Experienced and training website developer - but is it too late?

Shoxt3r

I've been working in the same web development job for about 10 years now, working my way up from a single developer into managing a small team of developers. The company is due to bring in a CMS which effectively replaces our roles as we currently build and maintain the front-end of the website.

There is talk of introducing a new A/B testing tool but there's been no confirmation of when this will happen given the CMS project is still in progress. A lot of the current A/B testing work is outsourced at great expense.

I've been working on a few side projects in my spare time, working with JavaScript and WordPress but in terms of day-to-day there has been little progression in my skillset due to limitations within the team (a majority of the website development was also outsourced when the Front End Development team left sometime ago).

I'm at a loss of what to do. At the moment I'm trying to train myself back up and looking into React and other technologies but that will take some time to do. Many of the roles I've looked at pay less than my current salary for more experience (I've been lucky enough to keep having my salary increased every year or so) and I cannot afford to take a pay cut as I'm the only earner in the household.

My gut says that I should enter into another management role but I don't feel it's for me simply because I like to be hands-on with work rather than directing others. Generally the job market appears very slow at the moment, as the same roles keep reappearing every time I do a job search, even when I do them weeks at a time. I've applied to a handful of roles over the past few months but each time the recruiter has said I lack the experience, or the role is not available anymore for "XYZ" reason, or I get no reply at all.

I know that many will say that I should have left my position much sooner but there were various reasons for not moving on:

- The company was progressing well when I started

- I rapidly moved into management and there were continued opportunities for self-development

- We needed a stable income when we bought a home and then had a child

- The pandemic threw me into a comfort zone, especially as I survived redundancies around me

- I had a really supportive manager who sadly left

- Talk of moving into another team which looked attractive but when I discussed it further I realised the role would be even more isolated

- Lack of self-development so took time to build my skillset in my spare time (maximum 2 hours per week night, sometimes less due to late commute)

Any advice would be great - as I say I'm at a complete loss of what to do right now.

TL/DR - Experienced sole-earner developer with a family, struggling to find time for training and has a difficult manager and unsure where to turn to next.

MattMattMattUK

Shoxt3r said:

I've been working in the same web development job for about 10 years now, working my way up from a single developer into managing a small team of developers. The company is due to bring in a CMS which effectively replaces our roles as we currently build and maintain the front-end of the website.

There is talk of introducing a new A/B testing tool but there's been no confirmation of when this will happen given the CMS project is still in progress. A lot of the current A/B testing work is outsourced at great expense.

I've been working on a few side projects in my spare time, working with JavaScript and WordPress but in terms of day-to-day there has been little progression in my skillset due to limitations within the team (a majority of the website development was also outsourced when the Front End Development team left sometime ago).

I'm at a loss of what to do. At the moment I'm trying to train myself back up and looking into React and other technologies but that will take some time to do. Many of the roles I've looked at pay less than my current salary for more experience (I've been lucky enough to keep having my salary increased every year or so) and I cannot afford to take a pay cut as I'm the only earner in the household.

How long have you got before your current employment ends?

Is there a possibility that other adult in the household could become earners, even if just part time? You talk about a partner and having a child, from the way you have worded it I would suspect the child is at or close to school ages, can your partner not go back to work? That could make a big difference in terms of options, with the ability to take a lower paid role initially, but that had better prospects long term.

Shoxt3r said:

My gut says that I should enter into another management role but I don't feel it's for me simply because I like to be hands-on with work rather than directing others. Generally the job market appears very slow at the moment, as the same roles keep reappearing every time I do a job search, even when I do them weeks at a time. I've applied to a handful of roles over the past few months but each time the recruiter has said I lack the experience, or the role is not available anymore for "XYZ" reason, or I get no reply at all.

One thing that you could look at is project management, where you need a good understanding but you are not hands on all the time, PRINCE2, APM or PMI qualifications could help with that. Alternatively, depending on how long you have left, you could look at other qualifications. You are however limiting your options by saying that you do not want to go into management and you must earn the same as before, it may well be a binary choice.

