What is a promising direction in programming for freelance and immigration?

Question

Android

I am 26, I am engaged in data transmission networks. After the university, it seemed that the niche was good, in fact, interesting tasks were only in integrators for the position of an architect (there are not very many such integrators) and everything is based on a very limited number of approaches. And in the future, the niche will apparently remain only in telecom operators. all new industry trends involve automation and application orientation, i.e. network administration will be handled by infrastructure administrators.
But most of all, it saddens that it is impossible to work remotely and it is extremely difficult to leave the Russian Federation, there are enough fools for good vacancies, in Canada and Australia networkers are of course on the list, but vacancies are often found only for first-line administrators with knowledge of Cisco. And I want to live in warm countries outside the city (working for 8 hours - ok) and have clear prospects for moving to the west for permanent residence, where there is a normal education and medicine.
In general, which direction is the most promising in your opinion, and which mass trends are declining? It is interesting to deal with the design of the application, but not the design (monotonous layout - in the furnace). To develop internal logic, but not to deal with pure higher mathematics.
Now I started writing for android, it’s interesting and exciting, but looking at the freelance exchanges and vacancies, one gets the impression that android developers are like dirt. And even while the platform holds the lead, salaries are low. If Microsoft c windows 10 does not miscalculate and eat away part of the market, the prospects are frightening.
Now there are a lot of vacancies in Java, won't it turn out in 3 years that nobody needs them? About 4 years ago, CCIE was considered very cool, but now you can’t even get h1b in the states. For me, studying Java and its crutches and features is interesting, but just for the sake of interest, time is a pity.
What are the prospects for Ruby? Scala? Spring?
How realistic is it to get into the BigData niche or is everything also based on a combination of ready-made solutions?
Advise a promising direction please.

Answer 1

First, I would like to recommend Chad Fowler's book The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development Despite its name, it is not so much about programming as about personal growth, self-development and pragmatic pursuit of excellence, it is recommended to read for everyone.
Secondly, there is a lot of analytical research in the field of IT, recently there are especially many of them because of the "crisis", for example ... about stagnation, education and professions in demand .
If you are thinking about emigration (and going abroad for permanent residence is exactly migration ) , then there are 2 nuances.
The first one is the very difficulty of moving to another country with different laws, taxes, climate, language, culture, etc., and there are enough warm places in Russia (a million articles on the same Habré about this).
The second is that moving to other countries makes sense if you are going to work on a salary in an office, for example, in a large European / Asian company in a high position in the employer's territory. For a freelancer, the real benefits of moving are very doubtful (again, taxes in Russia are among the lowest).
Regarding trends and languages, I can say the following: if you are going to live and work with a strategic focus on career growth, development and a profitable position in the distant future, then you should think about complex but relevant technologies aimed primarily at large businesses (stock exchanges, banking sector, analytics and forecasting systems, AI, Internet of things, etc.).
Now the world of programming is developing in two main polar directions: low-level - FPGA and self-sufficient microcontrollers ("smart piece of iron in every thing"), and, opposite to it - high-level design and FP . In the first case, there is a lot of physics, in the second - matan, discrete, category theory and all that.
Personally, the second option is closer to me, so I chose Java-based technologies for myself (I explained why Java in the comment below): Scala, Lift , FP, function-oriented design, meta-programming, DSL , that's all.
Regarding "ready-made solutions", I personally observe the reverse process: people try to abandon universal ready-made solutions in favor of flexible, compact and tailored for a specific business logic (again DSL and DDD ).
But I still recommend starting with Fowler. Then R. Martin "Clean coder" (in Russian "The ideal programmer. How to become a software development professional"), of course McConnell, Craig Larman, and other bestsellers.
Oh, and don't forget Greg McCohen's book "Essentialism...", a very useful thing in our time. Personal growth and self-development is no less important (and sometimes even more important) than just "programming".

