[danjac]

The problem is you can't "stack shift".

I mean, of course you can, we know that if you know some programming languages you can pick up another language, if you know an HTTP router you can learn another, a MySQL expert can learn PostgreSQL, if you know React you can learn Vue and so on.

But you won't get through the HR filters unless you have the magic n years' experience. Once you learn that stack in your junior years, you are stuck on that path for the rest of your career.

Of course it wasn't always thus, but like so much of the industry, common sense went out the window some time ago.

[chriswarbo]

> Once you learn that stack in your junior years, you are stuck on that path for the rest of your career.

That's not true while employed, since you can learn a new stack/tool/tech as part of a new project. People do this all the time, on spectrum from "choosing the right tool for the job" to "CV-driven development" (depending on how much you'll screw over subsequent maintainers).

I know many devs don't have the luxury of making big decisions for new projects; but there can still be opportunities to automate or improve some of your day-to-day tasks (e.g. scripts, aliases, sanity checkers to make sure you never do that thing again, etc.). For that sort of stuff you can use any technology you like, either as a quick, low-stakes way to learn something new, or an opportunity to use something you know from outside of work (admittedly this is more suited to using new languages; rather than e.g. a Web framework or server orchestration solution!). You can legitimately put that on your CV as a technology you've used commercially to solve problems, and that may be enough to get past HR filters. You can also share such things internally, to bolster your reputation as "someone who knows foo" (e.g. I was once given a task at work because there was an existing R package for what we needed, but nobody else knew R; whereas I once wrote a three line R script years ago!)

Unfortunately for this thread: that sort of tactic only works when in employment.

[bad_user]

This isn't actually true.

HR people do apply such filters, but you can usually work around it, if you're a capable individual that can actually "stack shift".

I "stack shifted" multiple times in my career, without lying about my experience. Companies look for talented software developers. Going from backend to frontend or vice versa might be harder, but otherwise the required skills pretty much universal. Having contributions on Github helps.

Of course, this is the part where I'm going to say that having a computer science and math/engineering oriented education, even if self-learned, can be valuable. People that go through their profession by just integrating off the shelf stuff will have their jobs automated.

[danjac]

"Companies look for talented software developers"

While that may be true, and it's what they all say, ultimately they just filter on keywords.

Of course, if you have a network then that's less of a problem. You are talking to a real person who can evaluate you.

If you don't it doesn't matter how good you think you are, you are at the mercy of the filters. It's not about your ability to change stacks, or your ability in general, it's about how companies select people.

[bravetraveler]

Maybe it's different for developers, but as an SRE or Architect it's pretty much a requirement that this shifting be performed

Nothing is forever, we must all adapt

[irrational]

Not necessarily. I was a web developer for 24 years, then my company moved me into an integration role (it opened up at the same time a website project I had been working on closed down) - I haven’t touched anything web development related in a year or so now and have been doing straight Java, Python, Apache nifi, AWS, etc system integration programming. I’ve found that I enjoy and could continue doing this for years to come. But, I also could move back to web development pretty easily.

[danjac]

That is your company moving you to another role internally. I am talking about job applications.

[irrational]

Right, but I do integrations for a few more years and I can now look for either web development or integration jobs. I now have at least 2 career paths. Though, I've spent so many years doing database work (both DDL and DML work) that I could do that as a career path too. Frankly, none of these things are where I started out as a junior developer.

[smallerfish]

Depends on the position. If I'm hiring you on contract for a project with a specific stack, I'm going to want stack experts. If I'm hiring you full time into a salaried position on a product, I don't care if you know the stack or not, just that you have sufficiently adjacent experience that I could see a cross-train happening in a reasonable amount of time.

[haskellandchill]

Not true. While it's harder, you can stack shift. I've done Ruby/Rails, Python/Django, and JavaScript/React and treated them as interchangeable. I might be rejected in some resume screens here and there but once talking I make it clear I'm comfortable with the target tech stack and it has never been an issue.

[danjac]

"Once talking" is the problem. You have to get your resume picked out of the pile so you get to talk to a real person.

[tedajax]

Protip: lie

[SkipperCat]

In the spirit of your comment, there's nothing wrong with spinning your skills to fit the job req. If they ask for 5 years of Golang and you've only worked on it for 2 years, but you have 10 other years of programming - I'd just tell them you know Golang and have 10 years experience programming. No real harm in them making a technically incorrect assumption.

The real interview will be with the tech staff, not the HR bot. Let them make the decision to hire there.