Great story! I always like to tell developers that they can do anything if you just stick to the fundamentals. It's not such a big mountain as it seems!
The type-casting part is relatable. It definitely feels like we're all being pigeon-holed by hiring managers and ATS systems that categorize us and rank us by keywords and work history. It can sometimes be quite difficult to switch from something like web development to embedded to databases. Good on you for breaking through.
I'm also looking to break into databases. But despite having worked on database libraries, general programming experience, and years of designing and operating systems using databases... there's at least hundreds of people who have been working in databases for years longer and getting one's foot in the door that way is tricky.
Keep sharing your passion, that seems to really help stand out. Not all of us might be in a position to found a company or run a user group in a major city (if it doesn't already exist)... but we can write blogs, attend those meetups, give talks, and help each other out on projects.
> The type-casting part is relatable. It definitely feels like we're all being pigeon-holed by hiring managers and ATS systems that categorize us and rank us by keywords and work history. It can sometimes be quite difficult to switch from something like web development to embedded to databases.
When people ask for advice about changing fields, I recommend working at smaller companies that have work in their current domain and also the domain they want to switch to. The most accessible route is to look for a startup that will hire you for your current expertise but that also has needs for the type of work you want to do. Startups are much more willing to let people bounce between domains than a big corporation with a giant org chart and middle managers defending their domains.
I've been at a couple companies that were open minded about interviewing people with backgrounds that didn't match the role. We had a few success stories of people making big changes, including one person who transitioned from tech support to junior developer and then continued to grow.
To be honest, though, hiring people far outside their work history was more often a failure than a success. A lot of the applicants were applying to the job because they thought the grass would be greener on that side of the fence, but then became disillusioned when they encountered the same software engineering challenges in a different domain.
A couple of the people we hired just wanted to jump from domain to domain over and over again. As soon as we started getting them trained up enough to be productive, they demanded to switch to another new domain. In the interview phase it's hard to tell who wants to commit to the new domain versus those who want to explore and switch around a lot.
So I reluctantly admit that I get it. In a job market like this where hiring managers get 100 applicants within hours of posting a job, filtering for people who have the experience instead of candidates who want to learn on the job is a rational choice.
Even when I was still in school and looking for internships I could feel this. In CS we learned more about compilers and operating systems, but companies wanted web developers, so IT and IS had a big edge. I did game programming on my own time, so companies would recommend interning with a game company. It was frustrating.
I’ve been working in web development for many years now. It’s okay. I still don’t know what I want to be in the future. I still don’t feel like a “real dev”. But still do some side learning. I’m happy it worked for the writer, and I hope it does for you too.
I should add that you are a real dev. There's all kinds of programming out there. That's why I enjoy DSA and maths; it's the stuff that transcends languages and has applications in almost every domain. You benefit from knowing how to implement a queue or balance a tree whether you're writing databases, making games, or building distributed systems.
Anyone can learn this stuff. Ignore the gate keepers and the little voice that tells you only smart people can do this. You're a smart person. Crack a book, open a new file, compile some code. You'll get there.
I wrote my first queue this week, and started learning DSA this week as well. I use to ignore those topics, but I think the path I seek would benefit from that knowledge.
I've never seen it as that much of a leap. At least half of my work on web applications in my career, especially earlier before SPA's were so popular, revolved around finely tuning the database. In the later parts of my career, it still does because it seems like fewer people want to "deal" with the database internals.
IMO pivoting fully into DB development would be a very natural path, for me at least.
The type-casting part is relatable. It definitely feels like we're all being pigeon-holed by hiring managers and ATS systems that categorize us and rank us by keywords and work history. It can sometimes be quite difficult to switch from something like web development to embedded to databases. Good on you for breaking through.
I'm also looking to break into databases. But despite having worked on database libraries, general programming experience, and years of designing and operating systems using databases... there's at least hundreds of people who have been working in databases for years longer and getting one's foot in the door that way is tricky.
Keep sharing your passion, that seems to really help stand out. Not all of us might be in a position to found a company or run a user group in a major city (if it doesn't already exist)... but we can write blogs, attend those meetups, give talks, and help each other out on projects.