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Ask HN: How do you manage to break into non web dev fields?

3 points by jamesmp98 ↗ HN
I've been daydreaming recently about escaping the web / app development field as it just isn't appealing to me. I've been interested in other subfields for years, but it seems that web development is the only real accessible field for people without a formal education. Recently, I've been looking at various things like FPGA development, etc., and I understand if I wanted to get into, I pretty much have to go back for at least a bachelors and likely a masters, but I don't understand is how you actually land a job.

Doing application development was easy. There are a number of entry level or junior web / mobile / etc app development jobs, and I was even able to help make up for some things with th fact that I had done freelance / hobbyist work for a couple years.

But I look at jobs in more niche fields and I see very few entry level jobs, most wanting experience with the relate tech. There isn't really going to be a freelance market for a lot of this stuff nor really an accessibility for hobbyists (or if there is, it seems that you aren't going to get the same type of exposure as working with said tech professionally)

Is it all about connections? Do you have to know numerous people in these fields before you can even consider working in them? I'm a bit lost as of right now as to how to escape spending the next x decades doing something I'm not very enthusiastic about.

3 comments

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surfsvammel
I don’t know about the US. But here, in Sweden, I am sure that you could get a job in another field. Apply for lots of jobs while learning on your own on the side. Make it clear in the interview that you are passionate to learn this new area. Explain how you have reached out on hacker news for advice on how to break into this field. Tell them about the time you spend on your own learning.

Any smart company would hire someone like that.

arthurcolle
What do you not like about web development, if you don't mind my asking?
jamesmp98
It's hard for me top put into words fully but I'll attempt. Also it's not just web development in particular but really any sort of user facing / LOB / etc. application (I've done a little mobile and desktop dev as well)

For starters I haven't felt challenged by anything in years. I understand this could easily be more of the jobs I'm working, but for a while now it's seemed that the solution to almost anything is "grab x dependency and plug it in" or becomes related to hardware more than anything. It feels like majority of the fun / interesting problems have been solved and I'm just gluing them together with business logic, and the times I do end up diving into debugging what I think is an interesting problem, it was just me doing something stupid.

it also feels like all the tech is the same. Look at the job listings for any city outside the West Coast or Northeast and all the jobs are Java, .NET, maybe PHP or Node.js and likely several versions behind. I don't personally mind C# (what i currently work with), but it just kinda gets dull quick.

Finally, I guess there are just things I'm interested more. Particularly low level stuff (played around with 6502 programming and design probably around five years ago, and more recently have played with / theorized integrating vintage hardware with modern OS's for fun),etc.

Maybe the fact is that I don't fully understand that stuff, so it intrigues me more and when I finally feel knowledgeable, it will quickly lose interest, but even if I go back to doing web applications or something similar in the end, it's nice to try other things while I'm young.