[bluepoint]

You are certainly right for the higher level higher paying jobs that look for elite candidates. How would you modify your answer to also include less experienced candidates who are looking for something to specialize and build complex products for?

[JamesLeonis]

Technical skills come and go. Soft Skills and Project Management are universal and always (but not explicitly) in demand. No matter the technical stack or project domain, you will always be working as a team negotiating requirements, writing tickets, estimating work, and communicating across domain boundaries. Getting good at this process and then executing on that work is the one-two punch of a Senior developer and above. The management track is getting a team of people to do these steps in harmony.

> something to specialize and build complex products for

Generally you specialize in a particular business domain. Being realistic, you get this skill by repeating the above (PM and PR) in a particular domain enough that it soaks your brain like a brine. This is particularly true if you work in a regulated industry. If you wanted to get into a particular domain, target working for teams and companies explicitly working that domain as a way to immerse yourself. Once there, get cozy with the Product Manager as a way of drip-feeding learning the domain.

[aristofun]

The only goal for less experienced candidate is to get a position in a good project.

So I’d invest in optimizing my cv to pass as many hr filters as i can and in my portfolio of pet projects or open source contributions — to demonstrate that I am capable to do meaningful work e2e.