[francislata]

My situation is a bit different: switching from iOS to ML. One thing I could say is that iOS development is a fun experience. I did it for the past 5-6 years of my career and was self-taught. I learned both Objective-C and Swift during my time in that world. Doing iOS development has taught me a lot UI/UX, amongst other things.

Recently, I switch to a role in ML and its been a change in my workflow so far - which is something I expected, but fun nonetheless. I don't get to do UI/UX in the visual sense but now I have to care about design of ML models and deployment so that other front-end clients can use them.

I would say give iOS development a go ahead because you want to!

[jon889]

How did you find changing from one field to another. I've been doing iOS for about 3 years and I'm started to feel like I might be trapped doing iOS forever. I mean I can't imagine a company wanting to hire me in something else given all my workplace experience is iOS.

[kyleashipley]

Not the parent, but as a hiring manager I would guess that you can implement UIs, make API calls, manage client-side data, work with a type system, etc. Those seem like pretty useful skills in modern client-side web development.

If you would want to make a move to backend/full-stack, you might need to pick up skills like databases, queues, caching, building APIs, and DevOps. But good companies are willing to bet that you can pick up new skills on the job if you have some sort of foundation.

[francislata]

My company have been wanting to start an ML team for the last year. While I have been doing my own learning with ML and deep learning, I mentioned to my CTO during my one-on-one that I want to ML for the company and I showed my progress to him with my side projects.

Proving that you can apply your self-taught knowledge and letting them know you can provide value as your time spent in the new field grows, will be more than enough for the company to let you make the switch.