Is working on Outsystems platform good for developer's career? | Hacker News Reader

Is working on Outsystems platform good for developer's career?

5 pointseren_jaeger16 comments

I accepted a job offer where their project requires using Outsystems platform, and will be starting soon. At the same time I received another offer working as ReactJS developer, which is my top choice. I am in dilemma now, I am afraid working as Outsystems is going to bring down my career. What should I do? Need experienced ones to give me advise.

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Working with Outsystems you will discover the enterprise world, discover RAD tooling for doing Web applications (low code framework) and get a skillset that is usually in demand by big corps, similar to SAP, because one only gets into OutSystems working in such kind of environments.

https://www.featuredcustomers.com/vendor/outsystems

It is not something to learn during long nights and weekends, rather with conferences, projects and certifications.

OutSystems is in business since 2003.

ReactJS, well everyone is doing it, it is a cool kids Facebook framework, and open source.

It boils down to which kind of work environments you want to be on.

Thank you for your input. Very helpful indeed.

You'll find that knowing different systems helps your career. Every new bootcamp grad knows React. You can learn React on your own, and know React + Outsystems, making you more unique.

It is counter-intuitive, but knowing non-trendy platforms makes you more valuable. When projects come up needing to integrate with the newer platforms, or if they drop Outsystems to move to node/React, you would be one of the few people who know both sides.

I've spent most of my career on platform transition projects, migrating Lotus Notes to .NET and SharePoint, and building web front-ends over them to replace their old UIs. Now, I am modernizing older .NET MVC and jQuery apps to React running in cloud environments. The tech list I work with would make most people run away screaming, yet I'm extremely valuable to my team because I know every piece of tech on both the old and the new platforms.

> It is counter-intuitive, but knowing non-trendy platforms makes you more valuable

Yes, but knowing only non-trendy platforms (especially if they're not really in demand and have a large diaspora such as PHP) is a good way to struggle to find work - except in the later phases of your career as you can leverage your experience in consulting, if you have managed to make the right connections.

Thank you taurath :)

thanks codingdave

I have worked for a RAD platform similar to Outsystems. As I was building the platform I had the best of both worlds:

1) engineering with general purpose frameworks and programming languages on the platform and

2) the RAD toolset itself as we were eating our own dog food.

Today I’m not doing anything with RAD. But the experience is invaluable and I know what enterprise is like.

Bottom line is, I don’t think this harms your career. It’s all a learning experience and worse case you find a new challenge if you really don’t like it.

I think it’s worse to stay comfortable over exploring what else is in the world.

Thanks for your opinion. Much appreciated :)

Knowing a little bit is good, building your entire career around it is bad except you work for it as a consultant.

Once i too got opportunity to work on Outsystems but i refused to do because you won't gent in-depth knowledge in language instead you just learn their product. Better to go for ReactJS.

> working as ReactJS developer, which is my top choice

Why didn’t you go for it?

I have accepted the offer and starting soon. I dont want to back out because it will ruin my reputation.

I think you have taken the better job opportunity. You’ll be more valuable with that sort of tech than the usual stacks, although there may be fewer of those jobs.

Are you saying this because lesser people know Outsystems than the usual tech stack like react, and it makes them look vaulable?

Yes and enterprises have more money to spend on their staff. In general. SF tech bubble excepted!

Thanks a lot quickthrower for your comments. Much appreciated.

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