Career direction for a C# (ex VB) developer

[_V_]

I mean there are people like that but they are few and far between. And worth a fortune. Apart from anything else, many (most?) developers aren't very interested in sysadmin and most sysadmin are not good developers.

In a startup, or a tiny team, this IS exactly what you need arguably. In a big team it seems unworkable. Although, the principle every dev should at least know the ropes is reasonable... I have a huge hole when it comes to vsphere and all that VM stuff, which I just leave for someone else, and it always annoys me.

We have about 35 of them on our team.

You are expected to develop the code, create the build and deploy pipelines, script the cloud infrastructure required, from DNS setup, load balancers, message queues, SQL and no SQL databases, provision storage, script up monitoring, grafana dashboards, monitoring systems.

So ownership of everything, DevOps all the way.

Developers who cannot do all that leave via the door with a box in their hand.

[d000hg]

We have about 35 of them on our team.

You are expected to develop the code, create the build and deploy pipelines, script the cloud infrastructure required, from DNS setup, load balancers, message queues, SQL and no SQL databases, provision storage, script up monitoring, grafana dashboards, monitoring systems.

So ownership of everything, DevOps all the way.

Developers who cannot do all that leave via the door with a box in their hand.

I can do most of that - or quickly learn it - because we also have a lot of individual responsibility - but it doesn't mean I am good at all of it. In the same way I can do testing but I'm not a tester. It takes a lot of time to get good at coding, and a lot of time to get good at databases, and to get good at DevOps admin, yada yada. There aren't really any shortcuts.

If you've got a team like that, you are very lucky. Do they get paid very well or do they not realise how valuable they are?

[BigDataPro]

...Someone recently suggested to me the idea of working as a developer for an IT consultancy (as a permie, I guess); a medium to large type ...

My other idea is to go contracting.

It has been nearly 8 months since you asked the direction. Many invested their time to provide some of the best recommendations. Would you like to provide an update? Which direction did you take?

[jamsandwich]

Would you like to provide an update? Which direction did you take?

I ploughed on for a while in the job I was in. I got some great technical experience, but I still found it difficult and felt a lot of pressure. Eventually I felt I'd had enough and decided to quit and then take some time off.

I'm now carefully considering my next move. Don't want to end up feeling trapped in a situation I'm not happy with.

I'm currently thinking that contracting would be better for me than permie. At least it would be easier to move on every 6 to 12 months if I wanted to. Of course, I might not even have the option to stay longer than that, depending on what the end client wanted. I have been a contractor, albeit a long time ago, so I have some idea of the pros & cons.

[_V_]

I can do most of that - or quickly learn it - because we also have a lot of individual responsibility - but it doesn't mean I am good at all of it. In the same way I can do testing but I'm not a tester. It takes a lot of time to get good at coding, and a lot of time to get good at databases, and to get good at DevOps admin, yada yada. There aren't really any shortcuts.

If you've got a team like that, you are very lucky. Do they get paid very well or do they not realise how valuable they are?

Most earn between £110K to £150K pa I would say (before tax) depending on experience level.