How do I shift programming specialties?

Question

I've worked as an engineer in the mobile industry in Silicon Valley for the past 6 years. I've published a short book about Android and I've written code embedded in millions of handsets.

If I wanted to diversify or movie into a different field, how would I go about it? I know from experience that large scale web engineers make really crappy embedded system engineers. I would assume that the reverse is true....but how do I break the mold? I don't have time to start up a large scale side project/website. I'd rather not take an entry level job and start over. Is there another way to shift expertise?

Have any of you attempted and succeeded in a task like this? How'd you pull it off?

Answer 1

I've done everything from huge assembly language products to thousands of lines of JavaScript. It's all a matter of what is so interesting to you that you can't help but dive in and learn it.

Answer 2

The trick to changing specialties, disciplines or even careers is to leverage what you already know.

Ok, so you've written embedded systems for mobile phones, possibly even written apps (or libraries for apps) on Android. So what you want to do is find something where that background is useful. I'm not sure what exactly. Possibly iphone development (either apps or Websites that run well on it)? Of course iphone development isn't the same as Android but you'll find many of the same issues: creating effective interfaces on small screens, etc.

Web development is like any other field: it has knowledge and skills that are particular to it. You'd have to pick those skills up and basically you'll need to do that on your own time or you will be taking quite a low level job. The key ones that come to mind are:

• HTML
• CSS
• XML
• Javascript
• Possibly certain Javascript frameworks like jQuery
• Web-centric languages and frameworks like PHP, Ruby on Rails, C# with ASP.NET, Java, etc

Not only do you need to pick those up but you have to be able to demonstrate your knowledge (or willingness to learn) to a prospective employer and without that background you'll probably find that (rightly or wrongly) you'll have a hard time getting your foot in the door.

Why are you switching, if I may ask?

Answer 3

To paraphrase: it seems that you are noting that you don't have time outside of work to pick up something new and don't want to start (financially) at "entry-level", but you do want to work in a new field nonetheless.

The situation that has worked for me in the past has been working for a company where the engineers "wear multiple hats": e.g. a contract engineering company. In a company with a fixed staff that does multiple tasks such as building hardware, developing firmware, creating web applications/site, developing software on multiple platforms, etc., people tend to be more generalists. The types of products that a contract engineering company will be hired to create can vary greatly...

Working in such a space opens one up to new opportunities and broad knowledge (and sometimes you can be forced into unfamiliar territory, which makes one "swim or sink" - a definite incentive to learn new skills quickly). You may be doing what you are most competent with most of the time (especially early on), but with drive and interest it is possible to become comfortable in seemingly different areas.

Then again, if you are in a larger (non-contract engineering) company there may be opportunities to work on other tasks outside of your general field of knowledge. Look for something relatively small and manageable that needs to be done, request the opportunity, and then do it quickly with as much competency as you can muster. If you prove yourself once, there may be more opportunities you can claim. You likely won't get what you don't ask for, so be persistent.

Answer 4

For what it's worth I'd offer a few suggestions.

1.) If your current employer is pretty happy with you then they'll be willing to help you out if you want try something new. How that looks will depend on your situation but it's worth going that route since you already spend a lot of time on the job and changing jobs might be more annoying these days.

2.) You could build something and learn the technology you'd rather work with than what you're doing now. If it's cool post it and use that to bridge to another job.

3.) You could pick something where there aren't many people doing it now anyway (e.g. Python or Ruby) and you can just sell yourself into a job. This wasn't hard when .Net was new (in my experience at least).

The best thing is to do is just to stay focused and let the process take you where it takes you. Often times setting out to do one thing will lead you with something totally different and much better for you anyway so it's worth exploring. Good luck!

Answer 5

To be blunt, it depends how good you are. If you are really good, it shouldn't be hard to find a new employer who believes that "you can train somebody smart, but you can't smarten somebody trained." Then you can learn on the job. If you can't wow potential employers with the quality of your thinking and your design skills, I don't see another path than to start acquiring and demonstrating mastery of the technology and knowledge of the particular subject area.

Getting up to speed on a new area takes time. For most engineers I've worked with, it seems to take about two years for them to reach their full potential in a new field. If you narrow your focus sufficiently, you can start to be productive much earlier, but I think it will help you to acknowledge explicitly that you expect your level of mastery of the new technologies to improve significantly from whatever it is on your start date.

Answer 6

Work on embedded device network management. You work on the electronics, assembly, network protocols all the way up the stack to HTML, Javascript, and HCI design. Most network management interfaces for embedded devices leaves something to be desired, so there's plenty of room to innovate better solutions.