[DeathArrow]

I was a reasonable good web developer and knew very few things about game development and yet I jump straight into it, pick it up fast and work at it for 7 years. After which I made a comeback to web development, picked up the new technologies and started being productive.

And before being a web developer I worked on desktop apps when they were still a thing.

I did a bit of embedded programming and worked on a few mobile apps, too.

Switching from one thing to another is not that hard as you make it sound.

I'd even argue that doing more than one kind of programming during your career is beneficial and not detrimental to both your skills and your career.

[redisman]

It also gets easier the more things you already know. Nowadays learning a new domain is mainly a mapping exercise. Oh this is kind of like X. Neat so that is basically a twist on Y. Especially after you’ve lived through a few hype cycles and start to realize there’s not all that much that’s foundationally new under the sun.

I’ve also worked on web frontend, games and physics, web backend, databases, near metal, very far from metal. I never felt like anything was out of my reach to pick up while working on said thing for the first time at a new company.