
Ask HN: How to start afresh in a new domain after years of expertise in another? - vcool07
Hi Guys,
I have over 12 years of expertise in a particular domain.  Now I recently switched to another company in a new domain (based on some overlapping technical skills and good recommendations from my past colleagues) as the jobs were far to come by in my old area of expertise.  But, I&#x27;m finding it really hard to adjust in the new one.<p>The biggest challenges I&#x27;m facing are :<p>1. Looking at my years of experience my colleagues expect an expert level of performance. But being new to the domain, I&#x27;ve not been able to meet their expectations.<p>2. I&#x27;ve tried looking for non-tech roles  PM, TL etc., hoping to leverage my management&#x2F;leadership skills, but my senior management aren&#x27;t buying it.<p>3. I feel isolated in meetings where everyone around me are talking the technology and I just take notes or stay silent mostly.<p>4. When I see guys half my experience are miles ahead of me in terms of the tech skills in the new area, I wonder if I even have a chance catching up ?<p>Any suggestions &#x2F; advice is welcome and highly appreciated.  Thanks in advance !
======
Ensorceled
I've switched domains all the time (CAD/CAM -> Medical Imaging -> Genomics ->
Web Development -> Internet Security -> VR -> Fintech), things I've found
helpful:

1\. Ask a lot of questions at the start. People know you've switched domains
and will tolerate dumb questions for a while.

2\. Don't ask the same dumb question twice.

3\. Read a lot to get into the new head space. Set up google alerts for your
company and its competitors. Join forums dedicated to your new tech and
domain.

4\. Offer learnings from your old domain, humbly. "At my last gig, we
approached this <method>. May not apply." This shows everybody you have things
to offer but you are just getting your sea legs.

5\. LEAVE THE OLD JOB. All of the above things you did for your old gig. Stop
doing them, you don't have time anymore.

~~~
thesumofall
I couldn’t agree more. As a strategy consultant I do have to face new clients
on a regular basis. Sometimes the industry / topic overlaps with the previous
engagement - often not.

1.) Really, really, really ask those dumb questions in the first week.
Everyone will tolerate it and even expect it

2.) Learn the basics of your new domain / industry top-down asap. Meaning:
understand for what your company gets paid for, understand the basic process
how it gets delivered, understand the strengths / weaknesses of your company.
Know who the key customers are and what they really want. It’s often the new
guys who are empowered to challenge those high-level topics while everyone
else takes it for granted (and often have the wrong idea in mind)

3.) Always ask a question / say something during the first five minutes of a
meeting. It just gets harder and harder afterwards. But as soon as you asked
you’re in the game

4.) Bring in experience from the past but try to take the extra mile of
translating it as much as possible to the new situation (“at my last gig we
did... I understand that here we have... however I see further potential
in...)

~~~
thesumofall
Two to add:

5.) Ask a colleague to give you a dedicated intro session. Not just a random
“I show you some stuff on my PC” but a real one. Typically a nice way for the
colleague to reflect on their learning as well and/or prepare a public talk
:-)

6.) Be aware that almost no one really knows. They are all bluffing, they are
all biased. There are exceptions but they are super rare. Even someone 2-4
years in a specific job will get his stuff done but still struggle with some
concepts. On Management Level it gets worse as those guys tend to not have the
time to digg into it

~~~
8ytecoder
Can't stress (6) enough. Most people do stuff because that's what they heard
first or it's a solution they found for a problem that existed years ago.
Having a new perspective and questioning existing norms is healthy. You can
add value there more than most of the existing "tribe".

------
deepaksurti
Once I was asked to start working on an app in a new domain, I had never
worked in that domain and without good enough knowledge, working on that app
would be crazy. The first 2 days in it and I realized, there has to be some
systematic way of going about it.

I brought it up in the next weekly meeting, asked for a resource (book,
session by colleague, video anything) from the team already working on it.
They recommended a book and I explained that I need to work through the book
while correlating the app with the book and working on bugs/features, all the
same time while explicitly stating that I need some time/guidance to be up and
running.

That was taken very positively and in a few weeks, I was productive as
per/more than the expectations, while following the steps outlined.

Don't worry, be pro-active, ask, make a plan with the team and follow it. The
more you do nothing about it, the worse it might get. Best.

------
dsr_
The expert performance that you should be bringing is not your mastery of this
particular technology. Your strengths should be:

\- experience with infrastructure, so you don't need to have underlying things
explained to you

\- experience with team projects, so you don't get mired in irrelevant
sidequests and trivia

\- experience exercising judgment, so you can survey alternate approaches and
pick the one most likely to succeed

\- experience learning, so you can come up to speed quickly

\- wide experience, so you can apply lessons from your history in the new
context

Take the notes, then go back and research them. Figure out what a minimal
project in the new domain looks like, and do one quietly. Familiarize yourself
with the tools that the new company uses.

Read research papers, technical journals, and all the in-company documentation
you can get your hands on. Attend new engineer training sessions.

Figure out what the schedule is for your group(s) and dig in.

------
logfromblammo
Some of your problems seem more like "new company" problems than "fresh
domain" problems.

I have done a few major switches over the course of my career.

    
    
      Java/R&D -> MUMPS+VB/Medical -> Java/Legal -> C#/Military
    

The biggest problem was seeing that the common element over those multiple
domains is that nobody _really_ knows what they're doing, and _everyone_ is
just faking it so hard that it somehow just _works anyway_. So if you have any
_genuine_ competence in anything, you just copy everything that makes even an
iota of sense from that into whatever else you're doing, and that makes you an
instant genius.

You might have a different experience if you are in a hot spot where everyone
around you seems to be smarter than you are, but in other places, the person
that has been continuously learning new things on their own initiative for 12
years will catch up within 1 year or less, and will be jetting past everyone
else by their second anniversary. The downside is that they will be bored by
the third year, and looking elsewhere for promotion opportunities by the
fourth.

