How do I get out of kdb+/q (and other niches)

Super interesting, I work in finance and love it, but I loathe kdb: it's impossible to read your own code 2 weeks later, every function is one letter, so go google what -9!' does exactly, quants work in isolation rather than in teams so code sharing is done via mounting the prod shared drive with all the prod code and so on.

I d suggest you do the contrary of me (who dabbles in KDB to help the Quants out of their mess) and try to join / work on more java/C++ features where you are so you can gain xp.

I worked on Filenet and Neoxam based systems. Try to get some certs, like AWS. See if there is any common stuff between your current job and desired job you can learn, like scripting.

Sometimes it can be easier to switch at the same company. See if you can get into a different team that works with the newer tech. If you are switching companies you may need to take a pay and/or title cut.

I work in finance too and hate it. I'm not sure anywhere else would be better though.

I would guess it would take you upwards of 24 hours to get out if you wanted to.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time recently reading about kdb (and family) and I’d think a lot of the skills you need to use it are very applicable to other systems. You may even be further ahead of the game than you realize. The main gap I’d guess would be the jump from finance process to product process. That’s just time and I’d just start interviewing.

KDB is trying to expand out of the finance niche into other applications no? Is that a viable path? Is KDB competitive in other sectors?

How do you get into it? And how much does a mid-level kdb dev make?