How did you find a niche that was financially fulfilling?

Question

With mid-level software engineering experience I have discovered I don't really like modern web dev. I find the "old ways", before the cloud, and when more things were monolithic, to be more enjoyable to work with but that doesn't really sell jobs anymore.The topics I enjoy are more niche, like as computer graphics and emulation, and seeing if I can make a living off those rather easily. How did you find your niche, and turn it into work that pays well?And how can I make good with my niche interests? I should add I don't have an interest in running my own business, at least not right now. I prefer to work under a company leveraging my interests for several years before I decide to pursue my interests more independently.

thiago_fm · Accepted Answer

Just learn Rails, it's pretty much what you said. There's a bunch of people that kinda hate where things went, where it takes a couple of teams to do something simple.
Computer graphics and emulation can be hard to get into, lots of people working for free there. I also wished I could find a niche, but didn't manage to, so I'm trying to settle with what I still find some joy.
It's also a great framework for solo dev. I have been doing a lot of JS (+ microservices) for the past years and I can safely say that I'm at least 3x more productive just using Rails.
With JS I always need to pick up libraries, and this creates a lot of ambiguity as every developer likes to do things their own way, working in a team is typically hell.
There are companies that uses Rails and don't use React, nor use microservices, just focus on providing value to their customers.
Unlike the JS community that has plenty of devs, Rails isn't bringing enough new devs in, which makes also finding a job easier and jumping in from another lang into it.

throwawaysleep · Answer

Apathy and finding where the apathetic go, redirecting my time as I see fit.
I work for two boring tech firms in boring biz tech. Nobody at either job is passionate about their work. Nobody cares about the customer. There are fiefdoms waging war endlessly.
It is hell if you care about shipping good quality stuff, seeing to customer needs and not ripping them off, and getting things done quickly.
But in the last week I probably did 15 hours of total work between the two of them and spent the other 25 as I liked.

kamphey · Answer

Get found by people who are impressed with your work. That might mean posting on twitter or reddit or posting your work here on HN. But it also might mean joining some small semi-private communities and sharing your journey there. Once you find people are engaged and interested in what you're doing you can figure out what's externally fulfilling to others and find out what others might pay you to do. And this can definitely be done in the context of getting a job. Not applying to open jobs but finding people who are currently hiring or in a large org that can point you in the right direction.

zn44 · Answer

Find a company that does things you are interested in that is also hiring people with your skills (webdev?). Get a job there as backend Dev and after a while ask to transfer internally into role that's more interesting. Before you can ask for the transfer hang out and learn from people that do thee job you want