Changing tech stacks

needhelpguy

Has anyone here ever changed tech stack? Is it easily doable or difficult?

I'm currently an oracle developer working mainly with oracle's ERP system and also developing standalone internal business applications using Apex. I work for a multinational where they haven't really thought much about this development in house (they're actually now outsourcing a lot of it).

I feel I'm not learning anything new and I am looking elsewhere. However the roles for oracle devs are few and far between from what I can see. I've been going to recruitment fairs and oracle or even database development jobs are nowhere to be seen. It seems I've pigeonholed myself a bit. Every tech company and startup are using newer or more mainstream tech stacks like Java, .Net, Ruby on Rails etc.

I would like to branch out into different development tech, but how can I do this? I've used many of them in college but I've no commercial experience.

I suppose what I'm really asking is, is it possible to radically change tech stacks in a development career? And would I have to start at the bottom again in a new position, salary wise, basically disregarding the 4 years experience I already have?

off.the.walls

I would say its both doable and difficult at the same time.

If you understand the fundamentals of programming, have a logical mind and don't mind a few late nights getting stuck into the documentation of the language you want to work with then it's doable. But without putting in the time you won't see the results. If you want to get into anything at the moment both Javascript and Python seem to be two big ones. In regards to Java i've noticed a good few Scala positions start to become available.

Personally I would say to invest time into JS (personal preference) because then you could code a full stack application with node, angular, express, mongodb, I also recently learned of a new backend service called Baqend, which make it quite easy to implement js apps without too much backend programming needed.

Hope this helps.

14ned

needhelpguy wrote: »

I suppose what I'm really asking is, is it possible to radically change tech stacks in a development career? And would I have to start at the bottom again in a new position, salary wise, basically disregarding the 4 years experience I already have?

You almost inevitably must do this several times in a career unless you leave tech for management.

As a general rule, you will need to take a hit to salary if you make a severe change to your accumulated skill base. Going to work for a startup - which is usually awful - may also be needed for a period to get experience in the new tech stack onto your CV.

Ideally of course, you want to shuffle a bit away from your current experience but not too far, then you won't take a pay hit and you won't need to work for some awful startup. But then you may need to wait quite a while for an appropriate role to turn up, and have a fair bit of luck beating other candidates into that role. So it can take a long while, but then there is a risk to time inverse relation. Less risk takes longer.

I know it's not exactly related, but take me right now. Only had a month of income this year, C++ contract landscape is a desert in Ireland right now. The only C++ contracts going in Ireland are in medical devices. So I'm effectively trying currently to persuade said firms that my very deep well of experience outside medical devices would make me a good hire for medical devices. And naturally, they just want a square peg for a square hole, plus I probably look too expensive and troublesome with new ideas and such. But in the end it's all about marketing yourself and persuading your new employer you'll add significant value if they choose you and not someone else. Same goes for you if you do decide to change stacks.

Niall

dubdev

It's definitely possible. I have about ten years experience, starting out in mainly C++/MFC/.NET, then got "grass is greener" syndrome and left that company to work in a startup specialising in Android games. It wasn't anything like what I was told it would be so I left after six months and ended up leading a SAAS project implemented using LAMP alongside Node and all hosted on AWS. Now it's come full circle and I'm back at my first company on a higher salary and using a combination of the skills I learned over the years. I found that using my own network of contacts like former colleagues, bosses etc is more likely to lead to a good role than using recruiters - they make the job searching process far more perilous for most developers!

I used to be quite anxious about my skills going out of date and being pigeon-holed but I think if you have a demonstrable programming skill and show curiosity in technology it will serve you well. One way of picking up new skills is to start a project that solves a problem YOU have yourself, and pick a technology you haven't used before to implement it. Even better, open a GitHub account and put your project up there for any future employers to see. For example, a few years ago, I wanted to learn C, so I wrote a utility to pull songs from the old iPod classic onto your local machine (at the time you could only sync one way using itunes). You get a double sense of accomplishment at broadening your skill set and the fact you created something that solves a real problem.

The thing I would say is beware of "tech stacks" particularly with regard to web development and javascript - they go in and out of fashion like you wouldn't believe. As developers we seem to suffer from neomania or "shiny new framework" syndrome and adopt the latest trendy frameworks because they are in vogue or will look good on our CV, not necessarily because they are the most technically appropriate - I believe this is called cargo cult programming. In a lot of cases, said framework dies a death later on and your project is then stuck with a dependency to a project that is no longer maintained. There is often a lot of hype when a new technology comes along, like say NoSQL databases, until the hype died down and actually people discovered that for most use-cases the old fuddy-duddy unsexy relational database is the best solution, at least at the start. A great metaphor for programming languages and frameworks that I heard before is that they are like lenses on a camera. You change them as needed but hopefully underneath there is an understanding of the fundamentals like data structures, algorithms, OOP etc.

It's one of the downsides of development that continuous professional development is going to be totally down to you more like than likely, unlike say banking or accountancy. The onus is on you to keep track of where the field is going and try and keep up. What does happen to a lot of developers though is "framework fatigue" where you get fed up having to keep re-learning the latest and greatest tech - I am at that stage. Now that I'm in my 30's and have other responsibilities, I just can't dedicate the time to learn new tech that isn't directly applicable to my current role.

A good resource is Hacker News as that gives you an idea of what people are using in the real-world.
There's a lot of talk regarding machine learning and neural networks, but looking at whats out there it seems like it's still a bit of a niche role in Ireland.
Also have a read of this - it's entertaining if a bit depressing and describes the tech fatigue phenomenon I described: http://halfsigma.typepad.com/half_sigma/2007/03/why_a_career_in.html

brevity

I'm kinda wondering where to go next too. My background is .net and c#. Im looking at Vue at the moment and it seems ok I guess but I dunno should I just focus on .net core instead.

Apparently Golang is in high demand...but who knows what's coming around the corner.