Developer Career Pivots: Making the Transition Without Regret

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Hey folks, we're going to experience devs for a topic. This one is about pivoting from areas. Um, and it's kind of just an opened question I thought it might be interesting to talk about. So, uh, when they say pivoting from areas, I guess they mean like different domains in your career. And if you've pivoted, you know, why? Or have you considered going back and what does that look like? So, you know, from I don't know, my perspective in this conversation, I'll just be sharing different things about my experience, but hopefully like I mean, the goal that I have with this is just to get you thinking. So, depending on your career so far, have you also done switches between different things? if you're thinking back as we talk through this, you know, are there parts of what you were doing before that you missed that you you really enjoyed or the other way, right?

Like are you doing things now where you're like, "Wow, it was really good to move away from X because I didn't really enjoy that or whatever, right?" And I think it could be very interesting depending on um your current experience level and stuff like that just to to do this kind of reflection. So, I guess to to start things off for me, I actually spent like a what I still think over half of my time programming has been on desktop development for Windows. So, uh realizing some people might not even know what I'm talking about, which is scary. Uh but like Windforms and WPF specifically. So um when I started programming there was a lot of like I used VB6 right in the beginning and then it was kind of into VB.NET and C very early on but uh a lot of the stuff that

I was you know building even before I was working was uh like desktop applications for Windows right like literally form applications that you can you have buttons and stuff on and you're pressing. So I built a lot of stuff like that and then basically aside from I guess it wasn't every single internship I had but out of six of them I guess was it three three for sure were also building uh like wind forms and WPF applications. So, uh I mean I I had that experience literally as an intern and then when I started working full-time, it was also directly into that for 8 years. So, like I'm trying to think that's what I've been programming for around 21 years and it's really been only the last five that aren't uh that aren't desktop development. Um last five and a half.

So a significant amount of my time as a software developer has been in in the desktop app space and there are I want to talk about this from a technology perspective but also like the domain right because yes that is the technical sort of domain but it's not the necessarily the domain of like I don't know the the customers we're serving right so I want to talk about that too but uh from a technical perspective. Part of me was like that was enough time in that area like that kind of technical space that I I actually was feeling like an expert which is pretty cool and even today like I do a lot more um like web app development and ASP.NET net core. And yes, I have many more years of experience under my belt now to kind of support that.

But I still compared to like what I was doing as a wind form and WPF developer, like I I feel like I knew the inner mechanics of what was going on and now I feel a lot less like that. Um, which is kind of interesting. So, um, at at the time I I feel like you could have given me any problem in Windforms and WPF and I would have find ways to solve it. Like I was using, uh, WPF inside of uh, like video games I was making. Um, I was doing like custom painting onto to Windform and WPF surfaces for for like you know streaming video and stuff. So there I knew like the technology uh where the limits were supposed to be and then how other people were kind of stepping over those boundaries to do things.

So I I felt like I don't know I felt like I had a tool that that maybe wasn't supposed to be used in certain ways but because I was good with the tool I could I could make it work. And I do kind of miss having that kind of skill set. But I also think that skill set just comes with time, right? Because as I just told you, that's like what 15 15 years of building with two technologies that are similar in overlap. So um I have not been doing that with ASP uh Net Core for that long or really anything else. So I feel like that's kind of expected that I'd be lagging behind on that. By how much? I I don't really know. Like I said, a lot more experience now. So maybe would I expect my learning rate to be um to be better to have a base of knowledge that kind of carries me?

And I think the answer is yes. But um I think it's just going to still take more time before I feel that level of comfort. So I do miss that kind of thing. But at the same time from a technology perspective uh if you follow me on social media platforms like I periodically ask about people uh and what they're building right and and I one of my survey questions is around like are you doing desktop development is it dead and there are still tons of people that will chime in and say nope like how could you possibly say desktop development's dead right because they they work in a domain that is uh primarily having things that are built on desktop apps still. And you have other people that will chime in and say, "Well, yeah, desktop apps make no sense. Why would you build for seemingly a single platform when you could build a web app?" Like, why would you ever do that?

