Where has language agnosticy gone?
Posted by occasionally_smart@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 90 comments
I'm currently looking for a new job and noticed that a lot of job listings state strict requirements for languages, sometimes even noting that participants with less than their desired experience in a given language will be declined. In the past this was usually phrased as "X years in Y or similar languages", but I see the above more and more. I also noticed that it often happens with Go and Rust specifically, but I have seen it for every language.
Of course this doesn't have to be the reason, but it felt like I would sometimes get auto-rejected quite fast simply due to not having experience in the exact language they want me to be experienced in. In my opinion a good engineer can quite easily pick up a new language and even more these days with AI assisted tooling.
Is this phenomenon due to the bad job market, or have engineering managers suddenly picked up how valuable being deep in a language is? I'm not sure what to think of it.
belkh@reddit
more candidates means they can get more specialized hires, companies would rather get someone already familiar with their stack, cuts down on onboarding time, and sometimes brings in expertise you might not have already.
This was always what they wanted they just didn't have enough candidates before, they do now
mpanase@reddit
That means they get a bunch of people whose only tool is a hammer
evangelism2@reddit
cool, all they need you to do is hit some nails
mpanase@reddit
that might very well often be the case
not sure those people should be elegible to be "staff" nor "engineers", though
evangelism2@reddit
no where in OPs post does it say staff+
and the engineer bit is just gatekeeping nonsense
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
So what's the best way forward, hope it will get better, try to gain experience in various languages, or become a specialist? I think the answer is the last, but I don't like it. Gonna have to decide what I want to do mostly, but being able to change between various fields was one of the things I liked about this field.
Syntactico@reddit
Get better. You don't have to become a specialist to learn a few languages. It's the bare minimum.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
What does that even mean? I have professional experience with 3 languages and some minor work in another, so a total of 4. How could I gain experience in let's say Go if there is no option? On the other hand if I do find one, my years of experience in the other languages suffers from a depth perspective.
ninetofivedev@reddit
Listen, this isn't going to be popular, but if you think you're good enough to work at a company that uses Go, make them believe you're capable.
Also unpopular: all of our job applications go through automation these days. Optimize your resume to beat the automation. I don't care if you have to lie. Let them decide when they get to you.
Do I find it annoying when I interview a candidate that clearly lied on their resume? Yes. But I don't blame them for doing it.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
For now I'm still in the early stages of finding a new position, if I do find someplace I really want to work and I don't have the formal requirements, I'll try to teach myself the fundamentals and maybe add it, but for now I will just keep to the truth only. If I feel like it's not getting me anywhere I might have to do just that. Thanks for your advice!
crazylikeajellyfish@reddit
I think beyond a certain point, a software engineer should be able to pick up whatever language they need. It might take a few weeks of active coding, but if you've seen enough patterns, then all you're learning is syntax.
Syntactico@reddit
You can do stuff outside of work. When I've hired people not familiar with our tech stack it's because they showed up to the interview with some project they made over the weekend with it.
Hiring is a risky but both sides can make steps to limit the risk. It builds trust.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
I mean that is of course true, but which industry has to do that outside of ours? Even then it isn't a guarantee you will be considered, but yeah, I guess that has got to be the way to break into a new language currently. Sure, hiring is risky, but there also are probation periods for this reason, no?
DerelictMan@reddit
Even with a probation period, hiring someone and trying to onboard them is hugely expensive both in terms of money and time/manpower.
GoodishCoder@reddit
There's no guarantee in any field that you'll be considered. There are still teams that will hire based on mindset and engineering generally but it's just luck of the draw on whether you're going to encounter tools based hiring or mindset based hiring. My current company rejected me from multiple roles for not having aws experience but my current team hired me because I have no issues learning new things and I picked up aws in a day or two.
edgmnt_net@reddit
It does not happen in plenty of other industries. But at the same time, career advancement is much harder in those industries. Now pick your poison. I'd rather have the option to learn and speed up my progress, but of course that also means others are doing it too.
Also probation is usually capped and does not work well for longer-term investment in, say, juniors. Even without a cap, who's going to pay you a full salary for half a year or more hoping you're going to turn productive? Unless the company is trying to grow a certain rare skill or playing a particularly long game, they can just hire someone else.
