Comment by Aloha | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aloha | Hacker News Reader

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So, I've been active on HN for almost 12 years now - I see how developers especially young ones chase the new and shiny over the existing.

I work in an industry with useful, important, specialized, but unsexy technology.

PCM Audio, Multicast, lots of analog connectivity, arcane binary protocols (even widely adopted and interoperable ones), lots of manufacturer specific protocols too. Windows and RHEL. We've only just barely figured out what Web 2.0 is, Javascript based UI is new for us. We also do a bunch of embedded development, RTEMS, now Linux, other shops have some VxWorks too. Plus lots of development on just DSP code. This isnt just us I'll note, its my whole industry.

Technology in our world moves very very slowly. We provide decent wages, good benefits and a no requirement for overtime, but it's not sexy and it's not the way the rest of the technology industry is pivoting. We provide solutions that are reliable, and must work, but dont need to serve billions, just hundreds.

Also, as a deployment engineer it takes someone new into my role, about six months before they understand enough of the system to work unaided. It's not that we cant find developers - its that finding people who understand our industry is hard, and even if we hire someone who isnt in our industry, it does take six months or so before they can be productive. The larger issue is, they dont see the technology work on as a good stair-step on their career progression, so they dont wanna work here.

> The larger issue is, they dont see the technology work on as a good stair-step on their career progression

The web and mobile dev stuff is "comfortable" and "safe" because they (we?) see how ubiquitous it is. Maybe the companies themselves are not, but everyone needs web developers right now.

I recently took a job that is in web development, but is focused on front-end (and I've spent 13 years as a very versatile full-stack dev) and is a much more focused tool (data visualization tool versus an operations management system for everything government public works, including simple data visualization) and even that made me mildly hesitant.

I do dream of some day pivoting entirely into something more low-level and hardware focused. I've done a lot of hobbyist audio production and that's always seemed like a fun niche to build in. Maybe when I'm old :P

Some of my job is UI/UX design, some of it is old fashioned unix system administration and shell scripting, some of it is windows administration, I also have to understand telecommunications generally, and networking - at least well enough to design a redundant reliable network.

I get to work on the whole enchilada, not just some narrow part of it, its wonderful.

"I work in an industry with useful, important, specialized, but unsexy technology."

For some reason, I find this very appealing.

It is!

There are some advantages in working for a company none of your (non-industry) friends have heard of. You get to talk about your job and explain it without preconceived notions.

Also, I feel I'm making an honest to god difference at work, I help people solve difficult problems that are critical for the health of broader society (utilities, transportation, government) that would be hard to solve elsewhere.

Probably great job stability if you do your work well.

Basically, yes.

I have several coworkers with 30 years of seniority, and some with 40.

It's a job you leave largely of boredom.

Me too. I’m in telco, which is an industry full of weird legacy stuff, but the notion of working in a similar silo that isn’t as full of hype appeals to me.

I couldn't say it better.

XKL sells network switches running TOPS-20 for their management software on an FPGA based PDP-10 (probably the last place one can see and use a 36-biter).

It's exotic legacy stuff, and at the same time a breath of fresh air.

I work for a utility. We use technologies spanning decades. We don't change our technology stacks to enhance people's EV's. For us new technology is technology that's 5 years old. We call it "leading edge" and actually have a strategy to avoid "bleeding edge." We like to use technologies that have been tested out, worked out, and shown to work and has mindshare and tooling.

Having been developing for nearly 40 years now the technologies don't really excite me - it's what I'm building and the impact that it's having on its users that motivates me. It sounds like you've found something that motivates you, too.

What do you do for the utility?

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