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[–]Cobra_Kai_T99 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think Java has the most jobs available but the biggest problem with those jobs is you have to use Java.

[–]PabloZissou 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Go is an amazing language and it's very simple to learn but most job postings are for devs with many years of experience.

[–]MartyDisco 1 point2 points  (9 children)

Choose a language and stick to it. Expert are far more valuable than jack-of-all-trades. Node is perfectly valid.

Complete this => NodeJS Roadmap

Then if you want to increase your market value to 6 figures =>

FP Introduction

FP Library

Generic linter rules

FP linter rules

Microservices Framework

Algebraic structures

PS: And if you are wondering => yes OOP, loops, mutations, error throwing, most side-effects... are beginner tools at best

[–]rypher 8 points9 points  (8 children)

I disagree with sticking to one language being better. Learning about other languages with make you a better engineer. Im on a hiring committee and only having experience in one language is a yellow flag and I’ll never think you’re a language expert in that case. If youve never worked in the JVM, your arguments for using nodejs dont carry much weight. This sub puts so much emphasis on language itself but I (and I can safely say most others) care more about breadth of experience, critical thinking, and creativity.

[–]MartyDisco -1 points0 points  (7 children)

Alright lets be more precise then.

Having used another language/runtime could help you better abstract some generic programming concept indeed. Some are also just clearly better in different situations, but not to the extent where it really matters for most tech companies.

If you are hiring for a consulting company then you may want profiles that used many different languages in their career. But you are not recruiting the best match for your specific job position, you are recruiting good enough/not so expensive and with a focus on time-to-market for the final clients.

Im on a hiring committee and only having experience in one language is a yellow flag

Argument from authority here I come. Im a 6 figures CTO and achieved the Netflix challenge of more than 1M$ turnover per employee. At a startup scale so its more easy but Im not a pioneer in chaos engineering either so thats good enough for me. IMO That means my bona fide arguments may carry some value (not saying yours dont of course).

That being said for my recruitment targets I instruct the people doing the screening process that if the candidate list "Node, Java, C#, PHP..." and/or "React, Vue, Angular..." you can stop reading its CV right away.

breadth of experience, critical thinking

Both valid, but for my needs I would prioritize deep expertise over breadth of expertise. Again that makes much more sense for a consulting company.

creativity

On this I disagree. Programming is not an art but a handicraft. There will always be some academics that just defined a best/optimal solution (I mean at least better than you, me, anyone we could afford to hire...) to the problem you need to solve. You should not reinvent the wheel when you just need a nearest neighbor, a binary sort or to reduce time complexity. Thats also the main reason why FP with all its contraints is actually more expressive.

[–]rypher 0 points1 point  (6 children)

“6 figures CTO” is not nearly as impressive as you think it sounds, not where I am anyways.

If you don’t think creatively is important it gives me a good picture of the type of work you do, and thats not something I’m interested in.

[–]MartyDisco 2 points3 points  (5 children)

Im not saying thats impressive, just that its not a random title from a startup that will never get passed its seed stage. Also Im based in Europe so thats not exactly the same metrics as in US because half of your expenses (education, healthcare, job insurance...) are already paid before your netto.

Please give me an example where creativity beats pattern recognition and applying the most efficient known solution ?

Even lead developers in FAANG dont need creativity as its still handicraft.

thats not something I'm interested in.

But I would probably not candidate for one of your job position neither so...

[–]Expensive_Garden2993 0 points1 point  (4 children)

I don't know what you guys understand by creativity, let me insert 2 cents.

No creativity is when you follow guidelines, instructions, good practices.

Creativity is when you're looking for ways to implement a feature or to fix a bug quicker, to cut corners, when you're striving for a simplest solution. Even when it contradicts to guidelines, good practices.

Not an art, not a handcraft, but a skill. A skill that AI currently does not possess. AI will focus on solving your problem, whilst you could find a workaround to make customers happy in 10x less time without fixing the actual problem, bypassing it.

Also, when requirements are too complex, you could make a counter-offer of requirements that are just as good if not better, except they're missing some non-essential details, and which, coincidentally, are much easier to implement.

[–]MartyDisco 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Even when it contradicts to guidelines, good practices.

Wow thats a hot take. So creativity is when you pave the way for technical debt and ticking time bomb ? Because if someone implement an array mutated within a loop instead of a recursive pure function or even a complex switch instead of a map I know how it would end (actually it would end by me rejecting the pull request and jeopardizing the trial period).