Syntactico@reddit
All industries have unique challenges. Like doctors, who are compensated similarily to us, have to deal with kids dying of cancer and death threats from next-of-kin. I'll take late nights hacking away at hobby projects over that anyday.
Probation periods is tricky. I'm a huge proponent of them, but time and time again I see managers not using it. Incompetent people are usually pleasant, and firing people - even those on probabation - can lead to insecurity among other developers.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
Depending on the field you might be faced with consequences if your system doesn't work properly as well. But sure, I wouldn't wanna be a doctor either comparatively.
I agree on probation periods not being used, but I'm not sure what the reason is. I have seen people fired a few months after, the earliest even a few weeks after. My guess is that the problematic candidates are more cooperative in 1 on 1 conversations before the probation period ends.
belkh@reddit
T shaped developers was always the recommend approach, specialize but have some breadth.
try to focus on companies where you're deep in the Tech stack, or deep in the field, this works better if you're doing something more specific than just backend
z960849@reddit
Lie
satansxlittlexhelper@reddit
“Specialized hires” is a bit of a red flag. Someone who can only write React isn’t guaranteed to be any better than a polyglot who can pick up a new language in four weeks.
edgmnt_net@reddit
You're framing it as "someone who can only write React" but in practice it can be more like "someone who actually has experience with something instead of nothing". The average junior isn't going to pick stuff up in four weeks and meet the bar of a somewhat stricter project.
Also, while somewhat rare if we're not talking better jobs, expertise does make a big difference. It's already a significant problem when you hire random Java devs and they barely know the language and ecosystem. Even with simpler languages like Go you see a lot of codebases written by Java people who have no idea what they're doing and try using Java patterns everywhere. This creates an enterprise echo chamber that's well behind community standards.
I have been advocating for polyglossia and learning a bunch of stuff, but the reality is a lot of candidates barely know one thing and they don't know it well. The reality is a lot of projects have crap standards. There's already a lot of pressure to rubber stamp, so what happens if you onboard people who just don't know stuff and they can't keep up with stricter expectations?
CodelinesNL@reddit
Lots devs here seem to think that just being a dev for X years means you’re going to be in high demand no matter what.
A lot of developers start stagnating almost instantly after graduating. But that only becomes really evident when they start applying for senior roles with a stagnant skillset.
OP seems to be very keen on not doing any self reflection. Generally a bad sign.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
What makes you say that? I even stated that my assumption might not be the reason for not getting interviews, but I have noticed stricter wording on a lot of job descriptions, which is why I made the post. I personally think that I am very open to reflection, both outside and inside if you will.
demosthenesss@reddit
I'm always surprised by this sentiment too and am glad to see you call it out.
MrDilbert@reddit
I'm a backend (Node) dev. Give me 2 weeks and I'll be able to maintain React, Vue, Svelte, Angular, you name it. :shrug:
Cell-i-Zenit@reddit
its not a red flag?? wtf
If i have 10 years experience in react, i know my stuff. I can onboard into the company way quicker, i know all the tricks and whistles of react etc.
If they hire an angular dev, he will have to spend time translating from angular to react and he cannot bring in specific react tricks, since he has no clue about it.
Sure the angular dev can write good code once onboarding is done and maybe there is alot of transferable skills, but if you can spend X$ dollars on an expert or X$ on a non expert, you would be stupid to not hire the expert
rover_G@reddit
More competitive job market and trying to filter out vibe coders ¯_(ツ)_/¯
false79@reddit
ngl. These are favorable conditions for those of us who invested in a single language.
The reality is a lot of companies don't want to pay people to learn on the job. They just need things done yesterday.
cd_to_homedir@reddit
It's so strange to me to read posts like this. I don't think I've ever seen or received a language-agnostic job offer, and was under the impression that this is something only fullstack contractors can do.
studmoobs@reddit
only big tech does it it seems
couchjitsu@reddit
I've accepted an offer for one.
As a hiring manager, I've made some offers for others.
CodelinesNL@reddit
It's not so much about the language itself as it is about the ecosystem. For example C# and Java are extremely similar languages, but the ecosystems are very different. We noticed that often devs with mostly C# experience struggled getting accustomed to this.