And like neither of those are necessarily wrong. For people that have domain specific things that need a desktop app, like yeah, like build it if it makes sense, right? It's the technology choice. Um so maybe we'll park that. Um when it comes to domains, I think the the areas that I've worked in are let's see from like an internship perspective. I did some some stuff for operating room. So like some medical type work. I have done uh embedded software for um for embedded devices essentially. Uh the the context there was around like needleless injectors, but I'm not going to call that a domain necessarily. It was really just uh yeah development for embedded devices. So um that was pretty that was really interesting. I had an internship that was building essentially like uh mobile applications but for um for corporate. So it wasn't like build a game or build like a a consumer phone app.

It was like a phone app that was intended for corporate use. Uh also interesting, but the tech stack like wasn't my favorite because it was all uh the Apple ecosystem. I just don't enjoy that really. I've built stuff for um what's a good way to explain this? It was for for bank machines like ATMs, but it allowed users to customize um it was like management software if I can call it that way. Management software for for bank machines, which is also interesting. Uh I did digital forensics for eight years and honestly like that I think for a few different reasons that will always have like a place in my heart. um really really enjoyed that like a lot of interesting problems to solve and of course now I work uh in like Microsoft 365 so uh deployment across uh data centers in the world and now routing.

So, if I think back on those things, like the the digital forensics one is the one that stands out for me the most as uh sort of an interesting space, an engaging space. The I don't think that I'm s like I thought that I would be um more motivated by like embedded development and I that kind of comes from when I was a lot younger. I always thought that that was going to be the thing for me. Like I think as a kid like the idea of robots and stuff like that. So doesn't it make sense that embedded development would have been that cool bridge between these worlds? And like I don't know for me the answer is not really. Um there's something about doing uh embedded development that just isn't as interesting as I would have thought for myself.

Um and the other domains like again when I reflect on them now like a corporate web app or corporate mobile app like not really uh the medical device stuff not really uh management software like not not really. Um but what was cool about all of those domains uh especially compared to what I do now is prototyping. So I spent a lot of my career across all of those areas I just said most of them at least there was prototyping. So even like as an example when I was doing the uh the corporate mobile app um we had you know features I was building into this application. It was like a document viewer uh an annotation software and I I got to even prototype in there like I was getting through the the backlog of items that my my my manager at the time was giving me and um and he was he was good like uh he was trying to keep me challenged in like creative ways.

So, uh, when I worked at that internship, I was under a few people from Nvidia that were like, uh, truly like what I would I don't know. I don't think I've worked with anyone that, uh, that's been like technically more intelligent. Just like three people that were insane, uh, in a good way. And so, I think he could see how I was building software and was like, "Okay, like I can give this guy challenges." But he was challenging me in ways that were like absolutely steps ahead of where I was. Um, and we got to do some prototyping that way. Like, do we absolutely need this in the product? No. But like, if you can build it and I can challenge you to build it, then like this could be an interesting thing that we explore. And maybe Nick, what you're about to build isn't the finished product, but it kind of gives us some proof that we could do something like this.

And so uh I feel like I got to do some prototyping there. Uh in the digital forensic space uh I I ran prototyping teams. So that's always been something that has really stood out to me. And I think that's probably one of the reasons why in some of those domains I really enjoyed that. And it's something I do miss now. Um especially like as a manager that is not actively writing code, I do miss the prototyping part. Um I do find that the parts that get me more engaged like specifically in my role. Um on the technical side, let's say, because there's a lot to to what's going on in general, but on the technical side, I do miss things like prototyping. So there there's times where like a team will reach out and because we like I I manage the firewall for Microsoft 365, there's times where it's like, hey, we have, you know, whatever either challenge or area that we're investing into.

