Ask HN: Alternative to mainstream programming jobs when you're self-taught?
I have a 4 year art degree and self-taught in programming and usually work in web dev, but I have a bit of paid game programming experience as well (C# and Unity with indie games). Web development and mobile app development are usually the go-to career tracks for self-taught people. I consider these to be the mainstream jobs in software. But what possibilities lie for the self-taught in less mainstream jobs?
In particular, I like tinkering around with limited resource capabilities and finding performance bottlenecks in code, and optimizing performance. For one of my game dev jobs, most of my work was around profiling inefficient code, and optimizations for rendering and geometry generation. I know the basic concepts around some data structures and Big O.
What other programming jobs can I work on that present similar technical challenges? I am not some web framework guru, but I don't find a lot of the challenges in web dev that interesting anymore.
I have hobby C++ experience but my knowledge in that language is not very strong anymore (many of my old C++ projects were locked out from a hard drive failure). Maybe work in embedded programming? Or is that a high barrier of entry for an autodidact without a STEM degree?
In particular, I like tinkering around with limited resource capabilities and finding performance bottlenecks in code, and optimizing performance. For one of my game dev jobs, most of my work was around profiling inefficient code, and optimizations for rendering and geometry generation. I know the basic concepts around some data structures and Big O.
What other programming jobs can I work on that present similar technical challenges? I am not some web framework guru, but I don't find a lot of the challenges in web dev that interesting anymore.
I have hobby C++ experience but my knowledge in that language is not very strong anymore (many of my old C++ projects were locked out from a hard drive failure). Maybe work in embedded programming? Or is that a high barrier of entry for an autodidact without a STEM degree?