At a senior level, I not only expect you to know pretty much exactly how (for example) Spring works, I also need you to be able to mentor others on it. If I have the option of a C# dev with 10 years of experience who has never worked with it, and a Java dev with 6 years of experience who has, the latter is simply a better fit for what we need.
studmoobs@reddit
I wish people like you went back and thought how long it took you to learn these tools and systems. Probably a couple months. I don't think anyone here should assume they are so much smarter than the average hire that it wouldn't be the same
Empanatacion@reddit
"Language doesn't matter" is a peculiarity of reddit that I think is practiced less and less the further away from FAANG you get.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
But this shrinks your pool of senior devs even more.. well I guess currently we have a surplus 🙃
edgmnt_net@reddit
Yeah, nobody's going to worry about shrinking that pool when they can just grab someone else (not unless it's some really special skill). Nobody's going to pay wages for a year just to have them leave or ask for big raises. At least on an average level, the market has been shrinking on both sides (positions and wages).
CodelinesNL@reddit
It’s just not as simplistic as you think it is. How good a fit someone is, depends on a lot of factors.
If one is weaker, you might be able to compensate with another. But you are always competing with others.
Appropriate_Bag5736@reddit
does anyone else have this issue too
Tenacious181@reddit
I started a job in September looking for a Java Spring/Angular Dev. Previously I had only done C#/React, but they're similar enough that I figured I'd apply. The weekend before my interview, I made a pretty simple PokeDex app using their stack and pushed it to my Github.
They actually brought it up in my interview, and after hiring me my manager mentioned that they had some candidates with a little more experience, but me going out of my way to show interest in their stack and willingness to learn pushed me over the top.
So there are things you can do that can make up for the difference in specific language experience. But yeah, unfortunately without doing those things it seems to be harder to move into similar roles, I agree
Fidodo@reddit
Most candidates don't care about the discipline and learn specific tools to do a narrow job and lack a solid understanding of CS fundamentals. Then they're surprised that they can't adapt to new roles as the industry changes.
Teh_Original@reddit
There was just a thread in the subreddit recently with a decent consensus of how you don't need to know CS fundamentals as they argued CS is not SWE.
It might have been this one I'm not quite sure: https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/1sjjl5u/why_the_lowlevel_stigma/
drahgon@reddit
Yeah I'm noticing only the top cream of the crop companies do this like Google Amazon Facebook. Every smaller company likes to do language specific ones. Probably it's their only way to filter easily since they don't do leetcode
evangelism2@reddit
very employer driven market means they can be picky and if you know the language already, less ramp up time
Bingo-heeler@reddit
I've only done FORTRAN for the last 25 years. it's a programming language and I have built some amazing things with it.
I should be a lead on a web app build because of my years of experience with programming.
Obviously this is a ridiculous example but it's just a more exaggerated scenario to what you describe.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
You state yourself that this is overexaggerated, and I guess in that sense my statement is as well. One should reasonably be able to swap between languages that are similar enough, maybe not from Java to C++, but from Java to C# and Go. I'd expect the 25 year FORTRAN dev to be a very decent C dev with a bit of time for example. Probably very valuable even compared to C devs with 10 years of experience.
mpanase@reddit
I actually find that interviews work better if I tell them I only use the one language they are interested in
It's deeply stupid, but there it is
pa_dvg@reddit
It’s true that it’s a company’s market right now so they will naturally be pickier. The more you’re productive from day one the happier they will be.
It’s also true that even the smallest company’s pipeline will get absolutely wrecked with ai applicants. They just parse the job posting, generate a resume, and apply. I’ve even seen where they find someone on LinkedIn that looks similar enough to them with the skills needed for the job and they essentially try to catfish the hiring company.
Because of this, what makes acceptable candidates will get narrower. The more resumes they can throw away the better.
Hot_Adhesiveness5602@reddit
Probably if you post C or C++ or similar you will be considered knowledgeable enough to use Go or Rust. At the end they're not that different. Go is the most boring and easy to learn language out there. Rust just requires you to bow down to the borrow checker and do it the rust way. As long as you show good fundamentals it should be fine. If the place you're applying for doesn't understand that I guess they don't really know what they're doing in the first place.
cd_to_homedir@reddit
The language is easy. Getting a hang of the build tools and the ecosystem best practices is a bit harder and takes some time. Not everyone wants to pay you to learn all of that on the job.
