WPF as a viable career focus?

[Hardgrafter]

Hi all. I'm 32 years old and retraining as a C# Dev. I'm 18 months into the journey. I'm working perm with a small company and now that I have a grasp of the basics I'm finding myself spending most of my time in the WPF Xaml & MVVM desktop environment.

My aim is to become a contractor in a few years. I know it is good to specialise and I have seen a few WPF specific contracts advertised although I've noticed that the vast majority of roles are web based (MVC, ASP.NET, HTM5 & Javascript etc.).

Do you see WPF as a viable specialism or am I better branching out and trying to get experience with the web through MVC, ASP.NET etc and becoming more of a jack of all trades?

Thanks.

[original PM]

jack of all trades is best

we have an app built using WPF but more and more we are using browser based solutions and I think that is the way the industry is going

so as many as you can confidently work in is the best option

[MacContractor]

If you want to contract for banks WPF is the way to go. I've a lot of friends making good money writing WPF code for banks. The only down side is that it's pretty much only banks that seem to use it!

[MyUserName]

The only real issue with WPF is that it is very popular so there is lots of competition for roles in it. Although it is a good thing to have on your cv you might struggle to build a reliable stream of contracts unless you have a strong history in it.

Rather than techs, what industry specific knowledge do you have/can you gain? Banking, telecoms, defense etc.?

If you have an industry that you can demonstrate experience in then you are in a far stronger situation imho. If you work in telecoms then you will learn the skills required in telecoms and, if you are good and lucky, can start bagging contracts in telecoms. Once you have a few contracts behind you you can look at your options over how to proceed. If you are trying to get into, for example, banking with no banking experience then (pretty much) forget it - there are hundreds of experience contractors with relevant experience competing with you.

[Hardgrafter]

Cheers guys. I'm in Oil & Gas so probably a good industry base.

I'd like to keep the Xaml thing going as I've invested quite a lot into it and the learning curve is steep but with Windows RT pretty much already dead & Windows 8 on it's arse that only leaves Silverlight & WPF.

Be interesting to see what happens with Windows 9 & if Microsoft keep Xaml alive.

I've also noticed almost all WPF gigs in banking, all London based. Good money but as you say, I don't have the industry experience.

Might be time for me to try & get some web development experience somewhere else...

[original PM]

not sure if Silverlight is a good option as I heard MS were dumping support for it.

MVC as what our dev team are using

MVVM seems to have died a bit of a death

having said that the more you know the more options you will have

[VectraMan]

Permie Co. built a prototype for an app in WPF (before my time), but decided it was way too slow and clunky and to write it in C++ instead.

I didn't think anybody used it much.

[denBen]

Cheers guys. I'm in Oil & Gas so probably a good industry base.

I'd like to keep the Xaml thing going as I've invested quite a lot into it and the learning curve is steep but with Windows RT pretty much already dead & Windows 8 on it's arse that only leaves Silverlight & WPF.

Be interesting to see what happens with Windows 9 & if Microsoft keep Xaml alive.

I've also noticed almost all WPF gigs in banking, all London based. Good money but as you say, I don't have the industry experience.

Might be time for me to try & get some web development experience somewhere else...

Hi mate, I am trying to PM you but there is no option on your profile. Have you disabled messages from members? It could be because I have just signed up and my account is still moderated. Drop me a PM if you can, I think we can have an interesting chat.

[MacContractor]

If you're looking to get into banking there's a fair few bank jobs up in Glasgow at the moment paying between £400 - £500 and I know for a fact that's they can't get enough WPF dev's. Could be your way in if you fancy working for a bank.

[Hardgrafter]

If you're looking to get into banking there's a fair few bank jobs up in Glasgow at the moment paying between £400 - £500 and I know for a fact that's they can't get enough WPF dev's. Could be your way in if you fancy working for a bank.

That would be fantastic however with only 18 months dev experience I think that's a little above my ability at this point.