I’ll start this article with a few stark examples that my friends and Internet friends have recently told me.

1. Employment is difficult

Brother Zhang, I have been working in Beijing for 4 years. I usually do not pay attention to the accumulation of skills. Then I have not found a satisfactory job for 2 months. What am I supposed to do?

2. Over the age of 32, companies start to give up.

Friend old liu: I 36, contact headhunter to look for a job recently, headhunter say can look for technology to manage kind of, pure development of general company 32 years old of don’t recruit.

Friend six son: this what circumstance, I am Tencent 3.2, why I not line, young person capable of I also capable? I’m not old either!

Friend Ma: I really want to go to Bytedance, but I am over 35 years old. In fact, I have good skills, but when I see this, my heart cools.

3. As companies become more demanding, Android developers bite the bullet

Friend Xiao Li: Well, it seems I can’t get in. I don’t know much about framework and cross-platform source code.

1. Stages of Android development

I’ve spent nine of my ten years developing for Android. In my experience, the Android market is divided into several phases, which may not be particularly accurate, but I think it’s worth looking at.

Stage 1: Chaos

At that time, Java development was a bit like Android development now. It was not very popular and there was a lot of competition. Therefore, many Java developers switched to Android development, and I was one of them. There was a saying in 2009 and 2010 that if you could Activiy’s life cycle, you could get an interview, which was a little bit of an exaggeration, but it made a lot of sense, you knew the basic concepts, you could get in. At this time, everyone is feeling by the river to develop, online materials and books are relatively few, third-party framework is also very rare.

The second stage: development stage

During this period, from 2013 to 2015, Android development experienced the fastest development in the past three years. Various training institutions were mobilized to cultivate many Android developers. At this time, a large number of third-party frameworks contend, plug-in, Hybrid, MVP and other technologies began to occupy everyone’s vision. The web is churning out material, as are some classic Android books.

The third stage: plateau

This phase, probably between 2016 and 2019, is when Android development falls off its pedestal and goes back to normal, not because it’s cool, but because there are more popular technologies, and it eclipses Android development. At the same time, because of the oversupply, many Android developers are switching industries, and training institutions rarely train Android. This was a time when there were a lot of heavyweight cross-platform frameworks, componentification, Kotlin, Android Jetpack, mobile AI, etc., and the Android Advanced trilogy was born.

It is fair to say that the present situation looks gloomy, but there is hope. Here’s a look at the career change and persistence of Android development.

2.Android Development Career Transition Guide

If you just want to make a lot of money and go back to work in your 30s, you can go straight to a hot technology that suits you. For example, Python-related technologies have been hot for a while. You can go straight to a hot technology that suits you.

If your goal is to stay in the tech field for a few more years and become a technologist and above, then a career change should be considered carefully, because most career changes are not qualitative.

2.1 Most career changes are not qualitative

A qualitative change development can be understood as a surge in one area, or it is not related to areas of crossover, for example, can by the high quality for the sake of experts in the field of Android, or is developed by a senior raised to the Leader, or cross-border began to do some related technical training, speech was well known, books and so on.

Those who can help after the age of 35 into the upswing or plateau can be seen as a qualitative change, and change is rarely qualitative change, more is back to the origin to start again, image point, is to change a different brick and then move bricks (except high-tech content). Therefore, we should pursue qualitative change, rather than parallel or retrogression. One retrogression can be tolerated, but it is difficult to enter an upward or stable period after the age of 35 for many retrogressions.

To put it simply, no matter what you switch to, you must become an expert or leader to ensure the continuation of your career. Changing careers only delays this step, and it is unavoidable after all.

2.2 Transfer as soon as possible

If you feel that your industry has fallen by the wayside, that you can’t use your talent, or that you’re not interested in what you’re doing, you want to find another one that interests you. Make a career change as soon as possible.

This graph is not entirely accurate, but it does make some sense. As can be seen from the graph, most people are in a period of acceleration before the age of 35 and a period of rise or decline after that. Taking Android development to the front end as an example, if an Android advanced A student changes to the front end of the industry, the front end will become the middle end of the front end, at this time, people engaged in the front end are accelerating, it is impossible for A student to catch up with the front people with the same acceleration, which leads to his very passive in the early stage of the career change. Student A also needs to ensure that he becomes A front-end expert or Leader before he is 35 years old, so that he will not enter the decline period after he is 35 years old. Of course, at this time, student A’s Android is basically abandoned and it is difficult to become an expert. If you want to go further in the field of technology, don’t make a career change easily. If you want to make a career change as early as possible, as soon as possible, because other competitors are accelerating, no one will stop waiting for you.

