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Meh, I've worked 15 years almost entirely at companies using almost entirely in-house technology. Maybe it's because I don't interview for web-tech roles, but I

Meh, I've worked 15 years almost entirely at companies using almost entirely in-house technology. Maybe it's because I don't interview for web-tech roles, but I really have never had any problems getting opportunities, and I don't think I'm unique. I think buzzwords are less relevant if you have any amount of specialist skills or significant experience. For instance, I constantly head hunted for jobs with Unreal Engine and/or Unity, and the fact that I haven't used them significantly doesn't really affect that much.

xwowsersx 7y ago
I agree with this. It's true that there may be less liquidity in the market outside of web tech stuff, but it's not all jobs. There are plenty of companies looking for people with either a) specialist skills which aren't web or b) good engineer skills generally (agnostic as to specific tech) Not all companies are playing buzzword bingo.
Jestar342 7y ago
To counter your experience, mine (in London) was almost exactly what Animats described. I worked on the same application for a decade, we introduced new tech when appropriate, but we also stuck with the fundamentals we chose right at the start simply because they weren't broken. That did mean, however, that when I came to looking for a new role I was _way_ behind other candidates.
- zimpenfish 7y ago
  Adding my anecdata for London, yeah, if you haven't been tracking the bleeding edge of JS framework and node insanities, people will mark you down because everyone* is looking for "full stack devs". * Unless you want to do Perl maintenance or C++ for fintech, I suppose.
1_over_n 7y ago
This defaults to the assumption we are still talking about computing / programming skills and domain knowledge related to that. As another poster mentioned, do you think you would be constantly headhunted if you had a very narrow skillset in something more niche like nuclear fusion? The lens of the HN community is technology == computer science, when the main tool you have is a hammer. Everything looks like a nail.

xwowsersx 7y ago

I agree with this. It's true that there may be less liquidity in the market outside of web tech stuff, but it's not all jobs. There are plenty of companies looking for people with either a) specialist skills which aren't web or b) good engineer skills generally (agnostic as to specific tech) Not all companies are playing buzzword bingo.

Jestar342 7y ago

To counter your experience, mine (in London) was almost exactly what Animats described. I worked on the same application for a decade, we introduced new tech when appropriate, but we also stuck with the fundamentals we chose right at the start simply because they weren't broken. That did mean, however, that when I came to looking for a new role I was _way_ behind other candidates.

zimpenfish 7y ago
Adding my anecdata for London, yeah, if you haven't been tracking the bleeding edge of JS framework and node insanities, people will mark you down because everyone* is looking for "full stack devs". * Unless you want to do Perl maintenance or C++ for fintech, I suppose.

1_over_n 7y ago

This defaults to the assumption we are still talking about computing / programming skills and domain knowledge related to that. As another poster mentioned, do you think you would be constantly headhunted if you had a very narrow skillset in something more niche like nuclear fusion? The lens of the HN community is technology == computer science, when the main tool you have is a hammer. Everything looks like a nail.