
I'm bored by web dev. Where is the cutting edge of tech and how do I get there? - lint_roller
Hi all. Recent college graduate here.<p>Did a lot of hacking for a couple years back in the early 2000s as a kid in PHP, Perl, etc. before losing interest. Recently graduated with an unrelated non-STEM degree, turned down an investment banking job because I didn&#x27;t enjoy it much, and thought of recapturing the excitement of my early hacking days. So I taught myself Rails, etc. and am a dev at a web app startup.<p>And I find it pretty boring. I find that it suits the other devs pretty well as they just genuinely enjoy writing code and scaling backends. Me, I&#x27;m more of a big picture guy, and all I keep thinking is what we&#x27;re doing here has been done hundreds if not thousands of times. I&#x27;m realizing now that I enjoyed my days hacking as a kid because it was all  somewhat new and pretty fucking hard to figure out without all the immense resources at our disposal today.<p>So I&#x27;m wondering if it&#x27;s possible to recapture this experience, and how. I&#x27;m pretty unmotivated by money at this point, so I would gladly take a paycut to do it. I keep coming across &quot;deep learning&quot; and &quot;CRISPR.&quot; Is this the cutting edge? Do I need to go back to school to get involved? Any input appreciated.<p>Thanks.<p>- tech startup noob
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saluki
That's why they call it work - (half kidding, half serious, I tell my friends
this all the time when they complain about their day job). The economy/job
market isn't the greatest so be glad you're able to do something you semi-
enjoy in a comfortable environment and make a decent income.

When you're working on your own projects, learning new things, can change
direction at any time, chase new things that is fun and exciting.

I think rails and web application development is a great career and good way
to fund your side projects make a good living for now. I would focus on being
a great developer at work. Volunteer to take on new features/new technologies
that are interesting to you.

Start working on side projects outside of work. Keep in mind what your
employment agreement states as far as IP. Always work on your side projects on
your own hardware and outside of work/the office. You don't need to share
anything about them with co-workers.

Listen to startups for the rest of us (podcast) for inspiration building your
own product/company that would be more exiciting. If you like doing your own
thing then start planning for building your own products and/or SaaS.

Hacking on your own, building side projects sounds like what you enjoy so do
some of that in your own time.

Do some fun side projects and see if that recaptures some excitement.

Good luck.

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shivakaush
> The economy/job market isn't the greatest so be glad you're able to do
> something you semi-enjoy in a comfortable environment and make a decent
> income.

The economy will always be in the shitter and people will keep using it as an
excuse to not find better opportunities. Find projects that you would like to
work on and approach them. Lack experience ? start doing it on your own.

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cblock811
Frankly the "big picture guy" comment is a bit snobbish. If you have big ideas
and you know how to build them...go build them. Otherwise your ideas never
mattered anyways.

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phlandis
He clearly wants to build something, just in the process of figuring out what
that is exactly. Your comment was a bit snobbish buddy boy.

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nicholas73
Wait, you call yourself a big picture guy, but are asking how to get even
deeper into the nuts and bolts?

I'm a big picture guy, and I taught myself web dev precisely because you can
big picture easily by making an app as a business.

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jordanchan
Yes, it is possible to recapture the experience.

1\. There's a lot more than deep learning and genome editing. But yes, you're
right, these are part of the cutting edge. You should look around further. And
beyond pure technology too.

2\. Script hacking is different from things like deep learning or genome
sequencing. The former requires knowledge of a programming language and some
talent. The latter requires a great deal of subject knowledge in addition. So
yes, going back to school is a good way to start learning these things in a
structured manner.

3\. One option, if you are a big picture guy with tech skills, is to build
your own product. You should have the vision and the skills. The other, like I
said before, look beyond pure tech, there's a lot starting to happen. Third,
like you said, go to school and learn machine learning or genetic engineering.

Hope this helps somewhat. All the best!

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aap_
For me web dev would be completely unattractive as well, I just don't care for
the web. So find out what interests you. Maybe low-level things, reverse
engineering, language design, graphics, game development...there is so much
you can do. If you're unmotivated my money just play around.

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Jemaclus
I think an interesting direction is figuring out how to leverage web tech (or
just code in general) to interact with the real world. Consider companies like
Uber and AirBNB. They've identified a real-world problem and set out to solve
it using technology. A lot of the "cutting edge" stuff these days is figuring
out how to take a real-world problem (genetics, taxis, mail), and writing some
code to make it accessible, cheap, and easy to do.

