Ask HN: Revitalizing a career: how do I escape CRUD hell?

There was never any smooth transition for me. You do it by doing it. Sometimes you have to quit your job. Sometimes you apply for a job you don't yet qualify for, at a pay cut. Sometimes you pay for classes. Sometimes you just sit down and code random stuff every night until someone notices.

When you have done something long enough, opportunities open. It's not because someone has been magically waiting for you. It's more that if you walk down a path, you'll find the other people walking that same path. Many of whom are also much, much more experienced but they've been in your place and are happy to mentor you.

But one catch is you have to already be experienced enough. Build things with a target to get it done in 2 or so weeks max (part time). Then the next thing at 4 weeks. That's one approach.

Draw stuff you see on Codepen. Build a thing in React. Make games. Turn your phone into a massage tool. Make a raytracer. Make a proper AI thing. You want to solve minimum level problems, not do advanced hello worlds, and get a feel for the whole cycle.

Figure out what you'd be doing if you didn't have to earn a salary, spend six months doing a side-project and/or contributing to a related libre-software project in this area.

Chances are you'll make new friends in the process and, in my experience, chances are that new friends will lead to new job opportunities.

Caveat: This is not a lucrative strategy, but it is a sustainable strategy.

I always recommend consulting at a quality firm. I recommend consulting because you almost never get put on a project that matches your skillset exact or at all! I'm a fullstack dotnet developer and I got put on a Kotlin mobile app assignment because "well you know react". Pick something that isn't staff augmentation and that has relatively short assignments of < 1 year and enjoy your skill expansion.

Go to management, take a huge paycut, consulting or grind to work in a big tech that typically will send you to work on whatever project they need you on.

Those are the possibilities. Of course, you could also do something different, like entrepreneurship, but for most of us (including me), that isn't a possibility.

Are you livestreaming coding, by any chance? I'm sure there are lots of useful things and goodies you could share with the rest of the world.

Also, this could give you an opportunity to escape the corporate CRUD development by teaching yourself new technologies while sharing your adventure with us.

Become a solopreneur and escape the rat race as well. You can do that with your CRUD skills.

Try management, you can always keep coding on the side.

Try to change your mindset to look at it as a way to make money and that's enough.

Java is much worse. You can learn embedded, but it's a different world and doesn't pay much.