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by mattgreenrocks 2106 days ago
> I wonder if the technical stack you are working with is not a good fit for you.

That's a good point. I quit all of web dev because I couldn't stand the culture of constantly shipping dynamically typed code and being unsure of whether I typo'd a variable name.

Now I work more in systems programming and find it much, much more sane, if more difficult at times.
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thirtythree 2106 days ago
Csn you provide more details on what you're doing now and how you made that transition?
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mattgreenrocks 2106 days ago
Sure. I had some experience in systems programming, doing some hobby Win32 programming, and then systems programming as needed as a backend dev in a few domains.

From 2010-2012 I tried out webdev, and didn't really like it. My clients were happy with my work, but I ultimately ended up quitting the culture of shipping things and hoping for the best. (I know they're not all like that.) With little plan in hand, I started self-studying compilers because they seemed far from webdev, and I was interested in them.

I eventually found a job at a small R&D shop where I worked on an LLVM transform. Because they were small they couldn't guarantee that I'd always have that work, but I got almost two years of maintaining that transform under my belt. From there I continued to self-study interpreters, eventually landing another project there involving DSLs, compilers, interpreters and high-performance code...all of my favorite things. It was a lot of work. From that, I found a genre of companies that worked well for me and didn't involve fighting to get into a FAANG company.

That's where I am now, and I feel more valued here than anywhere else since I started working 15 years ago. Now I realize there are a lot of opportunities out there I could be interested in.

Webdev's hegemony tends to suck all the air out of discussions of computing. There is a huge need for skilled generalists in multiple domains that have nothing to do with HTML/CSS/JS.

The trick is to find the people who share your computing aesthetic, and can teach you things. Once you feel like you have not much more to learn from them, start looking elsewhere.

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