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This is exactly why I gave up a position as a full stack / devops engineer in favor of going back to low level drivers - there were too many unknowns, and far t

This is exactly why I gave up a position as a full stack / devops engineer in favor of going back to low level drivers - there were too many unknowns, and far too many unknown unknowns often paired with expectations of prompt (and cheap) solutions to complicated issues. Technically it was interesting and challenging, but in terms of stress just not worth it. You could pay me twice my current salary and I still would not go back to it. Now I try to place myself as far away from paying customers as technically possible.

thor_molecules 2y ago
> ...far too many unknown unknowns often paired with expectations of prompt (and cheap) solutions to complicated issues. That describes pretty much all of my "full-stack" experience. What sort of job/background do you have where you are writing low level drivers? I'd love to get into that side of things but I don't know where to start.
- ZaoLahma 2y ago
  Telecom and automotive. I guess hobby robotics, for example, could get you an entry to it if you choose to write the hardware interfacing parts yourself.
AlotOfReading 2y ago
Oncall is becoming popular even for low level. My last few roles have all required it for reasons I've been unable to figure out beyond "all developers need on-call and you're a developer". In my case, a fix often requires hardware access and my commute is longer than the start-work SLA.
tenacious_tuna 2y ago
How'd you manage the transition (back?) to low-level? I would love to do chip work (or really anything systems-y) but all my experience is fullstack/webdev. Every time I apply I get bounced for insuffficient domain experience.
- ZaoLahma 2y ago
  I started off my career in low level stuff and transitioned upwards to web. I’ve always been all over the place in terms of tech so it wasn’t particularly big steps either way. I’ve usually got something low level-ish going on at home. Emulator development, robotics, …

thor_molecules 2y ago

> ...far too many unknown unknowns often paired with expectations of prompt (and cheap) solutions to complicated issues. That describes pretty much all of my "full-stack" experience. What sort of job/background do you have where you are writing low level drivers? I'd love to get into that side of things but I don't know where to start.

ZaoLahma 2y ago
Telecom and automotive. I guess hobby robotics, for example, could get you an entry to it if you choose to write the hardware interfacing parts yourself.

AlotOfReading 2y ago

Oncall is becoming popular even for low level. My last few roles have all required it for reasons I've been unable to figure out beyond "all developers need on-call and you're a developer". In my case, a fix often requires hardware access and my commute is longer than the start-work SLA.

tenacious_tuna 2y ago

How'd you manage the transition (back?) to low-level? I would love to do chip work (or really anything systems-y) but all my experience is fullstack/webdev. Every time I apply I get bounced for insuffficient domain experience.

ZaoLahma 2y ago
I started off my career in low level stuff and transitioned upwards to web. I’ve always been all over the place in terms of tech so it wasn’t particularly big steps either way. I’ve usually got something low level-ish going on at home. Emulator development, robotics, …