programming (2016) uses examples in Java 8. Manning Early Access Program (MEAP) recently announced Fabulous Adventures in Data Structures and Algorithms, which uses C#.
That is to say, within languages there is still plenty to learn.
There's the operating systems and hardware route, systems programming, low-level stuff. Maybe not immediately applicable to present work.
There's cloud and DevOps, observability and monitoring. Hard to start that unless there's already a "digital transformation" initiative.
But you could segue to an ML platform while working out a data-driven ML thing.
React (frontend) is fine, but how's the backend knowledge? Would you use Spring and Hibernate, .NET Core, or Node.js?
Maybe work on some side projects and develop a portfolio? Blog about issues you've solved, handy shortcuts, migration tips, or discuss YAML pipelines?
Don't know about certs. Spinning up from Terraform (Gitops) seems eminently more hands-on.
There's also formal reasoning and software validation. Provers, constraint solvers, and dynamic programming. Operations algorithms and management science, optimization and the like.
You can do a blog about retro programming to find clients which have your stack. I read about group of developers who were writing in Cobol in 2010s. Because this software were in use and still in use somewhere. The guy who wrote about it was a developer with decades of experience, but no one wanted hire him because of the age. Then he found other developers in the same situation and run a company to support software written in outdated languages
You can write old-styled software for those who have nostalgic feelings about good old times, or support solutions written for old platforms. Instead of been thinking about it as of trash, think about it as it is retro
Read the book Smartcuts and see if you can use one of the 9 ideas the author talks about to move to a new situation (review here: https://www.jjude.com/smartcuts/)
Since you have work experience in backend (doesn't matter java / c#), and AWS certifications, leverage them. I would advice against going to front-end at this moment. FE is comparatively a different beast.
Without knowing lot of your details (your domain, residence etc), here are some options that I could think of (some of which I have done in 30 years of experience).
- move to a company that uses the same tech but in a different domain (say logistics to finance) and then jump from there to a company that uses a modern tech (finance legacy tech to fintech company using rust or go) - within the same domain can you create a portfolio of side projects which are all aligned in some way - say if you are in retail, can you create projects on teraform scripts to deploy .net projects to multi-cloud (gcp, aws, azure); or for supporting blue-green deployment; idea is to use your "modern" knowledge within legacy but creating public portfolio to showcase your "modern" knowledge. - find a local leader that you admire (if you go to city-wide tech conferences or something like that you can find some like this), and ask them if you can help them with something as a side-hustle. They don't have to pay but they have to write a recommendation on LinkedIn for your work. Most tech leaders who talk have some projects going on and they struggle with their time. You can help while building a good portfolio - combination of some of the above
Do a combination of content creation (git projects, video streaming of coding, writing on LinkedIn ...), building a network, and obtaining social proof (recommendations). This will help you get good jobs.
For long term, this is the roadmap I would encourage: https://www.jjude.com/learn-next/
I also wrote about how the jobs are evolving: https://www.jjude.com/future-of-jobs/
Just show them what you can do with it. They might accept you with “old tech” and you might get a promotion or something idk.
Unpopular opinion: lie
First you learn the technology stack you want to go into really well on the side. Get to the point where you can explain the intricacies of how you “used the tech” (even though you didn’t) to the point where when someone ask you deep details of what you did on your job, what tradeoffs you made and what you like don’t like about the technology you can explain it.
I would have no ethical qualms about doing whatever is necessary to get a job in today’s environment.
Now is far certifications? They are meaningless and no one takes them seriously. They are multiple choice tests that any idiot can pass by memorizing a few concepts from ACloudGuru. Interviewers don’t take them seriously at all as far as having competence.
I have 7 active AWS Certs and at one point had 9 out of the then 11. I got my first one without ever logging into the AWS console and my next 4 within the first 6 months. They were never about getting a job. They served as a guided learning path to help me know what I didn’t know as I became the defacto cloud architect at a startup.
Not even AWS Professional Services (former employee) the internal cloud consulting arm at AWS cares about certification as a hiring criteria.
I now work as a staff cloud consultant specializing in app dev + cloud working full time at a 3rd party cloud consulting company. I got my start on AWS dealing with migrating from .Net Framework to .net Core on AWS at the startup.
No one is going to hire you because you studied MLOps on the side doing toy projects when there are plenty of people with real world experience looking for jobs.
Your other bet is working for a company that has a mixture of .Net framework and they are moving to .NET Core and other modern tech and then volunteer to work on more modern tech at your new job.
Thank you. I was afraid someone would end up saying employers don't give a damn about personal projects. I've came across this settlement before as employer only care what you did in your day job.
As for stack, I can definitely see demand for Python/node.js for early startup companies where I prefer to be in as of now and move away from enterprise.
On the certification side, my genuine reason is to have structured approach to learn some topic. What is your opinion on picking up Azure and learning the "admin" side of it, like managing group policies or enabling rbac? I might be impatient but this part of azure solution architect perquisites really makes me loose interest in cloud route. Like the fun stuff comes later.
On certification, I can also try to pursue machine learning route by Deeplearning ai or Google.
MLOps does sound something exciting to do since I enjoy tinkering with Linux and deployment.
I'll be honest, I don't want to get myself more onto .net framework. .net core is still fine but what I've seen, there is way more demand for Python/node.js
I don’t have anything against Azure as a servíce. But Azure is mostly popular among “the enterprise” and government. Microsoft shops naturally tend to prefer Azure. If you want to work with startups and get out of “Big Enterprise”, Azure isn’t what you should be focused on.
On the other hand, going from .Net Framework to .NET Core + Azure may be the path of least resistance to get into a modern ecosystem. Despite what you read on HN, most developers work in boring old enterprises.
As far as startups, ageism is real. But it is more nuanced. They will hire older developers. But only in if you have the experience “you should”. They offer me jobs when they want someone strategic, and knows the modern tech scene.
But understand, the issue with focusing on “in demand” skills is that everyone is doing it and it’s almost impossible to stand out - it’s a shit show out here right now. You’ll have a lot less competition in the Microsoft ecosystem and it will be a lot easier to convincingly tell a tale about using modern MS technologies.
I am not however discouraging you from leaning deep into the JS ecosystem, its table stakes and has been for 20 years.