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Ask HN: What should I learn to be competitive in the next five years?

9 points by xlayn ↗ HN
About me: I've been working for the last 7 years for a Fortune 400 off-shore after completing my degree in computer science. It's been a smooth time, I guess I have been good in my position; my time has been spent developing C#, .net websites, little bit of Javascript, TSQL and PL/SQL (although it's getting rusty). On my time I got into the "I'm going to get rich developing for iPhone" wagon but it did never materialize on a successful project, I did also built an EFI around the Arduino with custom shields, maybe one of the projects I've like the most even tough "it's not my field".

What I like to do: Creating the shields, playing with Eagle CAD, learning the basic electronics, and get into a challenging project would describe what I would like to keep doing.

Why do I ask: I were interviewed for another position within the company but the "new" tendencies of IT are not something I am proficient at, I have liked more frameworks, creating APIs and back end development. Should I jump into learning all the "new framework"-javascript, htmlX, <insert any new framework>, should I keep working on improve what I already do/like?

Language? Framework? Area of knowledge (math, physics, law??).

Thanks!

7 comments

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pedalpete
Any details about your EFI (I'm trying to figure out what that is). Sounds like you like the hardware side of things, IoT is (I think) a risky place to be right now, but everybody says that is going to change in the coming years.

I think it is going to be incredibly valuable for companies to have somebody that can span both the software and hardware engineering, and it sounds to me like that is where your interests lie.

xlayn
It is a side project I started because I couldn't get the carburetors on my gs500 to work properly... so I said how hard can it be? The project consist of a set of shields to interface with the electronics; a harness to connect the shield to the different components and the Arduino program that control delivery of fuel to a engine as well as reading a lambda sensor, controlling a fuel pump and read the throttle sensor. Right now even when I got it to work reliable I stopped the project momentarily due to a gas station that filled my tank with bad gas killing the lambda sensor. It's on my bucket list to get it to work with industrial quality.

"I think it is going to be incredibly valuable for companies to have somebody that can span both the software and hardware engineering, and it sounds to me like that is where your interests lie."

You may be right, it's kinda difficult in my case due to market limitations on my country (Guatemala) but I think I would like on that environment.

lollipop25
> Should I jump into learning all the "new framework"-javascript, htmlX, <insert any new framework>, should I keep working on improve what I already do/like?

You may learn other things, but stick to what you know and specialize.

- You know C#, probably you could learn game development with Unity as it also uses C#. Game development has been in the churn due to VR. That's something that might be good in the next 5 years.

- You could push your JS knowledge a bit further then learn TypeScript, a superset of JS that eerily looks like C#. In addition, WebAssembly (imagine binary executable payloads over the web) is in the works - which means you can use any language (as long as it compiles to web assembly) to make stuff.

- If you go the electronics route, JS is also in the hardware and IoT (internet of things) business. There's the Tessel, a JS-powered hardware platform similar to Arduino.

I suggest not diving into hype-driven stuff. Go for the stuff that sounds very impossible at the moment, learn, and master it. That's what happened with JS during my time, calling it a "toy language". Look where it is now.

hoodoof
Do what you are interested in.
1arity
Learn to be less competitive, "go through the big gate around the side nobody seems to notice, instead of trying to squeeze through the small door everyone is vying for."

Be different. Watch Peter Thiel. Competition is for losers, don't you know?

zakvyn
Find out what problems worth solving is better approach than what technology to pick up. So what problem what you like to solve in 5 years, and start solving it.
edimaudo
Pretty simple, you should have the ability to learn and reinvent yourself.