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The risk to today's web developers is something that - most realistically - makes web developers so much more efficient that a few people can un-employ many of

The risk to today's web developers is something that - most realistically - makes web developers so much more efficient that a few people can un-employ many of their fellows. Wordpress and ThemeForest (and their predecessors) did this to the Perl::CGI programmers and HTML jockeys of an earlier age, and e.g. React/Bootstrap/Parse are trying to do this to today's jQuery/Rails experts. For now, there's plenty of demand if you (can) upskill - those "DHTML experts" who jumped to Rails are still fully employed creating more complex sites (rather than more sites.) As an alternative to just trying to be better than your peers, patio11 has talked about combining two not-spectacular skills (e.g. programming and Japanese, or programming and marketing) into a very attractive package. E.g. HCI could fit with web programming, as could an appropriate hobby, as could business skills (e.g. http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pro...). If you just want to do something hard, AI, AR/VR, and Robotics can all work - but those are all fields which employ far fewer people than web development, and job opportunities will similarly be more limited (e.g. geographically dispersed). You'll need a bit more direction and motivation than "more defensible to future automation". To get a feel for what you like, hobby projects and e.g. Coursera can both work fine. Alternatively, if you have a Silicon Valley salary, you could simply aim to retire by 40.

acconrad 10y ago
This actually was super useful, and yes, HCI is my biggest interest, but I'm having a tough time integrating it other than trying my best to be a UX expert where I work - though to be honest HCI seems to encompass a bit more than UX and it's hard to integrate the more academic aspects of HCI into simple web development.
- JoachimSchipper 10y ago
  Just being a web developer/UX expert - if you are really good at both - is already a pretty defensible position, although perhaps not a very rare one. Leveling up in HCI will help. Another part to consider for your career strategy: if you can convince your boss that it's in his/her best interest to send you to a course or conference in topic X, that will give you both more knowledge and a semi-official "local expert" status. Once you're recognized as the local expert at X, people will bring all the hard/educational X problems to you, letting you level up quickly. (This works best if the topic comes up quite often, but not so often that everyone has an opinion. Every web dev has some basic UX skills, but consider e.g. Information Architecture, A/B Testing, etc. - or some kind of clear "needs more-than-basic UX" category. Someone who actually knows his HCI would be in a better place to help you define the latter category, I'm afraid.)

acconrad 10y ago

This actually was super useful, and yes, HCI is my biggest interest, but I'm having a tough time integrating it other than trying my best to be a UX expert where I work - though to be honest HCI seems to encompass a bit more than UX and it's hard to integrate the more academic aspects of HCI into simple web development.

JoachimSchipper 10y ago
Just being a web developer/UX expert - if you are really good at both - is already a pretty defensible position, although perhaps not a very rare one. Leveling up in HCI will help. Another part to consider for your career strategy: if you can convince your boss that it's in his/her best interest to send you to a course or conference in topic X, that will give you both more knowledge and a semi-official "local expert" status. Once you're recognized as the local expert at X, people will bring all the hard/educational X problems to you, letting you level up quickly. (This works best if the topic comes up quite often, but not so often that everyone has an opinion. Every web dev has some basic UX skills, but consider e.g. Information Architecture, A/B Testing, etc. - or some kind of clear "needs more-than-basic UX" category. Someone who actually knows his HCI would be in a better place to help you define the latter category, I'm afraid.)