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Conversely, if you spent 3 years writing Erlang, you are suddenly not one of a hundreds of thousands of candidates, but a part of a much smaller pool, and havin

Conversely, if you spent 3 years writing Erlang, you are suddenly not one of a hundreds of thousands of candidates, but a part of a much smaller pool, and having an expertise in a semi-esoteric language along whatever mainstream languages you know is a strong signal that you’re not just an average bear. It also means you’re competing in a much smaller market and people looking for strong Erlang developers will be suddenly very interested in you specifically, because it’s tough to find strong candidates with this expertise. It also might mean (depending on your interests) that positions that are open are in a more intellectually interesting problem space, because boring problems tend to be solved in the lowest common denominator languages, and if an unusual language is chosen, it might be chosen because it’s a being used in a unique context.

scarface74 4y ago
Yes I’m sure all of the large tech companies are solving boring problems using popular languages.
- aeontech 4y ago
  Ok, but do you really think you’d have a hard time finding work with your xx years of experience, regardless of what language you have been most recently working in? As in, reductio ad absurdum, “if only I had been working in Java, I’d be safe, but because I worked in Ruby, I am going have to go flip burgers, as no one will let me near their precious production code now?” I mean, yeah, ok, there was the dotcom bust, and I suppose another could happen at any point, but somehow I get the impression that you’re arguing that using any language except the most mainstream option (whatever that might be for a given industry) is too risky? Or am I misreading?
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Well, I wouldn’t have a hard time finding a job in my current speciality cloud architect/cloud dev because of where I work and what I do. No one would ignore my resume. But in the boring enterprise dev world where I came from especially during the latter part where I was specifically being hired to lead initiatives, of course they wanted someone with relevant experience.
- guhidalg 4y ago
  Yes they are.

scarface74 4y ago

Yes I’m sure all of the large tech companies are solving boring problems using popular languages.

aeontech 4y ago
Ok, but do you really think you’d have a hard time finding work with your xx years of experience, regardless of what language you have been most recently working in? As in, reductio ad absurdum, “if only I had been working in Java, I’d be safe, but because I worked in Ruby, I am going have to go flip burgers, as no one will let me near their precious production code now?” I mean, yeah, ok, there was the dotcom bust, and I suppose another could happen at any point, but somehow I get the impression that you’re arguing that using any language except the most mainstream option (whatever that might be for a given industry) is too risky? Or am I misreading?
- scarface74 4y ago
  Well, I wouldn’t have a hard time finding a job in my current speciality cloud architect/cloud dev because of where I work and what I do. No one would ignore my resume. But in the boring enterprise dev world where I came from especially during the latter part where I was specifically being hired to lead initiatives, of course they wanted someone with relevant experience.
guhidalg 4y ago
Yes they are.