Shoxt3r said:

I know that many will say that I should have left my position much sooner but there were various reasons for not moving on:

- The company was progressing well when I started

- I rapidly moved into management and there were continued opportunities for self-development

- We needed a stable income when we bought a home and then had a child

- The pandemic threw me into a comfort zone, especially as I survived redundancies around me

- I had a really supportive manager who sadly left

- Talk of moving into another team which looked attractive but when I discussed it further I realised the role would be even more isolated

- Lack of self-development so took time to build my skillset in my spare time (maximum 2 hours per week night, sometimes less due to late commute)

Pretty much everyone as at some point in their career stayed somewhere longer than was beneficial, inertia, ease of doing the same thing, safety of it being the same employer etc. it is not a mistake as such, more importantly you cannot change it so do not worry about it, focus on the now. You had a really supportive manager, where are they now, worth getting in touch and seeing if they have any suitable openings at their employer? 

Shoxt3r said:

Any advice would be great - as I say I'm at a complete loss of what to do right now.

The jobs market is slower than it was, but there are still plenty of jobs around, depending on where in the country you are located. I would suggest you have a serious look at jobs in the salary bracket that you feel you need, not just searching by job title/type etc. as it might throw up other jobs that fit your skillset despite not being labelled in the correct way in the job search. 

SensibleSarah

Your situation sounds not dissimilar to where I found myself a few years ago. I worked for a small marketing agency that grew very quickly, so I was thrust into a management and senior role (with pay more or less to match) in a fairly short space of time. Over my 6 years there, the company grew from 20 staff to over 150 at one point. My department went from just me to a team of 7 and management responsibility for them alongside around 20 freelancers.
But then the market changed, my incredible manager left, redundancies happened around me and I had lots of moral objectives to certain things that the business was doing. I spent my last couple of years there looking for a new role. 

In order to leave, I had to basically take several side steps and change direction a bit in terms of what I did on a day to day basis, to keep the level of salary that I needed to pay the bills etc. My next two jobs were never long-term roles in my mind - but I needed them to gain a bit of different experience and expand my skillset etc. I stayed less than a year in both and there was some stress and longer commutes involved, but they absolutely served a purpose in getting me out of the rut I was in with the original job and to a place where I could get something better longer term. 

Being a developer OP, are you able to start doing some more freelancing on the side? This could be a way to top you up income-wise if you do have to take a more junior role. Loads of small businesses could benefit from what you could do for them, I'm sure. 

I would also second the advice to look into dev project management specifically. As a developer, you'll have loads of transferable skills and experience that would be invaluable in that kind of field. Usually as a PM, you would not have direct management responsibility for employees, depending on the role though. 

DullGreyGuy

What are you actually developing in? Just doing front end stuff with HTML/CSS/Javascript? PHP, ASP.Net? Python, Java, C#?

A CSM removes a lot of the need for designers but not developers as users can now create new pages etc themselves but a developer is still required to write their booking system, or at least configure a plug in to work with your existing booking system DB etc. 

In most cases, in my experience, CMS reduce team sizes not remove the team. Those that remain are the more technical. 

If you are a developer then its likely there is work out there, good knowledge of javascript librarys like React and Angular opens up work well outside the world of just websites and some fairly serious monies. 

Shoxt3r

Thanks all for your replies.

@MattMattMattUK - Just to clear a few things up...
My current employment is not ending (at least as far as I know). There has been a lot of talk about new systems coming (though there is now a CMS in place) but no concrete timeframe as yet. The plan is still to continue working with third-party companies to cover us and potentially bring things in-house in other ways. However, there has yet to be the time and investment in my team's technical abilities - my previous manager understood the need for personal development whereas there doesn't seem to be that understanding now; it's like things just "happen" and I should know everything.

My team has fluctuated and we have contractors who will be leaving in a few weeks/months which will effectively halve the team.

Our child is due to go into preschool from September but the hours will be the same. We've just been using the free hours up until now as we felt that the amount my partner could potentially earn would only just cover the childcare costs - hence why my partner is a stay-at-home Mum.

