My goal is simple — to get or be in a position where I am employable. But to make myself employable, I don't have clear path which to take to leverage what I already know. I feel I can either start from scratch - say dive in Machine Learning path or say pick up React and begin to prototype React full stack app. But for both, I will have zero use in my day job since there isn't any 'real' growth happening in my company. Its mostly minor fixes and perhaps writing powershell script here and there.
A bit into my background, I started my career late - I got true programming job at 28. Since then, I’ve been with my current employer doing Java and legacy C# development for six years. Sure, first four years or so, I learned a lot. But now, I feel I'm not learning that much at all. I started to casually apply for job last year or so which, now looking back has been a wake up call to really be proactive and figure out where to go from here. I don't make that much which is a major motivation to get myself on the right track.
I refuse to believe, 'do a start-up' is the way to get myself out of my situation. There has to be something better I can do to leverage what I have done. I have done my best to upskill, e.g. got AWS practitioner certificate. Again, no real use in my day job. Also, I have done leetcode ~150 problems but I am not that gifted to crack FAANG interview. I'm okay with system design.
For more experience professional here who have navigated out of this situation, what can I realistically do right now? What should I prioritize as short-term and long-term goals? What kind of goals should I have for next month, second, month, third month, etc? Are my options the following?
1) go machine learning path or ML-OPS path? If so, how do I show potential employer, "hi, i know this but my day job has no use for this"
2) get comfortable with react - my gut feeling tells me perhaps I can use this to build full stack application to show employers of 'builder' personality?
3) pursue advance cloud certification? say AWS intermediate certificate?
Transferring within org is not an option right now since promo cycle starts in April.
pavelai•1h ago
You can write old-styled software for those who have nostalgic feelings about good old times, or support solutions written for old platforms. Instead of been thinking about it as of trash, think about it as it is retro