Hot_Adhesiveness5602@reddit
I'd hire an experienced C dev that wants to use Go for work any day. Given they have experience in the domain (e.g. web or embedded) they should be able to adapt pretty quickly IMO. Most of the time people have dabbled with adjacent tooling given they worked in the same domain. Is the ecosystem really that hard to grasp? I thought e.g. Go's std lib is pretty straightforward and best practices are mostly easy to grasp and should be reflected in the codebase anyways right? Code reviews are still a thing. I read earlier that someone mentioned that it's probably just to reduce the pool of applicants which sounds pretty sensible to me. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I haven't really worked with rust or go in a bigger project setting.
Empanatacion@reddit
Would you pick a "better" c# dev over that experienced c dev?
cd_to_homedir@reddit
It's not THAT hard to learn, it's just that when presented with two candidates of whom one has experience in X language and the other does not, all else being equal the candidate with the experience is an obvious choice.
I don't see a lot of this language-agnosticism where I live, this seems to be very region-specific.
edgmnt_net@reddit
Go is easy. But Java coders still make a mess of it when they don't know what they're doing and try applying Java patterns in Go.
cd_to_homedir@reddit
Exactly. It's like learning a natural language. Learning grammar and words is the easy part. Knowing when to use certain phrases and how to construct in a way that sounds natural and makes sense is a whole different league.
juan_furia@reddit
Well the thing with the x years of experience is also exposure to the ecosystem, build tools, quirks, etc.
Whilst every thing can be learned, sometimes companies just want someone who can start producing quickly.
CrazyPirranhha@reddit
SO they prefer to keep job post for 6-8 months until they find a unicorn instead of catch someone versatile pretty fast and teach him :)
Empanatacion@reddit
A job req specifying 5 years of spring boot, Kafka and Postgres doesn't need to interview Go or .net devs in order to be filled quickly.
This is one of the big considerations when deciding what tech to introduce into your stack. Is Scala so amazing that we want to deal with every new hire's learning curve?
edgmnt_net@reddit
That could be true if they're rejecting really good candidates. It could also be the case that they don't get great candidates, but candidates who know a little of X and want a job doing Y, without sufficient background to allow a smooth transition. Looking at the average level, it's not that good.
pjc50@reddit
Don't underestimate how many people are on the market.
Tacos314@reddit
If it takes you 6-8 months to find someone with experience in your tech stack, you have the wrong tech stack, or are such neech it's expected and you will train.
ConspicuousPineapple@reddit
If the job posting is staying up that long it's probably just that they have multiple positions open. And sometimes there's nothing urgent. They just don't want to pay the upfront cost of ramping up a new employee.
GlobalCurry@reddit
Go and Rust are pretty different if you only have experience with popular languages like Python Java and Javascript. Still a good engineer should be able to pick them up, but I think the difference is that many companies want to hire people who can start contributing in the first week or so.
I was looking at some enterprise jobs that want people with decades of C# and dot net experience which was kind of interesting.
edgmnt_net@reddit
Judging by the average level I see, most people will require a lot of hand holding and will not be able to perform properly even after 6 months. They're usually not going to write good Rust in a month, not even coming from Go. I will also raise the concern that a lot of codebases are already kinda crappy because they let people do whatever.
Crafty_Independence@reddit
I've been in the industry for almost 25 years and I've never seen a language-agnostic job listing.
ForeverIntoTheLight@reddit
I'm sorry, I cannot take 'language agnosticity' seriously.
Yeah, there is some benefit in being flexible and learning new things quickly. That will never change.
But if an employer is seeking a senior engineer with strong experience on one tech stack, and they have teo candidates of a similar experience level, but only one who has worked extensively on this tech, whom do you think they will choose?
Also, when people make this argument, I have to wonder if their idea of 'expertise' is just to learn the basics of a language. Learning to fully utilize the tooling of any tech stack takes time. Also, every such stack comes with its own bunch of subtle gotchas, and other peculiarities.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
Of course in a direct comparison this makes sense, but would you pass on a, lets say, engineer with 10 years of experience over one with half but working in the target language? I'd personally give both a shot and expect the engineer with more experience to ramp up fast. Closing the door completely probably only makes sense in the current market.
