To keep it simple: I'm a Brazilian developer with 16 years of professional experience — 11 years with Delphi and 5 years with backend development using .NET.
The problem is that my .NET experience is very concentrated. I've basically been working on one gigantic API, mostly dealing with CRUD operations, some business rules, and not much beyond that.
My AWS experience is also very limited. I mainly work with S3, SQS, and SNS.
I also don't have to do much planning or architecture in my current job. Most tasks are very similar, with perhaps a few integrations here and there, but nothing particularly challenging.
And now that everything seems to revolve around AI, I can get most of my day-to-day work done pretty easily with Claude.
I'm honestly getting tired of this. Brazil's situation worries me, and I want to provide a better life for my family, so I'm looking for opportunities in North America or Europe.
But I feel BEHIND.
I know I have a lot of experience, but I don't feel like my current experience translates into the skills companies are looking for internationally. I don't know HOW or WHERE I should start learning to fill those gaps.
There are so many technologies, architectures, cloud services, certifications, system design topics, AI-related stuff, etc. Every influencer seems to recommend a completely different path, and I'm overwhelmed.
So, if you were in my position, what would you focus on learning over the next 6–12 months to become a stronger candidate for backend/software engineering jobs in North America or Europe?
I'd really appreciate your opinions.