There was a deleted comment saying that it helps if you learn your domain and bring skills/knowledge aside from just programming. I agree, although I think it a

There was a deleted comment saying that it helps if you learn your domain and bring skills/knowledge aside from just programming. I agree, although I think it also helps if you have a non-CS background relevant to this sort of thing, as it implies some base level of knowledge too. I've met people that have been in one domain for a long time but still don't understand it, so it's not a given. My background is in Physics but I've worked on software in the Engineering industry now for 10 years nearly. My most recent project at work drew on maths I used in my doctorate (various bits of Fourier analysis applied to mechanical systems). Not that someone who hadn't got my background couldn't do it but I could jump on that project and finish it in 2 months and I doubt anyone else in my team could have picked it up and done it in less than 6-9 months just because of the research and needing to understand the maths + algorithms. I regularly get contacted by companies working in the same or adjacent domains, whereas some of my more 'pure' software friends are hearing nothing at the moment.