My impression is that unless you're a C++ developer doing avionics, all the development jobs are back in "cost center" areas. Do you think that's accurate?
I considered applying a few months ago but my current employer (large conglom-o-corp that ate my old company) has made me nervous about being walled-off as a code-monkey.
I also had that same impression. I mentioned these thoughts in another thread here on HN (regarding SpaceX) and one of the engineers chimed in saying they have many positions across different areas. I still think it would be cool to join something like this, but would prefer to work on some lower level stuff. I'm currently a Full Stack web developer.
Is there a path to from my current position to something more systems related? Has anyone made this transition before?
No, it is currently impossible to learn how to do C++/systems programming, the knowledge doesn't exist!
Are you serious? People come to be systems programmers with no programming experience, obviously with some web/server experience will be even more suited to learn it.
I considered applying a few months ago but my current employer (large conglom-o-corp that ate my old company) has made me nervous about being walled-off as a code-monkey.