[freshhawk]

I've chosen to specialize in Clojure and it hasn't been difficult at all, in fact in a lot of ways it has been easier. I was already a senior dev when I started with Clojure, but having Clojure experience on top of that has made me a very valuable commodity on the (admittedly smallish) Clojure job market.

It's a trade-off of course, there are fewer job openings, but Clojure isn't that niche, and everyone is aware that it is more difficult to recruit from the small pool of Clojure developers or those willing to learn. So when they find someone with seniority and experience putting Clojure into production they will court you pretty aggressively.

[filoeleven]

I have some questions, if you don’t mind answering them! Everyone is welcome to respond, of course.

1. Did you learn Clojure at work or on your own?

2. Did you first ship production Clojure code at a job that already used it?

3. If not, did you/someone on your team push to first give it a try, or did you get hired as a Clojure dev by a shop that was already using it?

I’m asking because I know that I want my next job to be working with Clojure/script, but I found and learned and loved it on my own in 2018. So I’ve not yet worked on a team that uses it, and I’m wondering how hard it is to break into the Clojure scene. I’m a senior dev, been working mostly in front-end for the past decade, and not attached to staying there.

[freshhawk]

I did learn Clojure on my own, and the first time I shipped Clojure was doing some contract work with some other clojurists I met at a meetup.

As for breaking in, I'd suggest meeting some other developers if you can, small industries have even more of a "recommend a friend" approach to hiring than the average.

If you can't, a small online presence, some open source code or blogging about some Clojure you wrote or similar will probably get you fast tracked. That's not even really necessary, you'll find that most places advertising Clojure jobs are already willing to train people and don't get a ton of applicants, so coming in already knowing the language is going to a big boost.

I do encourage you to build a network of Clojure developers though, from what I've seen for myself and others it is pretty easy to find work once you have this. It is more about choosing between opportunities than trying to find them.

[fahdelm]

Hi! in case you're open to moving to Lyon, France my company is looking to hire a clojure developer. feel free to shoot me a message on clojurians slack, here is my id U9W44J4RW

[filoeleven]

Hi, thanks for replying. I’m quite settled in my current area, which is unfortunately nowhere near France. You might get a response from someone else reading the thread though!