~~~
le-mark
> The biggest problem was seeing that the common element over those multiple
> domains is that nobody really knows what they're doing, and everyone is just
> faking it so hard that it somehow just works anyway. So if you have any
> genuine competence in anything, you just copy everything that makes even an
> iota of sense from that into whatever else you're doing, and that makes you
> an instant genius.

This is sooo true. From my experience most organizations and teams are very
low performing, speaking about older companies, especially ones that have had
rounds of layoffs or lots of turnover over the years. You truly get the "don't
move my cheese types" who are just there because they're to lazy to find
another job.

Mostly, the people who really knew the code/domain left long ago. Occasionally
you'll find an old BA who ought to be running place, hunkered down somewhere.
These people are gold.

------
scott00
You may want to clarify whether your issues are with the tech stack or the
domain or both; they raise different issues. I think of the tech stack as the
programming language you use as well as the major
libraries/frameworks/services involved, while the domain is the area of
business the software serves. So if you went from being a VB6 developer for a
bank to a python developer for a health care company you switched both tech
stack (VB6->python) and domain (banking->health care). Some info on how long
it's been since the switch might also be helpful for gauging reasonable
expectations.

Some specific thoughts:

2\. Going the management route might work if you have domain knowledge but
lack experience with the tech stack. If it's the other way around this will be
a much harder sell in my opinion. Either way, don't be looking for a promotion
unless you've been there at least a year, or there's a pressing business need
that putting you in the job would neatly solve. They hired you to do a job,
they're probably not going to react well to you immediately trying to get a
different one.

3\. I wouldn't sweat this one. Real time collaboration is going to be the
hardest given a knowledge gap, but the real work of design and coding can be
done very effectively while conducting research to fill in knowledge gaps when
you need to. Your company and colleagues probably care more that you produce
high quality code fast than whether or not you shine in meetings.

4\. I think it's reasonable to expect you'll be pretty behind on tech skills
for the first 3-6 months. If that's the case, I wouldn't sweat it, you'll
probably catch up. If it's been a year and you're still behind you might be in
trouble, it's time to find a new approach to learning what you need to learn.
Domain knowledge on the other hand is a much slower slog. It may take 5 years
to get to expert, and I don't think there are any real shortcuts.

------
jmkni
Given the audience on HN, you could probably be a bit more specific about the
old/new domain and get more relevant advice.

Just a thought!

~~~
wslh
100% this. One thing is to move all your stack from C# to F# or Haskell and
another move from Angular to React.

~~~
dsr_
I was thinking more along the lines of "I have 12 years of experience writing
SaaS apps, and now I am working on firmware for embedded devices".

~~~
TeMPOraL
And here I was thinking along the lines of "I have 12 years of experience
coding random crap, professionally and otherwise, and I'd like to go into
biotech or somehow contribute to NewSpace industry".

(Which is exactly what I'd love to do.)

------
TekMol
My answer to this is: Do what you love.

This might mean to radically change what you do.

The vibe I get from your post is that the situation you are in is the result
of a "career move". Driven by rational thinking about salary and future
safety.

If your goal is to live a happy, meaningful life, I am sceptical that this
approach can work. But I am very open to discuss this.

Personally, being raised very anti authoritarian, I naturally always did what
I loved doing or what I was curious about. I'm not super rich and I don't jump
around in joy all day. But I have a pretty nice lifestyle that I enjoy.

Would love to hear other perspectives on this.

