Hey HN community,
I'm looking for some guidance on restarting my career as a backend API developer. Currently, I have experience in PHP, NodeJS and Python, but I want to pivot towards working with compiled programming languages like C, C++, Rust, Go, or Zig. I believe these languages can offer benefits such as faster response times and the ability to compile code into bytecode for deployment.
I would appreciate your insights and suggestions on the following aspects:
Community: Which programming languages have thriving communities and active developer support? It's essential for me to have resources and a community where I can seek assistance and learn from others.
Bytecode Compilation: I'm interested in languages that can be compiled into bytecode or have similar deployment options. This will enable me to efficiently deploy my code to production environments.
Performance: Given that I aim to work on backend APIs, speed and response time are crucial factors. I'd like to explore languages that can deliver fast response times and perform well in production environments.
I value your expertise and experience, so any advice or recommendations you can offer regarding the languages I should consider, learning resources, or other relevant aspects would be highly appreciated.
Thank you all for your support!
It might sound like I'm being flip, but I'm not. The problem is that following this advice is difficult. It might involve, for example, ignoring the tasks you are actually supposed to be working on, and doing other tasks instead which are more aligned with your career progression. This could have the affect of pissing off your boss, or getting you fired if you're not careful. This is a line that you have to toe if you want to change your career path swiftly.
It may involve, as another example, deleting most items from your resume, so that it contains only the things you want to work on. If your resume is then missing too much, you'll need to find creative ways to gain experience, such as doing meaningful work for open source projects. If you have a comfortable savings, one thing you could do would be take a year off work to spend time on gaining skills, notoriety, and personal connections via open source projects which you could then put on your resume.
To reiterate: you will do more of what you work on. So, do everything you can to avoid spending time on the wrong kind of tasks for your goals.