I've been thinking an enormous amount about my career lately. So much so that it's almost making me sick. Here are some decisions, convictions, questions, and internal debates I've had in my head for the last several months.
- Ruby is the next language I'll be programming in professionally.
- Should I wait for IronRuby to mature and stay in the .NET market, or seek a job at a company that is already using Ruby?
- There are hardly any companies in Grand Rapids doing Ruby. Should I give up on it? Is it a pipe dream that I might one day get an awesome job doing Ruby in my hometown? Will Ruby ever take off in smaller job markets (like Grand Rapids) as .NET and Java have?
- Should I put my learning-energy into my current job doing .NET, or should I shoot for the stars and put my energy into my next career doing Ruby? In the immortal words of B. Rabbit, should I stop living up here, and start living down here?
- At my current job, custom web development is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The job I thought I was taking, doing custom web development with ASP.NET, C#, SQL Server, etc., apparently doesn't exist anymore. It's now SharePoint, SharePoint, SharePoint. SharePoint is our golden hammer, and all of our clients look like nails. Well, you know what? Fuck SharePoint. I fucking hate SharePoint. It's a nightmare platform. I could continue to rant and rave, but I don't want to offend anyone who makes their living on SharePoint, so I'll just say "it's not for me", and move on. As I've said on twitter (and I stand by this today), the day I become a "SharePoint developer" is the day I quit my job.
- So if I don't like SharePoint, what future do I have in the .NET space? Well, as it turns out, we're seeing a lot of interest in Silverlight from our clients apparently. Could I have a future in the .NET space if I could become interested and well-versed in Silverlight? I don't know. Silverlight is very new, and I have no idea what the developer experience is like.
Thoughts? Opinions? Mockery? Chastisement?
12 comments:
*sigh* Are you serious with this post?
If you don't like what you're doing, quit. It's that simple. If you want to do Ruby professionally, do it. If you can't do it in GR, either make it possible by convincing your employer it's the best tool for the job or move on.
I just heard today about a long-term .NET (2+ year) gig in GR. Maybe you just need to explore your .NET options in GR.
The fact is, you need to man up and figure it out. Constant whining on twitter about how much you hate what you're doing isn't gonna change anything. Telling us all how much you hate Sharepoint isn't going to change anything. If you don't like doing it, stop doing it.
You're in control of your career.
:-)
"The fact is, you need to man up and figure it out. Constant whining on twitter about how much you hate what you're doing isn't gonna change anything. Telling us all how much you hate Sharepoint isn't going to change anything. If you don't like doing it, stop doing it."
Yes, you're right. I was worried that my thoughts had escalated to the point of whining...and that's not good for anyone. :-)
It's easy to complain. I've been avoiding some hard decisions that I obviously need to make.
Thanks for the slap in the face, man. I needed that! :-)
Well, whatever your employer seems to think, custom web development is anything but dead. Platforms like Sharepoint (or, in my case, Expression Engine) are great for some things, but as soon as that pre-fabricated solution doesn't fit, development is a nightmare. I find custom development to be easier than writing terrible modules to make your platform do something it was never intended to do.
I wouldn't get too hung up on Ruby though. If you *must* be a Ruby developer and aren't interested in moving then start your own company on the side. You might even want to do that as a .NET developer if you can't find a worthwhile employer.
It's a pretty tough decision to make, and I've contemplated it myself, but I've yet to get up enough courage to take the plunge. I think it's inevitable though. If your work is more than a paycheck and you want to be doing exactly what you want, you'll either have to work for yourself, or work with like-minded people.
"You might even want to do that as a .NET developer if you can't find a worthwhile employer."
I want to make it clear that I'm not trashing my employer, but I can see how what I've written could give that impression. They're just really into SharePoint, and I'm really not.
"It's a pretty tough decision to make, and I've contemplated it myself, but I've yet to get up enough courage to take the plunge. I think it's inevitable though. If your work is more than a paycheck and you want to be doing exactly what you want, you'll either have to work for yourself, or work with like-minded people.
Yeah, I keep coming back to that, but I don't think I have the fortitude necessary to go indie. The biggest issue with going indie, is the fact that I'd have to be my own salesman. But I just don't have that personality. How the hell would I get clients?
In that case you might want to partner with somebody who's a good salesman, among other things. Assuming you've got the work to support two people, I imagine a partner would make things a lot easier. Each of you would have to wear half as many hats.
What you need to do is contact some local headhunters...email me and I'll hook you up with the names of some good ones I've dealt with in the GR area. Ask them how much, if any, Ruby work they're seeing. If none, you need to consider moving or focusing on something other than Ruby.
As for going indie...once you find a good headhunter to deal with, they can easily hook you up with some decent contracts to start with. That'll let you make some $$$ while you look for work yourself.
Wow Matt, you button-pusher you.
There is still custom dev to be had - outside of Sharepoint. That being said, MOSS is the "red pill" of the day, and yes that rabbit hole goes pretty deep (give up the next few years of your life).
I'd be interested to hear more about your "conversion" to Ruby. There are certainly functional and dynamic languages coming out from Microsoft and others that are also interesting. Plus frameworks such as MVC which is quite pattern oriented.
One other thing - your new top-dogs are "Enterprise" focused which makes them multi-platform. If you have a good enough reason(s) for your Ruby-love then a well-placed recommendation may find you a place within the larger organization that can fill your Ruby need - best case you are one of the charter members of the group.
My $.02 - wish I could buy you an e-Beer - don't drink and blog.
@Michael
"What you need to do is contact some local headhunters...email me and I'll hook you up with the names of some good ones I've dealt with in the GR area. Ask them how much, if any, Ruby work they're seeing."
I've already done that actually. I contacted the two most competent headhunters I knew in Grand Rapids and asked them exactly that about a month ago. Their response was that there is a small amount of demand, but neither of them have yet alerted me to any specific openings that have come up.
@Bruce
"There are certainly functional and dynamic languages coming out from Microsoft and others that are also interesting. Plus frameworks such as MVC which is quite pattern oriented."
IronRuby, IronPython, F#, ASP.NET MVC, etc. are all very interesting, but how long must I wait for them? And when they're finally ready for prime time, will they even be relevant at my current job?
If you could look into a crystal ball and tell me that in the future my company will have a ton of custom web development projects for me to work on using ASP.NET MVC (or maybe even Rails) on top of IronRuby, I'd be happy as a clam. But I _really_ don't see that happening.
@matt, I think what it comes down to is putting a stake in the ground and saying "this is what I'm going to be doing in the next 6-12 months". If it's Ruby, cool. Move forward. If it's .NET, cool. Move forward.
Every second you spend worrying about it is another second spent *not* moving forward. Know what I mean?
You should approach the top tech guys at your company and ask them where they see the company going. If their answer is acceptable for you, great. If it's not what you're expecting, dig deeper. Find out if there's any hope of doing what you want to do at your current employer.
Combine that with your 6-12 month plan and....guess what? Move forward. :-)
@Michael
Yes, that's good advice. Thank you.
Analysis paralysis FTL.
I FUCKING HATE SHAREPOINT TOO MAN!!!! I FEEL YA!!! DAMN CRAPPY CRAP!
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