~~~
JohnnyConatus
Dear TekMol,

We regret to inform you that starting tomorrow, our organization, our parent
company, our subsidiary company, and our affiliate partners will no longer be
able to provide you services.

Unfortunately, all of our employees read your post and they agree with you and
they have all quit to follow their bliss and have left en mass for Chiang Mai
until they can "figure out what that means."

Candidly, we expect a large increase in the number of people working as life
coaches.

As a result, we will no longer be able to provide the following services:

\- Retail employees to help you \- Any sort of clerical work \- Coal mining
and other energy gathering work that requires outdoor and or physical work \-
Water plants and filtration systems \- Less glamours medical care \- All the
law jobs you don't know about but which keep our world running as well as it
does \- And any and all sundry job that aren't cool enough to be in an TV
commercial

By this letter, we formally requests you stop spouting your bullshit.

Further, we encourage you to consider the implicit flip-side of your argument
that, to paraphrase, one can only be happy or have a meaningful life if one
does what they love. The incredibly insulting inference being that people who
don't do exactly what they love can't possibly be happy or have a meaningful
life.

Good luck with your parakeet farm or whatever it is you do.

Cordially,

The Good People at JustTryingToMakeRent Co.

~~~
TekMol
Dear JustTryingToMakeRent employees,

Thank you very much for your open letter! And thank you for making the world
such a wonderful place where coal is mined and plants are watered and
everything works so flawlessly.

Is it really impossible to love those jobs? I often have the feeling that at
least some of you are in a great mood when I meet you at your workplaces. For
example when I visit my dentist. The whole team is always in a great mood,
making jokes with each other, being friendly, enjoying the workday.

If there are jobs that simply cannot be loved - I think we should enhance or
automate those. Let's start the debate. What job is nothing but shit?

I don't run a parakeet farm. I object to the "use" of animals. One of the
things I love to do is write software though. Right now I am sitting in a nice
internet cafe. At a window that overlooks a river. Sipping coffee, enhancing
an application. And right now I love it. Chances are good that some of you are
users of the application.

Yours, TekMol

------
DanielBMarkham
I've done this most of my career. There is some great advice already in
comments here, but if I had to boil it down to one thing, it would be this:
have permission to be the new guy and ask dumb questions.

Explicitly ask for this permission -- and take advantage of it. If done well,
yes, people will drop their opinion of you for a week or two. Then once you
"get your feet wet" you'll start making a sythesis between what you already
know and the new domain. It will start making sense to your coworkers.

Don't soft-pedal it. Don't try to know everything. In fact, admit to being a
complete noob. Starting at zero you can humbly begin to kick ass and get
noticed. Walking in the door as Superman? Not so much. If you do that, there's
nowhere to go but down.

The crazy thing I've noticed is that people inside domains view technology as
the most important part of a job. So instead of learning SexPumpkin 4.0,
they'll look for somebody who's already an expert, because that's what we
need!

As it turns out, there are a ton of super smart people in the world, but there
are only a tiny few people that know both tech and the domain well enough to
solve problems well. If you're too busy, lazy, or incompetent to pick up the
new tech, then fresh meat isn't going to help. The real skill is to already
know a bunch of things people want and be able to transition domains quickly.

You can gain that kind of thing by doing charity work, alongside personal
projects.

One of the unexpected benefits of being the new guy and asking dumb questions
is that in many cases, you end up solving complex problems that have stymied
the org for years -- mainly because they've been so deep in the work they
haven't been able to look at it from the outsid.

The worst thing you can do as a technical expert is to ignore this advice. Ask
questions. A lot of them.

------
kenrose
All great advice here. One other thing to consider is if the roles were
reversed. What if you were still in your old field and a new senior member
joined your team? She has 12 years of experience, but not in the field. What
would be your expectations of her?

You'd likely expect that it's normal for her to take time to gain a bunch of
context about the area. I promise you your coworkers feel the same way about
you now.

Take the time to ramp up. No one is expecting gigantic impact from a senior
person in their first three months.

Good luck.

------
telebone_man
I speak from my experience as a contractor in the telco domain, whereby there
I would work in some industries I had no clue about. For example, I once
worked in health and had no idea about the amount of regulations they had to
adhere to.

However I realised they had accepted me because I was an expert in telco, not
health. Similarly, I suspect you were hired because of technical skills and
not because of your lack of experience in their domain.

As such, I learned the skill of saying "Can you just explain xyz, please?" in
a direct and confident way. Context matters, of course. I wouldn't interrupt a
meeting. But there's a time and a place.

Hope that gives you something to think about.

------
leroy_masochist
1\. Act like you belong there. If you internalize the idea that you're a bit
behind everyone (esp for your age), that you don't really "get" the tech, etc,
etc, then your demeanor will reflect that and people will pick up on it;
humans, even nerds, are social animals. If you're feeling especially insecure
you should reflect on why the company hired you in the first place, and what
particular skills or aptitude you bring to the team, and why that's valuable.
If the answer to that is, "I don't know", then you're probably at the wrong
job.

2\. Not talking in meetings is generally something that other people notice to
the extent that you should be talking but are not. Without knowing the details
of your particular situation (eg, maybe within your company's culture it
