I did not switch fields, so far as technical skills, I rarely feel challenged nowadays. A few things:
The way it came about was partly accidental. When I started this, the company I was at was failing, I knew it was time to leave. Then I took a contract position at a Big Dumb corp, when that was ending, instead of converting to full time, I had 3 other offers on the table. One local company was desparate, that's where the > 10% came from.
Always be interviewing. from constantly interviewing, I knew what the local market was like for my expertise (java enterprise). And I knew a great offer when I saw it.
Talk the talk and walk the walk. Train for the technical interview, be able to talk about how you've rocked past positions, and how you're going to rock this new position.
Put in the time, don't hide from the hard stuff. Every job I'd had I was sticking my nose into everything; frontend, backend, deployments, appserver and cluster adminning, production support, everything. That's how you get to be expert level at everything. It gives confidence, there's no part of the process I haven't experienced and have firm opinions on how to do right.
Sorry that turned in to general "dev career advice".
I agree with the other comment, we are probably in a buble so far as dev salaries, on the other hand, this may be the new normal. I base this opinion on the way central banks are continuing to print money.
The way it came about was partly accidental. When I started this, the company I was at was failing, I knew it was time to leave. Then I took a contract position at a Big Dumb corp, when that was ending, instead of converting to full time, I had 3 other offers on the table. One local company was desparate, that's where the > 10% came from.
Always be interviewing. from constantly interviewing, I knew what the local market was like for my expertise (java enterprise). And I knew a great offer when I saw it.
Talk the talk and walk the walk. Train for the technical interview, be able to talk about how you've rocked past positions, and how you're going to rock this new position.
Put in the time, don't hide from the hard stuff. Every job I'd had I was sticking my nose into everything; frontend, backend, deployments, appserver and cluster adminning, production support, everything. That's how you get to be expert level at everything. It gives confidence, there's no part of the process I haven't experienced and have firm opinions on how to do right.
Sorry that turned in to general "dev career advice".
I agree with the other comment, we are probably in a buble so far as dev salaries, on the other hand, this may be the new normal. I base this opinion on the way central banks are continuing to print money.