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Ask HN: Back end engineer webapps for too long, what to do next?

21 points by rajeshp1986 ↗ HN
I have been working as a backend engineer on web applications for 8 years now. I have lost interest in my work and feel very bored these days. I just realized it is because I have been doing the same work more or less all these years. In these 7 years I have changed 5 jobs and moved from working in a small companies to one of the big companies in Bay Area but my work more or less is still building CRUD applications.

I am no longer interested in building CRUD apps or web applications. I want to work on something new and exciting. What areas are you working on in 2017. Have you moved from building backend systems for web applications to something else? How is your career transition going?

14 comments

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slowmotarget
Try to find a startup near you that's currently looking for a tech lead / CTO, you'll do more than CRUD hopefully!
soc
Happens to a lot of us.

Lately just for fun I been working with unreal engine. You can do some really cool stuff quickly and customize in C++.

Now that VR is becoming in bigger and bigger might be marketable some day. That startup magicleap seems to be doing lot of stuff around this area.

Can pair unreal with houdini and do some python scripting / 3d math learning.

swah
Mobile maybe? I think Arkit is going to be big. I'm thinking of moving to iOS just because of that..
rajeshp1986
Thanks for the pointer. Arkit is looking something very interesting. I will explore this.
ezekg
Have you done any mobile work before? I've been thinking of moving towards the same thing after having messed around with iOS/ARKit/Swift for a few weeks now. Getting a little tired of the typical web tech i.e. React, Ember, Node, Rails, etc., if I'm being honest.
dickler
machine learning / data science
rayalez
Try being a full-stack developer, or building your own product, or creating an agency and helping clients with business issues. There's just so many areas you can expand into as a competent web developer!

If you're looking specifically for new tech to explore - look into DL and data science, or WebAssembly, or WebVR, or ActivityPub. Those are all the hot exciting cool things that will be in demand, and are super interesting to look into.

jermaustin1
I went from building products to consulting on building products. I still do software dev for some clients (if they are willing to pay enough to make my hatred of it worth it), but I have found this more freeing, plus I make more money, and get to use my brain more on the theoretical and experimental side which is fun.

Most of my clients are pre-rev/pre-money/broke, but the higher priced development work I do, offsets that.

I've also been dabbling in writing, and hiring writers to write for me.

BUT find a hobby that is outside of software development. I do hiking, photography, wood working, and writing. Maybe that will give you something to look forward to after work.

rajeshp1986
I tried outside hobbies to get my attention to something else and still did not feel better. The problem is generally your work takes most of your time and if you are unsatisfied at your work then it is not possible to compensate it outside. I pledged myself to fix my problems and unless I am happy and content at work, I am not able to enjoy hobbies outside.
imauld
Are you interested in the operations side of things? Making CRUD apps is one thing but deploying them at scale is another. It's a whole new problem set with a lot of interesting tools (Kubernetes probably being the "hottest" atm).
ccdev
I personally am interested in big scale, or big performance. Most companies don't let me do either and it's hard to break into the ones that do.
steven_braham
I don't think as a developer that you can fully escape from crud, since nearly every application has to do some database stuff.

I recommend trying to move to a position where you don't have to code much such as QA, CTO or system architect.

clasense4
Well anybody can build CRUD, so I choose another path. From beginning of 2017, I learn serverless architecture. Currently I'm building serverless data lake on top of aws, and automate the deployment using terraform.
rajeshp1986
I have worked on serverless apps & microservices as well. I am feeling overall bored by webapps in general. I feel as a computer engineer there is more to it. I feel I am restricting myself with just web.