What area? I've mostly quit software because of how much I hate working on complete garbage and also don't have the schooling/engineering skills to work on truly cool stuff. Pivoted to wood working.

Funny, I know a guy who was did woodworking (and construction) that pivoted to software.

I worked with him on a consulting project used by nearly 30 million people, great dude and great experience.

On the other hand, I didn't have an engineering degree, and worked on software for a major bank, and then a consulting company where I worked with ex-construction worker.

I found a gig on a team at another company where I make 40% more. The team I work on has zero real customers at this point, and we're doing real interesting stuff. We plan on converting our customer base over to the work my team has done, but that's still in the works.

Anyway, I think schooling isn't as important as people may think. You can learn some really cool and cutting edge things if you put your mind to it. And if those skills are marketable (not necessarily valuable, although companies might think so), you can get jobs utilizing those skills.

Tinkering with the tech you're interested in can be a good way to get into a position working on that piece of tech. It might not always work out, but it's worth a shot if you really want a fulfilling and interesting job in that area.

Been in the industry for over a decade most of which was in fintech, some in crypto. I don't count any of that as "cool". I've still got some years left because it's good money but eventually I want to pivot to wood working. I started working on my own apps this year and it's much more enjoyable.

This feels so true! I had a similar experience.. spent 3 years working for big US companies, completely focused on whatever trend would impress investors the most with no one giving any thought to what might actually be _useful_ for people who, you know, actually give us money.

Now I work for a small company doing very niche work and I don't think I could love my work more. I mean people do use our software, but there's no VC funding so no pretense of needing to hop on the latest bandwagon. It's just so much better.

That might look good in the short term, but there are many companies and roles which require you to show the actual number of users, or the load of the service that you worked on. Also many technically challenging issues only come out under load, and actually working on challenging things are very different from reading about them. Just my 2 cents.

    there are many companies and roles which require you 
    to show the actual number of users, or the load of the
    service that you worked on.

I got my first job as a programmer in 2001 and not once was I asked that. I'm sure they exist but I wouldn't count on that being so common as to significantly impact the OP's career prospects.

Two things I've most often noticed people care about when hiring:

1. experience with the exact tech / field that they're hiring for

2. having brand-name job experience (google, amazon, etc).

It's sad but you'll probably get better mileage from having worked on a useless prestige/pet project at google using fashionable tech than a critical system written with JavaEE & serving a lot of high-value customers at Alliance Generic Insurance Services Corp.

That last sentence sums up the sad state of hiring in the industry well.

probably depends if you are applying to another faang or if you want to work on mission critical insurance technology

people who really need skills are probably good at indentifying said skills

What happens when one is working on something that is neither of the two things in your last sentence?

> there are many companies and roles which require you to show the actual number of users, or the load of the service that you worked on

Really? What do you base that statement on?

I do agree that there is a risk of it all crashing down. I dont think they ask us for load or users, but they notice an area where money isn't coming in.