actually IS a big deal that you don't talk in meetings), I would say that if
doing your job requires you to be active in meetings in which you are
currently quiet, fix that. If this is a case of you feeling insecure because
you feel like others are fitting in better / earning more brownie points /
etc, I would posit that this is something that you notice a lot more than
others do, and advise you to keep your focus on being good at your job rather
than comparing yourself to others.

3\. If you want management responsibility, I would suggest the following: a)
ensure you are seen as a "set of safe hands" who knows how things work (tech
and company processes) and can be entrusted to get stuff done and b) ensure
that your manager and peers see you as a competent communicator. Once you are
confident that a) and b) are both true, initiate a conversation with your
manager about what type of leadership responsibilities you'd like to assume.
If both a) and b) are not true, you shouldn't be angling for management roles.

Good luck!

------
mkching
Make sure you understand the basics of the new domain extremely well. You
don't need to know everything in depth, but every piece you do know needs to
fit together in your mind.

Ask questions until you think you understand, then have someone confirm your
understanding. Those with experience in the domain will be able to recognize
the right questions being asked.

In my experience, most seniors in a company are willing to help you get up to
speed if they see that you're actually trying to understand the domain as
opposed to just learning enough to get by.

Even though it seems like everyone else has a good understanding of things,
this is usually not the case. Often people have bits and pieces of domain
knowledge, but not a thorough understanding. These are not the ones who can
really help you.

Find someone who has a good understanding that you seem to get along with. Be
proactive and ask them if you could pick their brain over a long off-site
lunch and then ask a lot of questions.

------
fogetti
All I can say that sometimes I feel the same.

You have to accept this: you're at the mercy of your managers. If they hate
you then you have no chance, OTOH if they love you, then you don't even have
to lift a finger and you will be just fine, even if you're slower than you'd
expected. Managers usually trust people based on gut feelings. I am still yet
to see a competent manager who can evaluate the skills of his subordinates
properly.

Also you didn't mention why did you join the new company in the first place?
You have acquaintances working there? The company looked interesting from
outside? You had met some employees in a tech meetup/hackathon earlier? Now we
can only make assumptions.

Also make sure that you know why they hired you! I can't emphasize this one
enough. Many times companies hire experienced people to do mundane tasks under
the impression that they will do the shit that everyone hates faster. If this
is the case, then RUN!!!! If it turns out that the new company has no roles
which an experienced developer could enjoy like leading a team, or
participating in design discussions or being a product manager then it's again
a sign that you should just simply leave.

One other thing: smaller companies have a flat hierarchy. So there is no
chance to step higher on the ladder. You should also consider if this is the
case. In small companies it might take years or even decades until you can
advance in your career. That might explain why they didn't put you in a PM/TL
role.

There is one thing that many people in the tech industry overlooks: there
simply cannot be everyone a tech lead/manager. The earlier you join a company
or department, the better your chances are.

Also, some companies have seasonal busy periods. If they hired you during this
busy period you might feel higher pressure. This might ease by time and you
shouldn't take it personally (and you can even ask if that's the case).

------
david-gpu
Study. Learn. Listen to what your more experienced colleagues say, even if
they are half your age. Basically, do what interns should do, because you are
an intern now. And be thankful that you are not being paid like one.

------
PoachedSausage
I've worked in a number of domains. My CV looks pretty unconventional. I went
from telecomms, to renewable energy, then embedded electronics for
instrumentation, a stint in academia, from there to high power radio and TV
broadcast and now particle accelerators.

They are different industries but have the common thread of engineering with a
heavy electrical and electronic bias. I think that is the secret, to have
enough of a common thread and to bootstrap using knowledge gained from one
industry to move to another. Also, systems analysis and problem solving
generally transfer pretty well.

------
thomk
One time I was listening to Artie Lange on the Howard Stern show talk about
how he got interested in watching sports. (This is related, bare with me). He
said something to the effect of "You want to get interested in a local sports
team? Fine. How much money is in your bank account? Ok, $1,200 in your bank
account. Great. Tonight go put $1,500 on the Nicks game. You won't be able to
take your eyes off the TV."

I'm paraphrasing. The point is if you bet money you didn't have on a game,
your stake in the outcome of that game would be HIGH.

Your challenge right now is, you have no stake in the matter. I heard someone
say one time (Tim Ferris?) that success is just about incentives. Again,
poorly paraphrasing.

The point is; with the right incentives you can accomplish amazing things.
When I was single and dating, I was funny, charming and generous. The
incentive there was obvious.

So how do you incentivize yourself to learn a new technology? Easy: create a
situation where you MUST learn it. How? Sell (or promise) a project that
includes finishing something in the tech you sold (or promised).

I would pick something that is slightly outside of your comfort zone, not WAY
outside. The more you must get something done, the more you'll learn. You'll
learn fast if you make a habit out of it.

Sometimes you can do it with a passion project too. So pick something that is
important to you personally and just pick the tech you want to learn.

Programming is hard, the passion will carry you through the really hard
problems.