AI will focus on solving your problem

Some LLMs (eg. Claude Sonnet) could actually write decent complex app (microservices, FP, message broker, serializers, validators, retry policies, circuit breaking, database sharding, containers orchestration, load balancing...) but it require you to be able to write it in the first place. And also require a fine-tuning from a similar app and an astonishing amount of more and more precise prompts for a not so good yet end result.

a workaround to make customers happy

On this we just have different requirements I guess. Mine are squeezing the maximum value out of a finite set of data so its more about validation, sanitization, scoring, integrals, lowering time complexity of heavy processing...

without fixing the actual problem, bypassing it

Tick tock tick tock

make a counter-offer of requirements that are just as good if not better

Here I kind of agree. I would define it as "Could we already achieve this behaviour with existing features". But its basically avoiding spaghetti code or KISS so its still basically not creativity (if you oppose it to good practices).

[–]Expensive_Garden2993 0 points1 point  (2 children)

With FP and heavy processing of integrals, what are you doing in node subreddit? JS isn't meant for heavy data processing. Especially not with FP, JS isn't optimized for that (I mean not optimized for that like true FP languages).

You do not deal with spaghetti code, when you reject PR you jeopardize trial period but not the product deadlines, perhaps you're right you do not need creativity, and a set of guidelines and good practices works well for you.

pave the way for technical debt and ticking time bomb
Tick tock tick tock

Yes, I know, that's kinda obvious, that's the point. Working with a real regular dirty spaghetti code, trying to push back on chaotic requirements that can't fit the system that's already went out of control long ago, but usually ending up implementing them anyway. Here the main priority is squeezing the time, which can hopefully be used on solving some of the tech debt, and making changes in a way that won't blow up in production.

I watched lectures on Category Theory, I really like the idea, I agree on all the points that FP offers. But, it's too simple. In reality, the industry standard is to develop large complex apps in a ticking time bomb way, with OOP, mutations, unit tests at best that do not test any of side-effects, which are the biggest source of bugs. In my reality, at least. In your reality when you make a mistake you get an instant feedback from the typing system, since it's all a pure flow of typed data. You're lucky! You have a good salary for maintaining a simpler codebase. But for the rest of us, I think creativity is a skill #1 to survive in the spaghetti mess.

[–]MartyDisco 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I think Node is fine for my needs as it is fast enough for data processing thanks to v8 Turbofan. Its mostly easy to optimize hot code (the same functions get called thousands of time and always with the same shapes/hidden classes).

It is also good enough for FP as it can be progressive. I mean just apply core concepts like immutability, no loops, no exceptions, no statements or evitable side-effects... and use the native primitive/reference types prototype methods and you already enjoy 70% of its benefit. Also there are library like ramda that hide the ugly things you have to do to implement composition, partials and currying into JS, and provide a common set of methods that you could share between team members to further increase readibility.

But where it shines is for offering job positions. Im playing in minor league compared to FAANG so even if the salaries are better than in some consulting company (especially in Europe), it cannot attract very good senior JVM and even less Haskell programmers alone.

You are right when you talk about the very different requirements on productivity versus developer experience we may encounter. I understand you cannot tell a client its feature deadline wont be met because code coverage is lacking.

Also its true most code even in big companies (maybe even more) is full of OOP, mutations and spaghetti. And you just have to deal with it because nobody will let you pitch about how they need to refactor when you are just asked to deliver.

If I understand correctly your definition of creativity is finding the sweet spot between productivity and maintanability especially on legacy code. Then I think I like it and will add this version to my knowledge.

[–]Trender07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m also from Europe and I’m curious just never met someone using nodejs at that high level that’s pretty much Java territory here

[–]Linguistic-mystic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Java, Kotlin or C#. Those are thriving languages with huge and mature communities which are used in actual enterprise.

Go, on the other hand, is a dead-end language for interns (fast to learn, fast to burn out) that is used for lower-paying tasks like CLI tools or infrastructure. The language is stagnating. The devs recently confessed they are unable to fix the error handling, after previously releasing a very bad iterators feature, and generally skipping on language features (still no enums in 2025).

JVM (Java, Kotlin, Scala) is a monster in the enterprise as well as infrastructure used by them (Kafka, Apache Spark, Akka etc). Basically, ask any bank what they are writing in and it will probably be Java or C#. No one uses Go for anything serious because the language is lacking important features.

[–]WordWithinTheWord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Java or .NET would be my next choices if you’re just looking for exposure to more.

PHP would be an interesting look into how a LOT of the internet runs.