2.3 What to turn to?

Some classmates say, don’t say that some don’t of, I just want to turn, that I also say turn what better.

I’ve been doing a lot of front end and back end turns around, so it’s all going well. On the whole, the front end is relatively smooth, because many concepts are the same, and Android with the front end, in the direction of the big front end is very advantageous, is a good combination and supplement. The future development is also promising. In the future, I can lead a large front-end team and mobile terminal team, and in the future, I can develop front-end and Android and become an expert in a branch, which is promising.

The development of the back end is general, because the span is relatively large, the back end and the knowledge point associated with Android is limited, when you are developing, the previous Android knowledge can not help the back end very well. Career development is not as beautiful as many people imagine. Only becoming a technical expert and leader can prolong your career. What? When the CTO? This is just like a back-end developer who has learned Android for two years is like an Android Leader with 10 years of experience competing for mobile director. How much do you think his chances are?

Of course, there are other options, some of which are so hyped that I won’t mention them. Of course, if you come from an elite school and have a great talent, you can transfer to whatever you want, and it’s easy to be a true full stack.

3. Stick to the Guidelines for Android development

See here, if you want to change the industry, don’t look down, we tell you how to improve the competitiveness of Android, success stick to, muffled sound made a fortune!

3.1 Choose a niche area

Android is now divided into many different areas, including app development, reverse security, AUDIO and video, Internet of cars, Internet of Things, mobile phone development, SDK development, smart TV box development, etc. Pick one of these areas and keep going. For example, audio and video, 9 years ago when I just started Android, audio and video is muffled sound made a fortune (PC terminal), high salary is surprising, now in the mobile terminal, audio and video is a very good choice, if you want to start to see He Junlin “Android audio and video development”.

3.2 Try to learn knowledge with a long half-life

Knowledge half-life refers to a period in which knowledge falls out of fashion as the period of knowledge renewal becomes shorter and the speed of knowledge fission accelerates. Occupations with long knowledge half-lives, such as English teachers and surgeons, tend to be more valuable as they get older. Knowledge changes slowly and is rarely out of date. That our programmers is absolutely ratio not, most of our knowledge is relatively short half-life, a framework for just a few short years could be eliminated, leading to programmers need to constantly learning new knowledge, and each of us time and energy is limited, so according to the knowledge half-life, a strategy is of vital significance to study.

3.3 Do subtraction, as far as possible specialized Android technology

In today’s society, the division of technology is becoming more and more detailed, which means that most enterprises (except small workshops) need specialized talents (preferably proficient in one subject and many subjects). You will find that most of the outstanding technologies around are based on a single technology, but it is rare to see a bunch of technologies are not proficient in emerging. For example, in the world of wuxia, masters fight in the same period of time to take out the martial arts, if the martial arts are not fine, every minute is abused, the rest of the martial arts do not need to take out the disgrace. Think of the real version is to go to a large company to interview Android, the result is not deep understanding of Android technology, all kinds of abuse, the rest of the front-end technology, back-end technology, Python, the interviewer is not interested in learning.

So it’s not that the more technology you know, the better. Be sure to do a good job of subtraction, first specializing in Android technology, and then to learn other technologies.

3.4 Adapt to The Times and embrace the big front end

On the premise of specialized Android technology, adapt to The Times, learn front-end and cross-platform knowledge, embrace the big front-end. This is a safer and more stable approach than changing careers, advance can attack, retreat can defend.

Share an Android development advanced advanced brain map, adhere to the compatriots can refer to the map to supplement, expand knowledge

Android learning PDF+ architecture video + interview document + source notes

4. To summarize

This article explains some of my thoughts on switching and sticking with Android development. My opinion is that you don’t want to switch, you can continue to specialize in Android and embrace the big front end, and if you have to switch, choose the front end first. Maybe some people will think my point of view is wrong, I think there is no absolute right and wrong, these to the time to prove it!

The last

Thank you for being patient enough to read my long-winded article.

I would like to learn from each other and make progress together with you.

Here I also share a self-collected and organized Android learning PDF+ architecture video + interview document + source notes, and advanced architecture technology advanced brain map, Android development interview topic information, advanced architecture information to help you learn to improve the advanced, but also save you on the Internet search information time to learn, You can also share it with your friends to learn together

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