~~~
tpallarino
I won't say the advice is good, but it's interesting at least.

------
typhonic
At my company I find the culture mildly frustrating because we do so little to
educate the new hires. Our method is to hire experience. So we now have a
group of 25 design/engineer level people with a variety of project methods and
a ragged list of skills. Because of this we can only accept small to medium
projects. We would not be able to execute a large project because we don't
have a large team, we don't have a uniform background or uniform method.

In my first engineering job there was training path and there was a "company
way" of doing things. We hired all levels of experience and trained them on
the skills and the company way as needed. I know a predefined method of
project execution can be stifling, and that sometimes happened, but it was a
good place to start.

At my current place, a person can roam the halls or chats and ask questions,
but it is just too random. If someone is not delivering up to expectations,
the engineering manager will visit tell them to improve. That is not what I
call training. While it does work, somewhat, those who survive it simply
reinforce whatever method of execution they develop in their own heads. The
company grows by adding a small revenue stream, but not in the ability work
together.

Finding your spot, developing your skills, learning your domain are mostly
your responsibility. When you say "jobs were far to come by in my old area of
expertise" that implies you are now in a better area to find a company more
suited to you; maybe a more mentoring company. I agree with so much of the
advice given to you so far. I will be working on myself using what I have read
here. Some of the advice, however, was targeted at the time before you changed
jobs. That is still possible.

