Switching Frameworks in Web Dev

3 points by lenerdenator 2y ago ↗ HN

I've been doing Django/Python-based web development for the last seven years, and find myself looking for a job, in a Lower Midwestern city. I've been searching for about 60 days. I'm having some luck but not much.

When I look at a lot of the jobs available either remotely or locally, it seems like the majority are in .NET. I have some .NET experience but it's been a while and was mainly through Windows desktop development.

Looking at the market, it seems like at this stage in my career (mid-senior) it's expected to be more of a specialist in a technology than a jack-of-all-trades. My specialty is Django. However, it has a rather small share of the framework market. If I were more specialized in Java or .NET, I'd probably have more options.

How common is it for people to switch to different technologies and keep in roughly the same salary range? How do you find employers that'd take a chance?

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cloths 2y ago ↗

In my opinion the key thing is find an employer/interviewer that emphasis more on high level things than specific stack, you're mid-senior, I think it would be natural for you to discuss architecture, design, manage tech debts, communication, people business, these kinds of things during interview. Depending on the market but I think (or I hope) it wound't be hard to find these sensible interviewers in the market.

Second is practice, if you were to switch your stack, then a bit practice IMHO is still needed, build something, and keep an eye on how the common things handled in this different stack, say in web dev, global exception handling, routing, authn and authz, etc. Once you've mastered these you should feel confident talk about these during interview.