Comment by mdcds | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mdcds | Hacker News Reader

> I’ve had little luck of going for roles that do not directly correlate with my current experience. It seems that recruiters have very little interest in talking about any roles other than ones that fit my current stack exactly (node/react/python).

Yes! so frustrating! this is the reason why I left SF Bay Area circa 2016. No one wanted to talk about what I wanted to do next and my prof interests. Only about past experience and existing skills that I could immediately contribute.

I started my career as a fullstack dev doing crud at startups. Eventually I got interested in FP and learned Haskell in my free time. Then little bit of Scala. After I got laid off from a startup, I knew that FP and/or large scale systems was what I wanted to work on next and wasn't willing to compromise.

Eventually a F500 company with an office in Portland OR agreed to hire me as a contractor because they were looking for strong FPers to program in Scala and local programmer market was almost non-existent.

That's how I pivoted to working on distributed systems and products with millions of users, and never looked back.

Generalized advice: learn a skill with a high barrier to entry that is also in demand.

>> No one wanted to talk about what I wanted to do next and my prof interests. Only about past experience and existing skills that I could immediately contribute.

This makes complete sense from an employer point of view.

Firstly, they likely filtered you for an interview based on your current skill set. Meaning their need is for _that_ skill set.

Secondly they're not interested in you learning new stuff on their dime. Especially because you'd just take the fruit of that learning elsewhere. [1]

Getting hired into a place where they want your expertise "_after_ you've learned it" is a long game, and they need an actual body now, not some hypothetical body who may work out a year from now, who may leave.

So here's the thing. If you want to learn something new, learn it (on your own time). Don't expect an employer to pay for that. [2]

[1] given that they're not looking for that skill set themselves.

[2] that said, the ability and willingness to learn on the job is an asset. Every business is unique in some way, and adaptability is itself a very useful trait.

I did try to do it, currently not yet successfully.

Since I had interest in law, I started working on a LLB (a law degree that would be first step to be a lawyer in the UK) on the side, thinking I could pivot into a niche of legal tech (combining CS degree + law degree). At least that seemed like a potential possibility. While I'm quite happy with the skills I gained going through the law degree, it has yet to payoff when it comes moving to a more niche position.

Next goal is probably committing more time into Rust, since I at least found it enjoyable (at least when compared to Typescript...).

you can do patent law!

at least in the US you need an undergrad in a technical discipline + law degree

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