I think you want to start as a junior SUPPORT for an in house development you admire or is willing to pay you. After you know how to SUPPORT their awesome prod

I think you want to start as a junior SUPPORT for an in house development you admire or is willing to pay you. After you know how to SUPPORT their awesome product you learn their stack. When you can demonstrate competence in their stack you talk them into promoting you to CODE SUPPORT, which means you now bug hunt and attempt a patch for the tickets you were once creating. After a year of code support you will achieve: * that samurai coding ethos you look for (competent in and out, fix and move on). * intimate knowledge of the in house stack * demonstrated competence After this you move to FEATURE development After this when a new infrastructure choice comes up, you volunteer and make a compelling comparative case. Some day, yours will be chosen and you may work your way up to that leet coder exaltation you seek. Meanwhile, choose a side(s)! Python, JavaScript (TypeScript?), Rust, Go, etc. It’s like vi and emacs, one will just “feel right to you” and there will be a market for that.