Is there some opportunity when we're talking about the firewall? Like is there something we could explore there? For me, that gets me excited, right? Because sure, that could just be more work and we're always doing a lot of things. So that part it's like a man like more work but at the same time it's like wait a second is there something interesting or cool we could be doing here because that's where the excitement turns on for me uh on the technical side at least. So I do miss having like a a role that is more focused on prototyping. Um, and that's going to kind of bridge me to my last part of the conversation here, which is like um at like a a macro level. I went from doing a lot of small company startup kind of stuff for a lot of my career, including internships and um like I think from an internship perspective, I had six internships.

only one of them was at a larger company. Not even like big tech but larger like on the order of like a 100 to 200 people kind of thing I think maybe a little more. And so I always kind of had those vibes going on uh when I worked at the digital forensics company that was scaled from like when I was there on like 7ish people to like 250ish. Now I'm at Microsoft. So the I think part of what I do miss and it's kind of like different eras in my my career though uh I definitely miss like the small company kind of uh ability to to just be so nimble in what we're doing. I think about prototyping that way a lot. Like try things like get answers and like throw it away or push it forward, right? Like that feedback loop is is really a really tight feedback loop and I like that a lot.

Um and sometimes I feel like I miss that a lot. So I can imagine for you know and I I don't have the answers here but I can imagine for myself in my career that uh at some point finding my way back to either uh you know a space within a large company that allows for that because it's kind of built into the work that's being done. Um we're going to do it. Nice. Okay. Traffic was coming pretty fast but we had the opening. uh I can imagine myself finding uh you know a team or domain like that in a larger company or you know at some point that means you know leaving Microsoft and and doing something uh on a on a different scale. So I I do feel like that calls for me.

And not that there's an urgency or I'm sitting here going like, "Oh man, like I dread going to work because I don't have this." But I think doing the reflection makes me realize that is a thing that I really love. Like that keeps me engaged. Having a really tight feedback loop that way. And having that allows me to be a little bit more um I don't know like flexible in the domain that I work in. So, if you gave me a domain that maybe wasn't super interesting to me personally, uh, like agriculture or something, right? Not super into that, but if you gave me, uh, you know, a set of problems in that kind of space and a really tight feedback loop, that might be something that I could get really engaged with because I can build things, uh, get answers, get the feedback, change direction, blah, blah, blah, keep moving.

So, um I think those go hand in hand. Um from a domain perspective, from like the customer side of things though, like yeah, if I could be picky, would it be agriculture? Like no. Um personally, but like what what would it be? I still have this like this thing in me that's like I I would love to make games. I've never actually done that at a scale where I had people playing them. It was always I like making games because I like playing games. So part of me is like that's sort of this unchartered territory for myself. Like could I do that for real? Um makes me a little nervous to think about like actually it's more than that. It makes me pretty pretty uneasy to like envision doing that for work if I'm being honest.

Um the the forensic stuff was uh extremely engaging, motivating, like all all I don't know all the the good words because there was this um this understanding that the work we were doing was truly impactful and like direct. I don't know. I don't have a good way to say it. Like when you hear how your software is being used, um it's just truly Yeah. Like it's truly incredible to know um the type of impact that it's having. And so obviously I'm at Microsoft and the impact we have is at a huge scale, but it's just different, right? Um it's different knowing that you're helping like, you know, law enforcement like with helping save kids and stuff like that. So um having something that is deeply connected like that I think is uh also something that I I miss. So just some thoughts right maybe helpful for you to think about.

Uh there's no parking spots. It's the worst. Okay. Um I got to do something a little crazy here. Can I car? No. Okay, we'll do a little little turn around. Get ourselves parked. How are we doing? Are we in the lines? I see a line. We did it. Beautiful stuff. Okay. Well, that's it, folks. Um I hope I don't know. Hope you can kind of go through and think about that for your own career. Um and if you are kind of just starting or haven't really started, something to think about, right? There's going to be different stages in your career, different things you're focused on. And I do encourage you to keep an open mind. Um, think about what you're enjoying. And if you're a few years into something and you're like, I wonder if there's more, explore. Okay? If you got questions, leave them below in the comments or go to codecame.com and submit questions anonymously.

Thank you so much. See you in the next one.