Should I Change My Specialization Due to Market Saturation?

Question

As a Computer Science graduate with over a year of experience in Full Stack development, I recently faced an unexpected career transition. My previous employer, facing financial challenges, made the difficult decision to reduce their workforce, leading to my departure. With a background in both frontend and backend web development, I find myself navigating a job market that is increasingly competitive, particularly for remote positions which are my primary focus due to the scarcity of local development opportunities in my home country.Given these circumstances, I'm contemplating a strategic pivot in my career path. Considering the saturation in the web development sector, I'm evaluating the potential benefits of diversifying my skill set into areas such as Android or iOS development. My goal is to enhance my employability in the remote job market. I'm seeking advice on whether such a shift would likely improve my chances of securing a remote position, and if so, which platform might offer the best prospects.Thank you

sk11001 · Accepted Answer

The overall state of the software job market is quite poor so don't expect things to be much better if you switch to mobile. In fact you should expect it to be more difficult to find a job in mobile development because your experience is less relevant.

achempion · Answer

What is your evidence that investing time into mobile would increase the likelihood of finding a job? Would you pivot to something else when/if the mobile market also gets saturated?

gtirloni · Answer

Since you have experience with frontend, mobile apps seem like the logical choice here.
But web development is huge. Are you saying you can't find jobs that _pay well_? Maybe you can consider specializing further into web development for more lucrative types of business, go into consulting and charge per day/week instead of hourly, etc.
You haven't elaborated on what you have tried already so it's hard to say if you've exhausted your options in your current area.

VirusNewbie · Answer

Collecting specialities is important, but never think of yourself as a "front end engineer" or a "mobile developer", you're a software engineer that has happened to specialize in two previous fields.
My last three jobs I've done big data, SRE, network servers/socket programming, distributed systems, and more.
Some companies will hire you for your speciality, and others will hire you because you're good at learning a speciality, and they might have a new one they want to point you at.

jamil7 · Answer

Mobile is tricky, people mostly transfer into it from another specialisation and you’re expected to have a pretty deep knowledge of whichever platform you pick. If you go the Flutter/React Native route you’ll need experience on both and language experience in multiple languages.
Competition is less and saturation is less than web but there’s also far fewer jobs.
I’d second what others have said and hone your backend experience further and expand into devops.

GoldenMonkey · Answer

If you do go the mobile route. Android development has more demand. Apple has a lot of developers, android not so much.

aristofun · Answer

Yes, just go wherever wind blows. At least you&rsquo;ll improve the skill of switching career paths.

cranberryturkey · Answer

i'd say if you want to go mobile go with react native and expo.