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I was a web developer for a few years out of college, but I eventually realized I got much more pleasure out of helping my colleagues solve challenges in their

I was a web developer for a few years out of college, but I eventually realized I got much more pleasure out of helping my colleagues solve challenges in their own work (obscure bugs or browser compatibility issues) than building my own assigned pages and apps. I transitioned to technical product/developer support engineering which I've now done at two companies for a combined six years or so, and it's been great. There's definitely more interaction with people, as your day-to-day work is more about helping people succeed than building things. But you still use a lot of the same skills you've built up in development work - especially if you've spent any time debugging code. Whether this will appeal to you depends on what motivates you. For me, I really like feeling like I've made a difference and one of the most powerful ways to get that feeling is to solve a problem for someone, so this is a very satisfying line of work. Also, I've done a lot of interviewing of candidates for this role - and I can tell you that at least on my team, lack of experience isn't really a blocker. It's common to need to quickly learn a new product or feature to solve a customer/developer's problem with it, so we look more for quick learning and problem-solving instincts than built-up experience or domain expertise.

el_benhameen 9y ago
I know this is a little direct, but how's the pay compare to your old jobs and to your colleagues in dev?
- DoctorProfessor 9y ago
  My pay increased when I transitioned from web dev at one company to product support at another - but to be fair, the first company was in Dallas and the second was in Palo Alto. I haven't done a lot of comparison or asking my coworkers how much they make, but the information I do have suggests that while developers are commonly paid more on average, if you're at a company that actually values product support (often because it's recognized as an important contributor to customer retention) this difference can easily be dominated by other differences such as willingness to negotiate. Support teams are also usually smaller so it can be easier to demonstrate how much value you, personally, are adding. But again, this assumes the company actually cares about support. There are definitely places that treat it as a revolving door position and won't pay much. It's also worth noting that from what I've seen, companies are much more willing to have distributed support teams than dev teams, due to the value of having support availability in multiple timezones. I actually telecommute four days a week in my current role.

el_benhameen 9y ago

I know this is a little direct, but how's the pay compare to your old jobs and to your colleagues in dev?

DoctorProfessor 9y ago
My pay increased when I transitioned from web dev at one company to product support at another - but to be fair, the first company was in Dallas and the second was in Palo Alto. I haven't done a lot of comparison or asking my coworkers how much they make, but the information I do have suggests that while developers are commonly paid more on average, if you're at a company that actually values product support (often because it's recognized as an important contributor to customer retention) this difference can easily be dominated by other differences such as willingness to negotiate. Support teams are also usually smaller so it can be easier to demonstrate how much value you, personally, are adding. But again, this assumes the company actually cares about support. There are definitely places that treat it as a revolving door position and won't pay much. It's also worth noting that from what I've seen, companies are much more willing to have distributed support teams than dev teams, due to the value of having support availability in multiple timezones. I actually telecommute four days a week in my current role.