Reasons 1 and 2 are not good reasons to stay, but reasons 3 requires a bit more prep/work to rectify.
I would really appreciate any advice HN can provide about how I can use the next 4-5 months to upskill and get interview fit?
I think answering these questions might help the rest of HN provide more relevant insight. If you're just chasing a larger paycheck, I think the best bet is still MANGA/FAANG. No lack of documentation out there about landing jobs at those companies.
In terms of a new Job, I am looking for work I find engaging, with a mission that I think is worthwhile (Which for me could be anything from useful business enabling tech like Stripe. Uni / Training websites like Udacity / Coursera, or a non-profit. I don't particularly care about tech stack as long as its in some way used across the industry.
I am worried that my tech skills have atrophied mostly because I find the projects that I have been working on for the last 3 years have been very low velocity due to a massive development team (1000+) and a lot of bureaucracy. I have written <1000 SLOC this year. A lot of time is spent doing devops work (which i never wanted but thats how my position evolved) and documentation/process design and execution.
Regarding paycheck - for me personally that't not a motivation. Tech salaries where I live are universally more than enough.
What's the next step? Apply for new stack with existing resume? Do you try to work in new stack at current role?
How does one acual transition?
For some details this friend has 20 years with php/jquery experience.. a year as an angularjs developer along the way and wants to be part of a react / vue ecosystem but has a hard time of letting go of php.
In terms of becoming skillful enough to pass interviews testing stack specific knowledge I've seen two strategies be broadly successful:
1. Take 1-2 months full time to work on a serious project in the stack. 2. Spend 1-2 years just being in the ecosystem and absorbing the collective groupthink, doing a few tutorials and occasionally hacking together small projects. A couple hours of your time per week throughout the process.
