[wilkommen]

What are some examples of the right skill sets? I think I could get pretty good at anything I put my mind to, but I don't have knowledge of what kinds of things businesses consider important enough to spend that kind of money on to know what I should study.

[dbrueck]

Couple of areas to consider:

- emerging tech - it was lucrative being a mobile app developer when iOS first released its native app SDKs because everybody wanted an app but companies generally didn't have the skills for it internally yet.

- niche/specialized tech - deep knowledge and expertise with things companies often stumble on. For a long term, being an RDBMS expert a "DBA" gave you the ability to print money.

- dregs tech - it's no longer the new shiny thing, but there's still a lot of demand to keep systems running. So a COBOL master or an enterprise Java guy (especially someone with the ability to come in and fix large systems without taking them offline).

So today, skills sets could be embedded/IoT, crypto/blockchain, AI/machine learning, etc. You can bet on something that is becoming popular but still emerging, and then move on once it becomes ubiquitous, or you can establish yourself early and stay with it long term and just be really good at it.

At the end of the day, though, you're looking to add a lot of value and to be easier than a company just doing the same internally. So it can be pretty much anything if you have a good value proposition.

[ornornor]

> - dregs tech - it's no longer the new shiny thing, but there's still a lot of demand to keep systems running. So a COBOL master or an enterprise Java guy (especially someone with the ability to come in and fix large systems without taking them offline).

I’ve read and heard this over and over. So much so that I actually looked into it before committing to learning COBOL.

I have never found any actual evidence of this. It seemed like there were very few COBOL roles, they didn’t pay that much more or less than any other language, and a lot of it was outsourced to Indian sweatshops with which we can’t really compete in the west because it’s a race to the bottom where only price matters.

That is to say, be wary of what you read on the internet. A lot of it is apocryphal rather than actual. Some of it (like this blog post) is good for getting your imagination running and thinking out of the box but don’t take it as gospel.

[dbrueck]

Haha, yes, I definitely wouldn't recommend anyone make life choices based on what some random person posted on HN! :)

I have first-hand knowledge that these jobs do exist (and can pay anywhere from well to obscenely well), but I have absolutely no idea how many of them there are.

Regardless, the idea is that a good consulting/contractor opportunity can be carved out at various points along the tech age spectrum, and that the demand probably follows a bell curve.