------
kreetx
Depending on your colleagues it might be totally fine to sit mostly silently
for whatever time period you need until you start feeling you actually _want_
to say something. The colleagues probably know your background, so they know
there are large gaps in what you know about your current industry. Staying
silent is at least better than desperately trying to speak of something you
don't know about, IMO.

~~~
khitchdee
Agree. Give the process time. Many people are not very patient with trying to
explain things that they consider obvious due to their experience in an area.
This slows things down for someone who's ramping up. But over time, you piece
things together and get to the bottom of things.

Also, if you ask a question and it gets shot down, you learn something from
that too. You have to figure where the edge is before people start
complaining.

------
rdiddly
All four of your numbered points are about ego and politics. If that's what
you're thinking about, worrying about, and spending time on, that's
(ironically) the reason for all four problems. What are you doing to learn the
new technology?

You're an expert in some ways and a beginner in others. Now that THIS is your
job, you're a beginner in more ways than you're an expert. Act like a beginner
does, ask lots of questions, learn the hell out of the new stuff, take notes
like you already do and then _follow up on them_ later - look up every single
word or concept you don't understand.

Don't believe you should be "having input into things" in meetings because you
shouldn't, you're a n00b. Listen and learn like everybody does when they're
new on the job.

Don't let colleagues or superiors have "expectations" that were probably
unrealistic all along. You need support, and time (mentoring possibly too, but
mostly time, if you have a modicum of initiative), to learn what you need to
learn. You're not going to be "productive" right away. If anybody hired you
under any different expectation, they were mistaken and now need to be
corrected. If you had any different expectation, you were deceived as well. If
you _sold_ yourself as an expert, that was only partly true. Come clean now.
If anybody feels it was not a fair deal in light of this new understanding,
then you should offer to end the deal i.e. resign.

If it feels awkward to suddenly change your behavior, you can make an
announcement: "I thought my experience would serve me better than it has, so
now I realize I'm a n00b and will commence to bother you all constantly with
n00b questions." I guarantee the humility and the request for patience will
result in a truly awesome outpouring of support. OR, you work with douchebags
and should resign.

 _4\. When I see guys half my experience are miles ahead of me in terms of the
tech skills in the new area, I wonder if I even have a chance catching up ?_

Yes you do, but these guys are not "half your experience" if they are miles
ahead of you. If you played hockey 20 years, you'd understand a lot about
teams, athleticism, and even the general principle of moving an object down
the playing area toward a goal, as a team. Basketball is like that too, but
since your basketball experience is 0, you'd still be worse at basketball than
someone 19 years younger than you who played basketball for 1 year. And
actually, you won't "catch up." All you can hope for is to have one year of
basketball experience after one year.

------
cupofjoakim
I can only help with 3 and 4, but I'll do so.

I've only been in the industry for about 5 years, but I've swapped company
almost every year. When you're a junior, you rarely have the luxury to re-use
the technical knowledge from one company when you jump to the next one. You'll
carry with you the general development learnings, but specifics about
platforms and domains are kind of thrown into the brain garage where they'll
stay until you make an effort to dig them out.

Now, you're not a junior. You have 12 years of expertise. These are worth a
lot. Even if your specifics might not be as relevant you still have the
general learnings. Of course you're not the best guy around when it comes to
an area you're new to. Why are you setting these expectations on yourself?

> When I see guys half my experience are miles ahead of me in terms of the
> tech skills in the new area, I wonder if I even have a chance catching up ?

When it comes to your insecurities about this, just take a deep breath. You'll
catch up dude. Everything's a process. Patience and persistence is all that's
required.

------
maaaats
Consultants deal with this constantly. Most in my company change project every
few years. New customer, new domain, new technology etc., and we do just fine.
I think it's the mindset, is it your expectations you're not meeting and not
theirs?

Anyways, common for consultants. I think searching for consultant-material
would be what you're after.

------
conductr
I'd add that at some point you want to discuss this with your manager. It
might be entirely self imposed. Try to figure out if they are displeased with
your progress thus far. Your colleagues think they should have hired someone
with 12 years experience in this domain. You manager knew they would need to
invest in you before you reached the level of your peers, even those with less
overall experience. So long as your managers are happy, that's what really
matters.

I'd recommend you form deeper relationships with the peers so they are helping
you learn. Let them know you value their experience and they will be more
likely to help. Constantly remind them, in a passive way, that you are
learning. It sounds like they are competing with you, and you want them to be
helping you. This will happen much better if you drive it. If you have to, get
management involved, but that has it's own down sides and risks.

------
eludwig
About a year ago, I switched from full-time Java development (15 years, mostly
server side -- some Swing) to full-time Javascript development (React at
first, then Angular) with all of the mental anguish that the amazingly arcane
world of modern Javascript entails. I did have a little bit of a leg up in
terms of previous html/css experience, but other than that it was a whole new
world.