I've considered project management as well as something completely different but the courses etc. necessary just don't seem to be an option with me being the single earner and the amount of savings we have. It would be great to get into User Experience but again that seems to need qualifications that I simply don't have and junior positions are about half the salary I'm on now.

I've been keeping in touch with my previous manager who understands where I'm coming from - they warned me that things would be very different and to effectively go for their role when they leave but it wasn't something I wanted to enter into - I'm happier coding rather than managing. They have mentioned a few openings at their workplace but funding has been held for now - they have said they will consider me though.

I agree I need to widen my job search as it's difficult finding alternatives when my skillset seems to be referred to by so many different titles!

@SensibleSarah - Agreed - that sounds very much like the situation I have been/am in currently. I'll be honest I don't think I would have the time to do freelance on top of a day job, especially if there is a lengthy commute involved. At the moment I have only a few hours a week to dedicate to training so replacing this with freelancing would likely mean getting burnt out or falling further behind with training - unless of course the full-time role meant learning on the job.

I guess I'm lucky at the moment in that I have a good work/life balance for the most part as I work from home for 3 days a week.

@DullGreyGuy - At work I was coding in HTML and CSS mainly with a small amount of JavaScript but a lot of that is/was handled by third-parties. Since the CMS came in we are only updating using drag-and-drop with only a small amount of coding to fix various bugs like layout issues or colours until they can be fixed by the third-party. The third-party developers have said we could potentially take on building templates ourselves but this is reliant on having the time to train in new technology and is still TBC pending training from them as well.

At home I am training myself on JavaScript and other tech. via a Web Developer course which has been slow progress.

Overall things just seem to be taking their time both at work and during training in my personal time. Recently I just haven't had the energy to train due to all of the project work we've had going on to transfer content to the new CMS but I'm fully aware and feeling pressured that time may be running out for my current role. I have spoken to management at length about this and they have said that jobs are safe - things will be different but they are not sure how yet.

gm0

Ah the joy of failing to notice in time and jump from a sigmoid curve to another curve before it flattens out. 
Because life overall is busy.  And it's currently OK if not ideal.  And the classic "do I stay exclusively technical" dilemma.

Unpicking "aspirational ideal role" - which may not be available to you at a price and short term life impact you like,  from "what you can settle for" is key.  Technical playtime outside work  could satisfy those urges if you decide the impacts of attempting to refocus are too immediate and the benefits are too uncertain - so you settle.

I have known many who faced this choice.  Most settled for a messy mixed skills evolution but not all.  Embracing some management be it project or line and even sales - as the price of improved family funding. 

Sensibly many made sure they used the opportunities they had to collect portfolio skills and maintain a cv employable against a fair range of possible targets should the need or opportunity arise.

If *you* are in the minority group.  Then you won't ever be happy - unless you can truly focus on activity X that is your passion and drop others.   Sacrifices to get there may be necessary.  You and your family need to recognise that is who you are and actively choose to make that happen.  A choice for your well being.  You are at work a long time. 
But if those sacrifices will cause more trouble and unhappiness in your life - then you may decide that it is not worth it. So you settle.  Once you start looking at it through a risk/reward lens then you are already probably not in the core geek group - who are just compelled by the purity of their passion. A group for whom what the business needs and fair dealing with other team members are secondary to their own internal focus.  Such people are often valued (if brilliant) but often disliked as well or a source of frustration to those around them.

Settlers optimise their mix of daily work by jumping proactvely towards agreeable tasks and projects and cv friendly ones - and trying to avoid too many of the other sort.  A little politics.  And some volunteering.  And doing a share of unloved tasks now and then.  Nobody is indispensable in practice. There is no harm in making sure you are recognised and appreciated as widely as possible

You evolve more - to market roles, norms, selection criteria or to your organisation's view of promotion - or you evolve less.  You control that - it's your choice - your consequences.  The stuff you can't realistically control is not worth your attention.