Answer 2

I wrote a long story, but I accidentally pressed a combination of some keys and the page closed, so I will write very briefly, because. I don't want to waste 20 minutes on an essay again.
-Desire + interest
-Several years of programming, I know c++/java/python, I came to the last one a year ago, I won't go back to java and c++
-My favorite language is python - development speed is very important, I write only a year in it
-$2k per week, odesk , I can afford to live in any country, but money is not important, I understand this only now, when success has come to me, the main thing is in the first and last
points the same php/java = taking contracts from java/c#/php programmers = no shortage of orders for python
-Desire and interest, success will come by itself, under interest I single out for myself the interest of the development area: web crawling/parsing/search and my favorite language is python, good luck finding yourself! (web crawling is a promising niche for you, which will only grow over time, many social networks and other sites have appeared, and all customers need data from them, especially startups)

Answer 3

Don't worry and don't listen to anyone. The mass will always say that you will fail. I know unique people who went to the States on a job offer without having a specialized IT education.
Become a good specialist in a certain topic and bomb all companies in a row with your CV.
Good specialists even in PHP get well. Those who have already worked with you and those to whom they recommended you will begin to contact you. Post code, create a site with your crafts, make something really cool. Write articles somewhere, publish.
It is very important for you to have good English. This is extremely important. So that you understand and you are well understood.

Answer 4

In my opinion, it's not about technology, but about your competence. Everyone scolds PHP, although its only minus is the low entry threshold (and even then, minus whether). An expert in this language will be torn off in 5-10 years.
Judge for yourself. You are an employer. You have hundreds of candidates from your home country, excellent, suitable for your vacancy, for example, a middle developer. Will you take a similar candidate from other distant countries? Perhaps, if it turns out to pay two times less (and even then, it is relevant for especially greedy people). But in fact - no .
Another thing is the guru. Specialists whose names are well-known, who are authorities not in their city or, even more so, in the company, but in the whole area, in the whole direction of technology. There are few such people, but they are perhaps the only ones free to choose their country of residence. The rest can rely on luck and connections. No more.
Decide for yourself.

Answer 5

If the main goal is emigration, then first decide which country you want to emigrate to and in what way: independent emigration or a job offer.
26 years is, of course, a little more, but it should be taken into account that it takes 3-5 years on average to become a professional in some field, so it is not recommended to "rush around" many times.
Decide on the language, if it is Europe, can you master one more in addition to English?
The tower, in theory, should be profile.
In general, design, even if fashionable UI / UX, is not the best direction, there is a higher need for technical specialists almost everywhere.
keep in mind that most of the projects where foreigners are brought in are support for some old enterprise, and cut and rock is in startups. Judging by the market, python has been increasingly chosen for new startups lately.

Answer 6

The most promising h1b in the US is C#.
Regular WPF or ASP.NET.
Then Java. And in 3-10 years, it will also be needed, it will simply take an honest second place in popularity.

Answer 7

I would choose development for mobile platforms: phones, tablets, watches.
I don’t know iOS or Android, but in my opinion, developing mobile applications is interesting in itself. What you say that they are like dirt is all nonsense. To leave as a developer overseas is a common practice, specialized education is also nonsense, the main thing is experience and knowledge, well, confirm / prove to the consul that you are really a programmer, and not a journalist by education, for example, which are definitely not needed there.
I myself am not a developer, but I know a lot, there are those who work in the states and Tokyo, but this is not the point. Personally, I am interested in the field of AI, machine learning, bigData. In general, specialists in such areas, good ones who really do this from the heart, will be taken away with arms and legs, even if it is written in education - a linguist or a machine operator. but then again, it's all about interest.
That is, even if you choose Front end development, you can also leave calmly, but you need to understand that such areas are really full of people in the west and here, so it’s better to choose a small and promising niche that will only be appreciated in the future.

Answer 8

As far as I know, the employer first of all begins the question of having an appropriate diploma from a Russian university recognized in the USA.
Otherwise, no one in the Department of Emigration will even talk to this employer, and he must justify why he is taking on this job not the local John, but Vasya from Kaluga.
Therefore, the direction itself is the second thing in this project.