It seems to me that there is no other way to go other than full immersion and
feeling really dumb for quite some time. The thing is though that you really
need to depend on an unshakable faith that you will eventually come through
the other side. You need to be firmly convinced of this. If not, convince
yourself. It really helps to have done these career pivots before (which I
have) and that may be the best thing about being an older developer. I know
that there is nothing that I cannot come to grips with given time and effort.

Some hints:

Never pretend you understand something unless you do. Always admit "I don't
know that" rather than fake it. This rule can be bent for small stuff that you
are going to look up when you get back from your meeting.

Take notes (which you seem to be doing already). This is what you will google
when you get back to your desk! ;D

Have a really understanding tech lead. Of course, I realize that this is just
luck and a crap shoot, but working with great teachers and humane people is
always best.

Have faith in the fact that the problems in your new domain are largely
(probably) problems of computation that are generally applicable in ALL
programming domains. Look for patterns that you are familiar with, like: what
are we actually doing here? Reading some data files, transforming the result
and storing them somewhere else? Oh! It's ETL! I know this. Ignore the weird
jargon and get to the heart of the matter.

Give yourself time to feel like a dunce. You aren't, it's just gonna take
time.

------
treehau5
Define what "catching up" means. If you are like me, you have some idealized
version of an expert in this domain, and you may or may not have the right
idea. What does success mean in this field? What does success mean in this
role? Often times we set the bar impossibly too high, and it makes us
procrastinate getting started even more. Set a relaistic goal after
researching and conceptualizing what "proficient" means, and break up how you
will get there. Believe in the law of serendipity -- lady luck favors the one
who tries. By even doing this you are already succeeding. You have my
fondness. I hope it works out well for you because I am sure we will all need
to do something similar at some point in our lives, especially when the big AI
monster comes and eats all our jobs. (last part is a little facetious)

------
zoltaan
I belive the transition to the new domain - that the new company knew about
very well - should be assited by the right tasks to learn. To learn! - which
is something we do day by day even by hanging on to existing domains: we miss
and we fall. The process of learning will uncover the parts we can ask about.
To ask! As others already mentioned: asking helps. Assuming you know what to
ask. That's where the learning process helps itself: uncovers dtails and
further topics to ask about. Asking includes not only people but information
sources like Google and Wikipedia - and the kind you will discover on your own
as relevant one to your domain. To me usally the process of learning the
product first as a novice client on a basic level is the best to start with
(ideally joining an introductory course). Not being sad if half of it is in
greek. Remember the greek part as something to study next. Then - or maybe
instead of it - receiving important but many times neglected tasks of
documentation and testing, fixing outstanding tiny problems also helps.
Carrying out these gives the satisfaction to be useful and so boost
confidence, which in turn helps asking 'silly' questions. Newcomers ask silly
questions, this is a fact, no way avoiding it and should not be avoided since
these show lack of fundamental knowledge that the newcomer do not posess yet.
Still newcomers afraid to ask because they lack some confidence (at least I do
in such situations) so anything that boosts confidence a bit is a huge help.
So small but important tasks might help a lot. All this is impossible without
the assistance of the domain experts and the experts of the company culture
(since the answer many times is not in the logics of the domain but in the
culture or even the history of the particular company). It should be accepted
that your initial pace is slower due to the requirements of the domain and
company switch that comes with things to process. I believe the situation
should be discussed honestly with the superiors as the least. They are as
interested in productive work as you are and they may not have that high
expectations for this period as you may think (being aware of your
transition).

------
xemdetia
At a certain point you have to crunch, but you should take notes but also
share your notes. Present lists of questions from the notes you took last time
and show off the fact you are trying to catch up. The most frustrating thing
to a lot of teachers is people that nod along and then ask the same question
next week.

Also another good thing is to dig and ask around for older
documentation/simpler versions. It is a lot easier to sometimes work at the
task at hand if you can compare the naive version to the one with hard-won
fixes. Sometimes the simplest explanation for what you need to do is the first
few times the idea was pitched, not where it is now where that is an accepted
norm of knowledge.

------
shireboy
One bit of advice that I learned in art school and think applies to all sorts
of learning is: "Work general to specific". When painting, you first block in
large sections, then break those down into smaller sections, smaller and
smaller until you arrive at the level of detail you want. I'm now a software
developer, but take the same approach when learning a customer's domain or a
new language or framework. I first get the "big picture", then break that down
further and further by reading, asking, and listening.

Re number 4, yes, you have a chance, unless you got fired today. Have the
attitude that you can and will learn this domain and quickly become an expert.

------
twunde
I've found that subscribing to SafariBooks for a few months and reading
through material relevant to my new domain to be useful. That said, where
you're really going to shine are areas in your new domain that overlap with
your previous domain.

