[WorldMaker]

Scott Hanselman coined the phrase "Dark Matter Developers" nearly a decade ago (!) [1] to describe the idea that something like "99%" of developers in the world are doing stuff that is "unsexy" and "boring" and "mature" and "gets the job done" and "I can just clock out at 5pm and stop worrying about it".

One of the key complaints about "Dark Matter Developers" is that you mostly don't hear from them (especially on HN): they don't have splashy startups to advertise, they aren't exciting recruiters with the things they claim to be doing. They are getting jobs done and clocking out.

That continues to describe a LOT of the jobs using the Microsoft stack, they are Dark Matter Jobs: they are in almost every industry in the world. They pay well enough, but not too well. They aren't exciting. HN and sometimes Big Shot Recruiters generally have no reason to hear from them (because they hire more directly, or because they only need a couple developers at a time).

The Microsoft Stack jobs will probably always be like that. Just quietly out there (and all around). Numbers and statistics (and revenue) all suggest that there are a lot of them. They just sound like a "dead end" mostly because they are "stable" and "boring".

[1] https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dark-matter-developers-the-un...

[balls187]

My startup sublet from a company that did dark matter development. Not sexy work, but they had low turnover, and tended to be in and out of the office at normal hours.

J. Fogerty, if you're reading this, I miss overhearing your engineering conversations with your colleagues.

[srcmap]

I search job site such indeed.com for demands of job categories. (Data driven)

Here are the returns for jobs within 25 miles of where I live (bay area.)

   Keywords       jobs
   ----------------------------
   Azure          3094
   AWS            7408
   Google Cloud   2157
   React          3829     (not cloud tech, but just curious to know.)

[908B64B197]

I'm not really surprised.

Azure isn't that different from AWS (once you used one cloud, you can pretty much port the fundamentals to another cloud). Sure some components have different names and you might have to use a different language, but it should not be a challenge for any engineer.

The Microsoft Stack is also... not that exotic. C# and Java are both pretty similar, and Microsoft is where TypeScript appeared. And they adopted Git as well in the last decade.

I remember a few years ago a lot of devs preferring C# but who didn't want to commit to Windows Server. With .NET now being cross platform and having good Linux support, I wouldn't be surprised to see more tech company using it.

[francisofascii]

Right, some of the smartest people I worked with was at a Microsoft shop company. These people don't have public blogs, Twitter handles, or Github repos. All their success was only known internal to the company.

[lp0_on_fire]

I'm one of those 99% and we're a Microsoft shop.

Would I love to branch out into different stacks and have lots of side projects that I could show off on HN? Sure. But a "stable and boring" 9-5 job gives me the work/life balance that I need.

[ocdtrekkie]

This is definitely true. If you're lucky enough to be skilled in such a popular stack that does truly become a dead end, you are still winning, because now you're like a COBOL developer today: A rare and precious commodity.

[tus666]

Defense industry and "adjacent" industries software engineering is a HUGE portion of the employment market. And no, they are not typically saying what they are doing on HN.

[semireg]

Dark Matter Devs are a bit like people who have successfully built a life off-grid. You don’t hear from them much. Probably too busy chopping, splitting and stacking wood.

[foepys]

Or rather spending time with their family and friends after clocking out at 4pm without on-call or required overtime. Plus no performance reviews and goals to match for stock incentives to worry about.

[darkMatterDev]

TIL I am a Dark Matter Developer. AMA (Yes we use the Azure stack!)

[mech422]

Yep, we sometime forget how lucky we are to be doing 'fun' stuff...

When I worked on Wall St., I did soooo many accounting reports I wanted to pull my hair out :-P I'm guessing most programmers are in that boat, doing maintenance programming for accounting apps, billing apps, etc.

But like you said, it was decent pay and zero stress...

[p2t2p]

I used to work for a Swedish telecom and observed a Swedish team in that setting. Without anything flashy, without big words and too much noise they had _so much more work_ done in a given week that my current sexy employment, I am still astonished.