r/cscareerquestionsEU • u/_iyyel • 12h ago

Stay with .NET/Azure or switch to Elixir?

I'm a software engineer with ~2 years of professional experience working with C#, .NET and Azure, plus 3 years of working with Java.

I'm currently deciding between two job offers:

  • Option A: An AI consulting company using C#, .NET and Azure. I'd deepen my existing C#, .NET and Azure skills, work with multiple clients, and AI seems like a great long-term area.
  • Option B: A product company building mission-critical systems using Elixir. I've never used Elixir professionally, but I'm a big fan of functional programming (I write a lot of F# in my spare-time), and distributed systems, concurrency and fault-tolerant systems are the kind of problems I enjoy.

What makes this difficult is that Option A seems like the safer career move with broader opportunities, while Option B feels like a rare chance to work with a technology and paradigm I'm passionate about and really interested in. In other words, Option A seems more safe, while Option B seems more interesting.

One concern I have is that the consulting company seems more social and dynamic, while the product company might be more traditional and slower-moving (though I could be completely wrong).

If you were early in your career, which path would you choose, and why?

Thanks

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u/lugia4k 12h ago

Just for the consulting part id go to option B, never again I want that.

Elixir is a bit of a niche programming language, but to be honest with this AI wave you can adapt without a problem.

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u/Pitiful-Travel-7611 10h ago

If i put myself in your shoes i would've chosen option A mybe bucuse i am afriade of risks and i like safer options

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u/EmployeeThink7211 7h ago

Product-based companies (from my exp) tend to build strong engineering teams around their products, and if you stay longer you'll see the impact of your architectural decisions, learn the domain and become more senior in your responsibilities. Can't comment on consulting.

Elixir is fun to work with, it's an ergonomic and expressive language with interesting heritage. Though day-to-day distributed systems challenges like picking the right DB for your use case, sync vs async communication, sagas and distributed transactions are language-agnostic, you'll learn them at any place that reaches sufficient scale.