Everyone loves his niche
All of the developers I talked to over the last week seemed to be happy with the niche they ended up in. That’s good news, as it suggests that the choice for a biotope, skill or programming language does not seem to matter a lot.
The Python programmer was happy to be hired by government agencies to work on innovative prototypes for software tools. He was happy to not be a Java programmer, because then you would end up maintaining legacy code at a bank.
The Java programmer, who happened to work at a bank, confirmed that legacy code required quite some work. But they created new stuff as well, and if you worked with pleasant people as he did it was actually a great job.
The Javascript programmer (or actually leader of a group of Javascript programmers) worked a young company and loved the vibe of start-ups and the prospect of innovative success. While being traditionally schooled in C and C++, he truly liked the new frameworks that made development of scalable SaaS so much easier.
I still can’t choose.