ForeverIntoTheLight@reddit
You're assuming that a wide difference in experience would exist between yourself and the others, based on what precisely? If it's a reasonably well-known company, which pays well, it will receive scores of applicants. Surely, some of them would match your experience, while also having knowledge of the company's tech stack.
Again, like I said, maybe that is true if there is a wide gap in seniority. But then it's unlikely that the two of you would be considered for the exact same position. Senior engineers would already have experience in the areas you've mentioned.
Besides, seniors / staff engineers are often expected to make hard design or architectural decisions. The kind of stuff that cannot be undone easily later. The worst kind of decision to make, when you later find that it is suboptimal due to some subtle gotcha or tradeoff inherent in said tech stack - that isn't necessarily mentioned prominently in the starting pages of some beginner-level book on the subject.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
I am assuming nothing, this was just a rhetorical, I even stated that me not qualifying for the language criteria might not be the reason for not landing an interview. But I have observed that the wording around languages has changed compared to before, with some openings even going so far to clearly state, that they will decline applicants without the exact minimum required years in a language.
It seems to me that you are quite experienced in the field, so I'd like to ask you, how valuable are your own skills compared to the depth of the languages you work in. Would you be a valuable hire to a company that works in Go, Rust, whatever language you are not proficient in?
ForeverIntoTheLight@reddit
I have worked with Go. I didn't particularly like the language, or its guiding philosophy, especially back in its early days. Even if I was offered 2X what I'm earning, I wouldn't attend the interview.
With Rust, or in a more general sense, some other similar language? Maybe. But I'd make it clear that it would take me quite a significant amount of time to really master the language, its quirks and tooling to a level where I'd feel comfortable taking a technical leadership role, if that's what they need.
Most companies would probably reject me, and that's okay. Some might be willing to invest more in the long-term, though.
It's part of the reason why I look into other related tech stacks in my free time. Maybe, by then, I could claim a reasonable level of skill.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
I guess that is always what it boils down to, we probably need to sacrifice our free time to learn something, but I guess this is the field we chose. How long would you expect your significant amount of time to master a language to be?
ForeverIntoTheLight@reddit
To be able to write code that doesn't get obliterated instantly in PR review? At least a month or two of sustained effort, either at work on my employer's dime (if they permit it), or at least a couple of hours after work each day. Closer to two months, considering Rust's steep learning curve.
To actually master the language and its tech stack to a point where I can understand most of its subtle nuances? At least a year of hard work. Probably more. That's an optimistic estimate.
I know some people can probably do it in half the time, but I no longer possess that level of learning speed or memorization I had once.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
I think that tracks, about a month or two to become productive and around 6 months to a year to become really effective at large decisions - depending on your level of impact it will require less or more. Isn't high churn the real problem here? This investment should make sense on paper.
ForeverIntoTheLight@reddit
A lot of companies expect people to hit the ground running, especially at higher levels of seniority.
Trying to make sense of a vast codebase, which may not always be well-documented, coding patterns in a language that you might not know, all the while trying to learn said language on the side - lots of companies may not be willing to wait that long, especially if they can instead hire somebody, who at least knows the tech stack.
Thus we come back to the old options - continue specializing in what you already know, sacrifice your free time to learn newer things slowly, or find a company willing to invest long-term in you. Most of them aren't.
xdevnullx@reddit
I watched an interview (maybe it was on the computerphile channel? I'm sorry I can't find it) by someone who was bemoaning the creation of Java in the 90s for just this very reason.
They said that it would lead to an industry that was based on knowing this language or that language, the interviewee said that up until that point developers were more like artists.
I have mixed feelings on it now.
I am primarily a dotnet dev, I could have said "windows dev" for 15 years before it was xplat. From a staffing standpoint, I do see a value in picking a toolset and hiring for it. I'm most comfortable with dotnet tooling, frameworks, etc.
ImaginaryEconomist@reddit
Recruiters are spoilt for choice given there are so many people looking out for jobs. They can get away with whatever they want regardless of if they are valid/legit asks.
