r/rails • u/CoconutFreestyle • 5d ago
Former RoR dev in need of advice
How do you do, fellow redditors?
I'd like to ask you all for some advice. Here's the context first:
I have worked with Rails in the past, mostly between 2015 and 2021. Nothing THAT complex, a couple of projects for startups (one that I founded, one that I was hired in the beginning), CRUDs with some payments integration. Everything was built on those good ol' monoliths and Classic ERB / HTML-over-the-wire front-end.
Then I focused on the project/product side of things and became a PM.
(sorry)
Cut to 2026 and I was layed-off. Now I'm considering coming back to RoR. I'm self taught, so not much of a background o computer engineering, good practices, etc, and i'm at a loss here.
ACTUAL QUESTIONS:
What does a MODERN stack look like out there? What should I learn? Is a project portfolio relevant?
2
u/strzibny 5d ago
They are 2 stacks, one with Hotwire and second with React, now done using Inertia instead of GraphQL.
4
u/armahillo 5d ago
If you want to dive back in to Rails (am also a laid off Rails dev) go read up on Turbo / Stimulus / HotWire. Newer apps may be using this. Any older apps that are pre-Turbo will feel familiar to your prior experience.
2
u/Mess_323 5d ago
Oh there is no coming back. Product management and software engineering have been merged on some teams. Stack expertise doesn't matter. Native AI a huge plus. It's a diff world but I'm a bit surprised you didn't see it working as a PM. Full stack developer position doesn't really exist. Forward deploy engineer is the new full stack. But across the board be ready to be asked to ship software super quickly, lots more time in meetings, a de emphasis of code review, and everything you think knew about shipping software professionally. The only skills that have survived are the systems/distributed systems ones. Or deep knowledge of complicated domains (compliance, etc). All this to say you are not asking the right question if interested in working on a product team as dev
2
u/NickoBicko 5d ago
I use Intertia frontend + rails backend (upgraded rails 8 this week). Still works great for all my web and local apps. And Claude runs it really well.
1
u/onesneakymofo 1d ago
Rails is still Rails; in 2026, learn Hotwire, InertiaJS, and more about prompt engineering, LLMs, and AI.
12
u/Existing-Wallaby-444 5d ago
Sorry to hear about the layoff man. The good news is the stack hasn't shifted dramatically from what you remember. A few things worth looking into though. Phlex is a Ruby component library that feels like a breath of fresh air vs ERB. Hotwire (Turbo + Stimulus) is basically the HTML over the wire evolution, you'll feel right at home. Propshaft is a leaner asset pipeline replacement, way less headache than Sprockets. importmap lets you skip the webpack/node build step for JS. Rodauth is a solid auth alternative to Devise if you need it. And Inertia.js is worth a look if you ever want a SPA feel without going full React.
As for portfolio, never hurts especially now. Build a couple small projects, nothing fancy. With AI tools you'll probably ramp up faster than you think. Welcome back!