123 Should I Take a C# Desktop Job as a C# Web Developer?

If I am offered a job as a desktop developer, but I want to be a web developer, should I take the job? Should I hold out for a web developer job? Will taking the desktop job hurt my chances of being a web developer? These are the questions we are going to answer in today's episode of Dev Questions.

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey. Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology. If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered. Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Should I take a C Sharp desktop job when I want to be a C sharp web developer? That's a question I was asked on a suggestion site I thought I was going to tackle in today's episode of Dev Questions, because it's important to know how to evaluate this opportunity. So let's first get the obligatory answer out first. And that is it depends. Okay, I'm sure you're expecting that. Whenever you ask a question of a senior developer, you're gonna get the answer it depends. So let's talk about what it depends on. I'm gonna say probably to your answer, but again, it depends. So let's talk first about how to evaluate the opportunity. The first thing to know is that experience is experience. So if you're getting experience as a software developer, you're getting experience as a software developer. And that sounds obvious, but when it comes to applying for jobs, they're gonna ask you, do you have three or five years experience as a software developer? I may say, as a C sharp developer. But again, you're getting experience as a C sharp developer. So you're even in the same language that you want to work with. So you do have experience and you are gaining experience with this position. Now, you're not gaining web experience necessarily with this position. So you aren't getting the exact perfect experience, but you are gaining valuable experience and you're gaining something to put on your resume as to building applications with C sharp. So there is a lot of benefit there. Now, next up, we need to talk about your situation because it does depend on where you're at. If you have the perfect job already and you're just kicking back and just kind of throwing your resume out there to see what happens, well, that's different than if you're broke and you need a job right now. So let's first talk about being desperate. If you are desperate, if you need a job, you don't have a job, and you need to get a job soon, then yes, absolutely take this job because it's an opportunity to put food on the table. It's very important to be able to eat, to be able to have enough money to support yourself and your family. So sometimes you take jobs that aren't ideal because they do allow you to move into a different spot. This may also be true if you're in a bad situation at work. Maybe right now you are working as a delivery person, or you're working in an office where you're doing accounting or something else where you're just not fulfilling what you want to do. And this is an opportunity to start to move into software development. Also, a great opportunity. So it's one that's probably would be a yes again because it allows you to move closer to your dream, to your goal. So I would encourage you to think those things through. But then if you're comparing jobs, well, that's a great spot to be in because maybe one's a web developer job and one's a desktop developer job. And yes, you're gonna lean towards the web developer job, but you need to think through the overall position. Maybe the desktop developer pays more. That could be a consideration. Or, and this is really important once you get to a certain pay rate, that is which is gonna make you happier long term. If you absolutely hate to come to work, but it pays you, let's just say $100,000 a year, and you only need $50,000 to live. If that job pays you twice what you need to live, but you're absolutely miserable, you're not gonna last that long. Versus if you have a job that pays you, let's say, $70,000 a year, which again is 20 more than you need, but it's a great job and it has a great atmosphere, and you like coming to work. Well, it's probably worth it, right? So maybe that's the same thing with desktop versus web. Maybe the desktop job is a better job as far as overall atmosphere than the web job is. I would really consider that desktop job then. Again, remember you're developing in C sharp. Now, yes, the UI is different, and yes, that can be a big difference, but at the end of the day, you need to evaluate your entire situation, not just the particular technology and not just the dollar sign attached to it. But again, if you're desperate, take what you can get. Okay. So you're evaluating, if it's not desperation, you're evaluating good versus great. And so look at that and say, this is good, this is great. In one of the last jobs I took, that's what I did. I took what to the industry was a significant pay cut. I could have asked for really twice as much, if not more, than I was making. And that's being conservative. That's not Google money or Microsoft money, that's just general industry money. I could have made twice as much. But I was making more than I needed. And the atmosphere was wonderful. And so that made all the difference in the world. I loved that company. I loved the employees, I loved working with them. And quite frankly, I was sad to leave. So that can make a big difference when you're doing your evaluation. It's not just the thing you're working on. Because when I started, I wasn't working at what I absolutely wanted to work on. But over time, I was able to morph it into what I wanted. And that comes down to the next point I want to talk about, which is the benefits. What are the benefits of taking this job? You know the drawbacks. You know the drawbacks of I don't want to work with desktop. Um, I might not want to work there forever, I might find a different opportunity down the road that's better, or even right now that's better. So you know the drawbacks, but what are the benefits of working in a job where it's maybe not perfectly aligned to what you want to do? Well, the first one we talked about already is it builds experience. And remember, why is work experience so important? Because you have seen the situations that come up and have known and have learned how to deal with those situations. You've got the practice of implementing logic. And you know what? That translates. I wasn't always a C sharp developer. In fact, as a software development consultant, I programmed in over two dozen different languages. Did I know all of them in depth? No, I didn't. But the skills of logic transcended those languages. So even though I might not have known how to create a certain thing in, say, Fox Pro, I was able to ask the questions because I was, I just needed to know the syntax in order to apply the same logic that I would have in VB or in C sharp or whatever other language. So being able to learn and practice that logic is important and it does transcend even the language you're working in. Now, number two, it's gonna round out your skills. Maybe you're so focused on web development in C sharp that you kind of missed an area, which is desktop development. I encourage everyone to understand and at least have a high-level understanding of the entire suite of project types in C sharp. So I have the C sharpprojects.com domain dedicated to giving you the intro level of all those different project types because I think it's important to know all of them. Because sometimes a situation comes around where you need to have that other skill. So if you do end up becoming a web developer and you're in that job, but you have that experience of desktop development, maybe something comes out where you're like, oh, I need to do X. So then you can use the desktop skills to do that little thing you need to that maybe benefits you or benefits your company that you wouldn't have otherwise known how to do. Conversely, the idea of you learning how to build desktop apps and working in that environment, there may come an opportunity where your web skills come into play. I had this happen where I was building desktop information and I said, hey, you know what? If we want to grow, we want to expand, we want to have all these other options, we really need an API. And we built an API and hooked our desktop app up to it. And then later, we were able to use that against the website. And we were set up for mobile. So being able to bring your unique skills into a job might mean that you don't get hired as a web developer, but you might have the opportunity down the road to speak into things as a web developer. Now, this also allows you to bring a unique perspective to that job. Okay, you might see things in a different light. Again, when it comes to desktop applications, a desktop developer is going to think about desktop applications. But you might say, hey, you know what? To better secure our desktop applications, we need that API. And here's how we do it. And you have a better, broader picture of the entire ecosystem. And with that, you can also bring additional value to your job. Having more skills than just what you're hired for allows you to bring more value to your boss than you otherwise would. If you're so locked into just what your boss wants you to be locked into, well, then you can't speak to those other things. You can't give a broader perspective. So having that breadth of knowledge will allow you to be a better employee and be a better value to your organization. So should you take a desktop job when you want to be a web developer? It does depend. But I think there's some criteria here you can work through to really make a better decision based upon what's best for you and your situation. I hope I answered your question. Thanks for asking it. If you have a question, go to suggestions.iamtimcorey.com, leave a suggestion there, or upvote an existing one. Thanks for listening. And as always, I am Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Deaf Questions. Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer. If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Deaf Questions. You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcorey.com. Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did. When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to IamtimCore.com and enroll in a course.