One big problem is spending 10 years or more learning something that's completely obsolete - I experienced Unix and systems engineering, Perl and much much more becoming useless on my CV. Now, someone will point out how those foundational items prepare you for other things (i.e. Python is absolutely easy if you mastered Perl, deep unix systems knowledge is useful to grok containers, etc.). Problem is interviewing. No, I don't think I should have to learn Go, a zillion new SRE buzzwords used by salespeople, but more than that I feel like I have a right to not be punished in LeetCode interviews because supposedly all infrastructure is code. It's not.So I went into consulting, and also management. The throwaway experience I had of my deep knowledge going obsolete in interviews has created a built in aversion to learning every new thing that comes out - something I loved in my 20s.
That's my issue with the field. I think developers are in a better spot - you're either a strong developer or you're not. Systems or ahem, "DevOps" suffers from this commodification of resume buzzwords over and against analytical, learning and adjacent mastery of skills.
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