this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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65
Career advice for someone trying to move away from web / software development. (lemmings.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
27 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It's been almost one year since I started working on my first job after graduating with a Batchelors Degree on Computer Science.

My job requires me to work on E-commerce websites which use salesforce commerce cloud and I don't like using it , nor do I feel any desire to learn any sort of web development. Everyday I wrap up work feeling like I'm not cut out to be a developer.... it feels like I'm stagnating.

Towards the end of my degree I was aware of the fact that my interest in fields like Machine Learning, Data Science, AI and software development were diminishing. I wanted something different, at that time Cybersecurity was the only field that really appealed to me, so I applied for a few jobs and none of them wanted freshers. Since money was tight, I had to find a job and I ended up becoming a web developer.

Right now I'm learning on the side for certifications like CompTIA Security+ (not necessarily for the certificates) in the hopes of landing a job in cybersec. I also have some Linux knowledge, but I doubt it is anywhere near the level required for a professional. I understand that cybersecurity is a broad field, so I'm still figuring out what job roles I should be looking at.

I don't know if I'm doing the right thing here, perhaps I should also consider jobs like devops too.

Any advice is appreciated.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Everything in IT infrastructure is done "as code" now. If you know how to code, but want to do something with real hardware and solve real problems, I'd go that route. To be more specific, IT Storage has a massive shortage of people, and it is weirdly neglected as a target career by younger folks.

I know how to code in python, powershell, C, REST APIs, etc., but I cannot stand just sitting and coding for any length of time. HOWEVER I do like writing snippets of code to solve problem and automate infrastructure. Look a NetApp certifications, Pure Storage, or one of the other leading vendors. If you're already familiar with S3 protocol / Object Storage, look at those options. I had a position open that paid $120-140k starting salary that we had open for 9 months last year until it was cancelled. We interviewed a mountain of people, we just couldn't find a solid candidate, and the bar was pretty low. Storage is also becoming a more and more critical part of security, as protecting intellectual property stored on storage is critical for practically every major company.

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What would one search in job search engines for these roles? What are the job titles?

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Storage Engineer, Storage Consultant, Storage Architect

then mix in netapp, pure , dell emc, ecs, storage grid, cleversafe, etc.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This sounds interesting. I'm wondering if you could go into any more detail about what you were trying to do with your opening, and what needs you are seeing out there around storage specifically. I have a small software company and I've been under the impression that storage is pretty much taken care of at all levels by the existing commodity services, but maybe I'm just talking to the wrong people or missing something important. Thanks.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm referring to BIG storage, private clouds, data lakes, etc. For example, my primary customer, In three years we've grown the object storage footprint by 100 petabytes. The rest of the global footprint across 110 sites is another 95PB. Commodity services do not scale, and global data transmission is typically custom tailored to the user requirements. Thinks like a 1st pass at the edge in 15 remote test sites, each crunching 100TB of raw data down to 10TB for transmission back to core, and that process happens on a clock. Other binary distribution uses cases, transmitting 50GB jobs from other continents back to core for analysis. It's all still custom. Then there's all the API back end work, to build out all the customer accessible storage APIs, numerous challenges there.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm trying to wrap my head around this - I've been stuck in the mickey mouse line of business world where a company may have like a few TB of transactional data in a decade - and I kind of want out into the real world. A few questions if you don't mind, what kind of customer needs this amount of storage, what kind of data is it, and are you mostly building on top of S3?

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thank you ! I didn't know there was demand for such roles, I'll be on the lookout from now on.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm looking into such roles, thanks a bunch for motioning the certifications. I'll see how many I can do alongside gaining experience

[โ€“] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My IT guy was in love with security. Took classes, attended conferences. Took a solid drive towards it. We got hit with a serious attack. 2 months of forensics and cleanup later he lost his taste for it.

You're still early off on your path you'll probably go through a few more types of jobs before you figure out what you really like.

Having development chops makes you a superpowered sysadmin it also gives you a good start on DevOps and cloud architect roles.

Look into CI and Build systems. Look into aws and azure. Saltstack and ansible. Nginx and Apache. C# and java. Proxmox and VMware, Stay familiar with open source stuff.

If something in that alphabet super products brings you the least bit of enjoyment start working that into your resume.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We don't really use things like salt or ansible anymore in devops/sre. It's all about pipelines with stuff like argo and terraform.

