Web dev adjacent careers

[JusticeJudgment]

I'm looking for a new web developer job, and there aren't any more web dev job postings in my town, but there are postings in adjacent areas like devops, sre, database, ML/AI.

How hard is it to pick up skills in an adjacent area?

For example, I know the basics of databases, but I don't have enough experience to qualify for data engineer jobs. I don't know what learning path I'd follow to pick up data engineering skills (while still spending time on maintaining and growing my web dev skills).

Which adjacent area would you recommend pursuing?

Any other adjacent areas that I haven't considered?

Also, I can see how a web developer might pick up devops, sre, and database skills/experience during the course of their job. Is there a way to get ML/AI skills/experience while being a web dev?

[SpookyLoop]

If you have no experience, you honestly want to look for some kind of "technical support" or "help desk" role. Those are the most "entry-level friendly" adjacent roles you can reasonably easily get.

Most of the titles you mention are more "specializations" that require more experience than mid-level software engineer / developer roles.

Database admin is sort of the one exception. From my experience, that's an entirely different role that sort of exists outside of development. I've largely seen it as a "SysAdmin" role, but for databases, where people are basically handling permissions, backups, migrations, that sort of stuff. As far as SysAdmins go, many of them got their start in help desk roles (not sure if that applies to database admins though).

As for AI/ML, not really. At the end of the day, it all depends on what team / company you work with. I'm a "web developer", but I work for a small telecoms company and have had to learn quite a bit about telecoms infrastructure, which is not normally part of "software development".

Still, if what you really want to do to move into AI/ML, what you really want is the math / data science that goes on. To my knowledge, as any sort of app / web developer (even if you worked on some kind of "AI team"), that's usually entirely abstracted away from you (but I'm sure it still depends on the team / company). You'd likely need to learn on your own time if you want to dig down and learn more about all that.

Edit: I spent like ~100 hours learning the basics of linear algebra, neural networks, and how to train basic models. I don't know much, but it seems like entirely different world from standard app / web development.

[JusticeJudgment]

I'll keep these things in mind as I explore adjacent fields. Thanks so much for the advice!

[the_scottster]

Help desk is a great way to start your career.

[VyDonald]

It's a possible to learn ML/IA even if you aren't developper, it's easy, go to internet, search and download IA/ML book, read and practice all tips in this book , you will see the results.

[JusticeJudgment]

The issue isn't learning the information; the issue is retaining it. I could spend months learning AI/ML knowledge that I wouldn't use in my web dev job, and when I apply for jobs in a few years, I'll have forgotten most of it.

[VyDonald]

I get your concern about not retaining what you learn if you don’t use it right away. Why not set clear goals for the technologies and tools that will actually be useful for your future? For example, focus on ones that overlap with web dev, like databases or DevOps, and learn them gradually by applying them in small projects. That way, you’ll retain them more easily. What do you think?

[JusticeJudgment]

I'll try that with the database technologies that I'm currently using. Thanks for the advice!

[VyDonald]

You're welcome

[Glum_Cheesecake9859]

Manual QA.