~~~
pfd1986
Didn't know about SafariBooks. Any course / material you really liked or
recommend?

~~~
twunde
safaribooksonline.com is the monthly rental version for O'Reilly's books. I
generally stick with the O'Reilly books, and avoid Packt books like the
plague. The case studies seem to be hit or miss. I haven't tried the videos
yet, although it looks like that's where they're doing the most work.

------
rahrah9
Search for areas of opportunity where you can make an impact with your current
skill and grow from there. There are gonna be pockets of opportunity your org
can't attack just because there is too much to do.

For example, I was a finance guy who switched to tech. Was the worst student
in my programming bootcamp. Got a job and found a niche in testing. It met the
company's needs and my skillset at the time. 3 years later I'm still not as
skilled as other geniuses miles ahead of me but I'm doing great, work is great
and my salary is top of market for a lead engineer.

------
robg
1\. Commit to starting over and learning with fresh eyes

2\. Don't rely on old knowledge or pedigree as a crutch

3\. Humble yourself to your colleagues and ask questions

4\. Seek out mentors with the expressed purpose of learning

5\. Understand that new beginnings take time and purpose

------
ninjakeyboard
I'm doing this right now - Video to MES (manufacturing.) This isn't unusual at
all - you understand the value of domain experience so do the things that will
make you an expert.

1) Give training sessions to those who are also new. It will force you to
learn the software. 2) pick up pager rotation. Supporting the software will
force you into new areas of the domain.

Those are the things that will get you there fast. It's scary and hard but
just wait 6 months to a year or so and you'll be effective. Any new domain
that is sufficiently interesting takes a long time to get into.

------
mathieubordere
I think it's important to stay up to date on technologies/fields outside of
your area of expertise so that the eventual switch to another domain is less
of a complete overhaul for you.

------
bsvalley
1\. Complete most your tasks on time.

2\. Complete all your tasks on time.

3\. Come up with new ideas related to your domain.

4\. Implement at least one of your ideas.

If you manage to do that within a year, you'll be a good asset to your team at
any given point. No one will excpect you to start at step #4. Be humble and
keep asking questions until it's clear in your head. The tech world won't
change tomorrow, cold, big ego, etc. though, time is your friend in this case
so just be patient and follow those steps.

------
seshagiric
I have done this few times and for me doing a side project in the new area
always helped. Few other ways: \- online courses \- books \- take notes, but
do read up about them \- see if the new team has a 'new joinee getting
started' kind of document

Lastly I strongly recommend letting everyone know you are new to the domain.
At the min. it will set expectations and usually you will get pointers.

------
kzisme
I worry about this sort of thing often.

While I don't have as much experience as OP in my current domain (Which
happens to be the mortgage industry ~2 years) I still have the same feelings.

Whenever I would want to get a new job elsewhere I _hope_ that all of my
knowledge isn't too domain specific to the point where it doesn't help me
later on.

Any extra tips would be appreciated.

------
dahoramanodoceu
Learning is social. You can pick up a lot "telepathically" (i use this word
loosely) by just spending time with practitioners. They can give you the
proper orientation and guidance. Just remain open, humble, courageous,
empathetic, and persistent!

------
spsgtn
Very good advice here. I have done it twice. The first time around I grew fast
and was happy. This second time I am unhappy as the organization is slower,
less nimble and very little room to grow and learn. I hope you will have luck
with your choice!

------
mindhash
Just wait for your turn. Spend more time than others. Start with one
initiative or issue and see it to the end. Focus on one thing at a time. You
seem to be overthinking. Such initial hickups are common. We all have gone
through them. All the best

------
gtallen1187
Here are some things I've found helpful:

1\. Most importantly, set your own expectations correctly.

No matter how you slice it, switching domains after years of experience is
going to be tough. That's not to say it isn't the right decision, or won't be
incredibly rewarding. It's just going to be challenging. I've had more
personal success in these scenarios after accepting that fact, and not being
so hard on myself for the ramp-up time.

2\. Identify people with expertise, and talk to them.

Don't get stuck in a research/reading rabbit hole. It can be tempting to sit
back and try to replicate your prior expertise by reading/studying your new
domain. Rather, find people you identify as experts and talk to them. Learn
from their experience. Chances are it is your experience that made you an
expert in your last domain, so do your best to learn from those with
experience in your new domain.

I hope this helps!

------
kangnkodos
Identify that one person in your company who has both:

\- Knowledge of the domain

\- Ability and willingness to explain things clearly and succinctly

When questions come up, ask that one person, in private. Some of your
questions will be:

\- I think I need to learn X, Y and Z. Which should I learn first?

\- How do I learn X?

------
richardknop
Can you give us more detail about how different the two domains are?

I assume it's not something like switch from web development to mobile or to
dev ops. Something like from programming to data science or quant analysis?

------
ThomPete
Start afresh by addressing the issue of your experience with your boss and
setting expectations based on your current experience.

If that doesen't help, look for a job elsewhere.

------
ww520
You biggest advantage is your ability to learn. Don't be afraid to start
learning the basics of the new domain.

------
newobj
Sorry, to be clear, is there an actual (e.g. performance review?) problem, or
are you just feeling imposter syndrome?

------
thinbeige
It depends, if this new field is something growing, something with a
perspective (eg ML, crypto) then keep on. Your insecurity will be your biggest
motivator pushing you to the limit. In one year you will be better than your
peers.

If this field isn't trending (eg VBA, print) then just look for another job.

In other words: Can you boost your personal market value with this job in one
year?

------
RivieraKid
What is the particular domain?

------
pamqzl
You sound like me.

All I can tell you is to fake it til you make it. It doesn't take _that_ long
before your lack of experience in the particular subject at hand ceases to be
the limiting factor.