Kubernetes is the way forward too. There development energy being spent on that space now is huge as well so there is always something new and interesting happening.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

'we'

I'll give you kubernetes. It would be kind of irresponsible to ignore it in the current landscape.

But there's still more puppet out there than you can shake a stick at. And no established DevOps engineer wants those jobs.

It's not like Ansible isn't still active. What I'm mentioning isn't the way things are going and or the newest technology. But that stuff, it's still all over the place out there, and there's no lack of companies that need engineers for care and feeding. That 5-10-year-old tech is a great advantage for someone looking to work their way into the industry.

Especially for someone fresh out of the gate, I probably roll up in a place with enough kubernetes, ansible, salt, and cloud formation to make my resume look interesting.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

And no established DevOps engineer wants those jobs.

True. Haha.. I wouldn't want to go back if I could avoid it. If I did, my goal would be to get rid of it too.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

So go into DevOps?

[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Get a license for commercial electrical installation in 18 months and graduate with a garaunteed job and make $70k/year minimum lol

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Any time I've thought about switching from web dev, being an electrician always looked the most appealing. I second this option.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Hahaha I'm an Aussie in my thirties and leaving the office behind to start an Elec apprenticeship. Honestly I was good at what I did, but I hated it, and "knowledge workers" don't have a union.

I like the dopamine rush afforded by projects having a definitive end.

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Maybe look into GIS work and try to get on with a municipality or regional government. Not sure how it is in the US but in Canada there are plenty of GIS jobs open all over the country, it's easy enough work if you have a good understanding of (I think) Python. Plus maps are fun, at least I think they are.

Just to add to this, if you're interested the main program I see being used is ArcGIS. QGIS is another program that's similar but free and open source and good to practice on to get the basics of spatial mapping down, but there are some things that are different between the two that is not a 1:1 transfer of skills.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I was a geography/computer science double major, so of course I took all the GIS classes that I could. It was a lot of fun to play with!

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fuck, if I was doing ecommerce on salesforce commerce cloud, I would hate programing too. The plus side is that you have something on the resume now. That makes a huge difference in your job prospects now. Its not the hottest market, but you do have a way to pay the bills so you can take some time. Just start applying again, is my advice

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I will try again, thanks !

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Salesforce e-commerce is horrendous.

Your interesting fields... AI, ML, Data Science, etc, seem amazing on paper and in the movies, but a) it takes an incredible amount of dedication to master and b) in the real world, it's monotonous, repetitive and frustrating work.

Cybersecurity sounds like the matrix or the movie Hackers, but in real life is incredibly complex, technical, not "exciting" by any means.

The entire industry sounds incredible. But it's a lot of work, takes a lot of dedication, and is more boring than you'd think.

All of the above also has a very steep learning curve. That doesn't help.

I'd say get into front end web, but you said you don't have any interest. Have you tried React or similar front end web stuff? I'd say it has a less steep learning curve and it's rewarding seeing the UI you build in real time. Maybe try it out?

I think the issue is that the entire industry is kind of over hyped and Hollywood-izd. It sounds cooler than it is. And it's very complex. Try to get into something that sounds interesting and hope you enjoy it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I understand what you are trying to say, looking for a different job in frontend is much less effort. I have tried my hand at React, vue and a couple of new frameworks, there was a time when I was excited to learn about new things - Now I'm no longer feeling that drive to learn anything about the field.

I have also tried working on some Machine Learning projects and thats how I came to the conclusion that I don't want to work in AI, ML and data science..

I started looking for jobs in cybersecurity, while being aware of it's boring and frustrating nature... so it's not like I just decided to jump ship because of the hype.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I get you. It's a crap situation to be in.

I love front end because I enjoy UI/UX and I generally prefer to work in large, complex applications. If I can have both, I'm good, and I've been fortunate enough to be working on large, interesting projects.

BUT, no matter what, I go in cycles of loving it and trying to learn as much as possible, then sometimes I stop giving a shit and spend my free time on the couch instead of learning or doing side projects.

I don't really know the point of this comment. I guess that, for me, at least, interest waxes and wanes. I just try to accept it and do whatever feels good at the moment. I don't really have any good advice, but how you find someone you enjoy (at least some of the time).

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

If you know about web frontend/backend development and want to land a job on cybersecurity, then you might wanna give penetration testing a try?

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Maybe try looking at backend engineer too?