SeaElephant8890@reddit
There are a lot more available people with skills, the job market has adjusted, I wouldn't say in this instance it's bad.
If I am recruiting I want specific experience, when things were drier people wise when we would have been more flexible.
NeuralHijacker@reddit
This isn't a problem, I just make it up, always have. I know I can learn fast enough that it's not a problem, and I've always been successful in roles. X years of Y programming language is meaningless.
Augentee@reddit
"We need someone who is productive starting day one!"
Companies no longer want to invest in training, so they need unicorns that somehow did the exact job + language + tools already for 20 years. A lot of them also are unable to properly unboard and train, since they fired half their engineers and try to outsource the other 50% to AI and foreign countries.
Also, managers are dumb and forgot what a job position is for (perfect candidate, you are supposed to settle for less). But mostly they downsized themselves in a corner and embrace it as cutting training costs, or some bullshit.
SepticPeptides@reddit
I am a bit surprised to see hirers being pedantic about X years of Python production experience. I understand everyone is trying to reduce hiring risks and friction but somebody who has worked in large scale systems, tooling, dev ecosystem with OOP/other strongly typed languages can easily onboard and make good judgement. The shift to Python for large scale distributed systems(I recall Dropbox teams were migrating codebases to Python prod around 2021) has happened more in last 5-7 years and in few teams and few companies unless it's the new batch of companies.
jmking@reddit
Not my experience at all on the west coast USA. No one requires specific language knowledge. If anything it MIGHT be listed as a "nice to have", but specific language knowledge is never a hard requirement.
Looks like you're in Japan? Your market and employer expectations are totally different.
Can we please start requiring a country, at the very least, be a requirement to post? Things are so different between countries and even states in the US. It's impossible to provide useful feedback when people don't disclose what market they're in.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
I am in Japan but mostly applying to overseas companies currently, but yeah I should have maybe mentioned this. I noticed the same in European jobs about a year back though.
jmking@reddit
To be clear, I'm not giving you crap personally or anything. I want you and other posters to get relevant input. People may not realize that certain things aren't consistent world wide. If the subreddit would enforce disclosing country then it would help everyone a ton and make the content here a lot more helpful to those who post.
occasionally_smart@reddit (OP)
Yeah no hard feelings here, don't worry. Since I am applying at american companies I thought this wasn't worth mentioning, but honestly even americans should probably mention it to give context. You aren't wrong at all!
programmerman9000@reddit
European jobs have a multi-modal distribution. Software shops that are part of older and more established companies hire in an old school way. So if they work in C++, they won’t even look at your resume if you don’t have C++ on it.
Younger firms, especially those directly producing tech, or tech-adjacent hire differently. If anything, I’m seeing more firms that are willing to hire in a language agnostic way than even 5 years ago.
Tacos314@reddit
Last I saw of it was 2015.
What your seeing is the difference between a new industry and and old industry. Keep in mind, the industry as we know it is only about 30 years old (Personal PC Era, basically Windows 95). For the first 15 years everything was pretty new, not a lot of established patterns, languages, etc.. and a new one was coming out often as Moore's law was in full effect. It's a lot different now, with language have matured and proven there self's and ecosystems have grown tot he point no you can't just pick up a new language and be usefull.
Expert-Reaction-7472@reddit
it's been like that for as long as my career and probably longer. Very few places will truly do a language agnostic hire. Even if they say they will, you still get marked down in the process for not having experience in their stack.
Professional_Mix2418@reddit
The job market is tight. But the experience isn’t actually just the language it is als the approach, ecosystem, heck even conventions and approaches. I’d never want a react/javascript person on a Ruby on Rails project for example. Seen it too may times where the lack of conventions they are used to is not only causing problems but also constant arguments about naming and god know what. Combined with the tendency to bring way to much to the front end. As just one of the many examples.
Ultimately it is about attitude and aptitude, but as an employer you can be picky in the current market and I rather have low friction.
qrcode23@reddit
First of all, this subreddit sucks and mods need to chill out. Been getting my posts deleted left and right.
They can because there's so much candidates. I've been asked language specific questions and domain specific questions.
qrcode23@reddit
If you want hope, I really just keep applying. Eventually, I got a company that used a language and tech stack I was really good at. Just keep rolling the dice.