The problem with "cutting edge" is that it's often ahead of its time. It takes
a LOT of time and effort to make even a tiny dent in the space of "cutting
edge." If that's something you want to do, you might want to go back to
academia and stay there. The "real world" is a bit more pragmatic -- there's a
reason the space shuttles tended to have tech from 20 years ago and not brand-
new tech from last month.

IMO to find interesting projects, a better idea is to look backward: what
industries are still in the 20th century, and how can you help bring them into
the 21st with modern technological advancements?

What about farmers, truck drivers, construction workers? Why are they still
driving tractors, trucks and bulldozers? Why aren't robots doing those things
more widely?

What about real estate agents and their legalese? Why are real estate agents
still handing me stacks of paperwork? Can't you Zenefits the crap out of that
process?

What about community outreach programs and community centers? Why are
community outreach programs still accosting me on the street and handing out
fliers? Can't they do outreach digitally? Can't we automate scheduling
basketball games and pick-up kickball games?

What about having to fill out paper applications or stand in line at the DMV?
(Shouldn't all that crap be automated by now?)

What about having to actually hand your credit card to the cashier at the
drive-thru at McDonald's? (Can't they just magically detect who I am somehow
and charge me accordingly? Why do I have to hand some punk ass kid my card or
cash?)

What about planning weddings or raising kids? (Haven't enough people gotten
married that planning a wedding should be as simple as browsing Amazon for a
few hours? Haven't enough people had kids that we should have some solid data
about what works and doesn't work?) (These two things aren't really tech-
related, but man, if you could figure those out...)

The best part about this approach is that pretty much _any_ idea you come up
with will be "cutting edge" as far as these areas are concerned. These are the
things we're still doing the same way we did 50 years ago, before computers
were even a thing.

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1arity
A couple of ideas :

\-- Deep neural networks. For : not so difficult to learn, still mostly
heuristically trained so a lot of room for self-created "gurus", currently
sexy with a lot of applications. Against : existing connections to academia
and researchers may contribute to the kind of applications you are asked to
work on.

\-- Being a programmer for scientific research. For : a whole lot of different
applications, can generally work at universities or institutes anywhere in the
world, an intellectually stimulating environment. Against : the level of your
higher degree will often determine your pay rate, which may be lower than
corporate, credit on papers for programmers is only beginning to gain general
acceptance.

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ccvannorman
Hi Noob,

I think the most fascinating and lucrative field today is in medical and
biotechnology. I am a game developer moving into that space as well. Making
3-D interactive bio experiences or simulations (think "fantastic voyage" style
stuff) is quite difficult[1], gaining popularity, and no one is really doing
much of it yet.

[1] It is difficult in many ways, the one you'd be most interested in is
probably "simulating systems with trillions of independent actors such as the
bloodstream or a working tissue so you have to cheat/optimize like hell."

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Obi_Juan_Kenobi
CRISPR? Like CRISPR-CAS? That's molecular biology, and while it's an important
new tool, it's just a means to an end. Getting into biological research is
going to require a degree, basically without exception. There are more biology
PhDs than positions, so employers can be picky. Lots of biotech firms can
demand people with a post-doc or two under their belt.

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vonnik
co-creator of deeplearning4j here. you can get involved now with open-source
projects, if you're willing learn and chip in. most open-source is built by a
handful of individuals, so there's always lots to do, and the learning comes
with the doing.

[http://deeplearning4j.org](http://deeplearning4j.org)

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biobiobio
See if this interests you [http://www.covert.io/research-
papers/security/Automatic%20An...](http://www.covert.io/research-
papers/security/Automatic%20Analysis%20of%20Malware%20Behavior%20using%20Machine%20Learning.pdf)

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melvinram
[http://www.magicleap.com](http://www.magicleap.com), Microsoft HoloLens and
other VR seem like very interesting/difficult/cutting-edge opportunities.

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cwesleyco
I'm building a personal OS that manages your life. You can view a demo at
www.cwesley.co/#video.

If you are interested in joining the team and want to get in on the ground
floor, shoot me a message at hello@cwesley.co.

Thanks! - Wesley

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tmaly
just pick something that may interest you and work on it outside of your day
job. That's how I keep myself away from bordum

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phlandis
Look into Machine learning and Neural Networks. If you like python start by
checking out pyBrain.

