Ask HN: How do you switch domains later in your career? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you switch domains later in your career?

8 pointsthe_only_law3 comments

I’ve been wondering about this lately. Save you’ve been working 5-10 odd years in Domain X and you want to switch and work in Domain Y. They’re completely unrelated, outside the fact that they would both involve software development.

Your resume, containing work experience mostly is irrelevant because it’s in the wrong domain. Now let’s say you’ve done some work in Domain Y in preparation. That could be significant projects, open source, community involvement, etc. You could put that on your resume, but you only have so much room, and you don’t want to downplay general YoE.

To avoid pendency and make more clear what I’m asking. Assume Domain Y jobs mostly require domain experience and are not just something eager to bring anyone with general experience on board.

I think best is find a job that uses your current skills plus those you want in the new.

Find a company that supports transition. 1) Often big companies will be more supportive of internal transition if they know you and understand your a hard, intelligent worker etc that will pick things up fast. Plus if you have a personal know relationship with the team. 2) Often smaller companies are better for allowing cross-skilled jobs as they dont have a cog for every role type thing. Your 80% your main skill but do 20% in the other while you build skills 3) Consultant/agency type role that employees you for your main skill but will let you do a bit in the new.

Otherwise its training and start at the bottom I guess.

I've switched stacks and sub domains in the same company multiple times. It sucks. It seems to get exponentially more difficult each time.

I think they would mostly be looking for examples of how you approach and solve a story/problem, leadership experience, and other behavioral questions. You may need to take a lateral or even take a slightly lower position if it's really different.

Well, you go back to step 1 and advance, there is no magic on it. You might succeed faster in Domain Y because you were able to succeed in domain X, though.

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