I've been working as a DevOps engineer for about 7-8 years, and it's been a great experience. Now, I'm interested in transitioning to backend development and distributed systems. I'm trying to figure out which programming languages would be best for this shift. I keep seeing discussions about Python and Go being the top contenders. For anyone who's made a move from DevOps to backend or the other way around, which language do you think I should focus on? I'm planning my learning path for the next year while also pursuing grad school.
3 Answers
I've spent around 17 years in DevOps, mostly in real-time communications. I've always used Python until recently when I started picking up Go. I was pretty comfortable with C/C++ for basic stuff but never really developed full-time in those languages.
Have you thought about how you're going to make the switch? Are you considering applying for a junior role if you can't transition within your current job, even if it means taking a pay cut?
Honestly, I haven’t planned that part yet. I’m thinking about either moving into a backend role within my company or just focusing on building projects to gain the necessary experience for a senior position.
Both languages have their strengths, but if I had to choose, I'd lean towards Go. It's super efficient and performs really well. I've got experience with backend development myself, and while Python is great for scripting and web applications, Go definitely takes the cake for performance when building distributed systems.
I've heard that Go is quite straightforward. Do you find it easy to learn and implement for infrastructure tasks?