
Ask HN: How to Switch “Genres” of Computer Programming? - pyritepyrite
The title of this thread says it all but I will provide a little more context.<p>About 3 years ago I graduated college with a B.S. in Computer Science. For my first 2 years out of college I worked on an Android app at a Big Company that you are probably familiar with. During that time I made a lot of big features and got to work on support related infrastructure like automated testing. We also had a lot of people using our app which was a great feeling. I learned a lot about app development and really enjoyed it.<p>About a year ago I started getting bored at my job and quit to pursue freelance app development. Since then I have worked on 3 pretty big apps. It has been fun but I discovered something disturbing. For each app I work on I find about 50% of my time spent developing is interesting and creative. The other 50% is well... I feel like I am constantly reinventing the wheel. Once again I am getting pretty bored.<p>I considered switching from Android dev to something else like web development or maybe even iOS. But I have a strong suspicion that I would experience the same issue. I have a feeling that I am just not that into developing consumer facing apps.<p>Given my position as a freelancer I am able to spend a good amount of time on self education while still being able to maintain my relatively inexpensive lifestyle. I find computer security and AI to be incredibly interesting but I have no relevant experience in either of those things. Even if I read a bunch of books on it, how would I get hired?<p>I guess what I am asking is, has anyone here jumped from one genre of programming to a completely different one? What was your experience like? How did you get paid once you made that switch? Were you able to maintain your current level of income or did you need to take a pay hit? I really can&#x27;t go back to school so I would like to hear about the DIY approach to doing this specifically.<p>Would appreciate any stories etc.<p>Thanks!
======
AnimalMuppet
To me, your problem does not sound like you need to switch genres. The problem
sounds like product life cycle.

When I got married, as part of my pre-marital counseling I took a personality
test. On one question I got a score of 2 (on a scale of 1-5), but I couldn't
understand the question. The man giving me the test explained that in my
world, it was product life cycle. 1 is initial conception, 2 is initial
prototype, 3 is delivery, 4 is major enhancement, and 5 is maintenance. I
prefer to be at prototype to delivery, and I can handle major enhancement
because it's essentially like a mini-prototype-and-release. Initial conception
I don't like, because everything is possible but nothing is decided, and
maintenance is just boring.

It sounds like you may be in a similar situation. You may literally have a
personality clash with the phase of the product life cycle that you find
yourself in.

~~~
pyritepyrite
Interesting perspective, and to a certain extent I think you are probably
right. Did you have success in positioning yourself in such a way that you get
to "prototype-and-release" more often than do other things?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I have been fortunate in my career to be able to spend the majority of my time
in the phases I like. But sometimes, if I'm where I don't want to be and it's
not going to change, I have to switch jobs to get it.

Just knowing why you're feeling dis-satisfied can be useful. Then you can look
around and see if it's going to change, or if you should look elsewhere, or if
it's worth just living with it.

