A friend of mine worked as a programmer for Cincinnati Bell for 43 years, and he survived round after round of layoffs for decades because he was one of the very few people in the company who knew COBOL, which had been abandoned by the cool IT kids back in, what, the 80’s? Several mission critical systems had been programmed in COBOL back in the day, though, and they were still running on it when my friend retired in 2014. He hated the job, and I think his superiors hated him, but that was his niche and he was bulletproof.
It gets old switching tech stacks every few years, too. You waste time re-learning how to do the same things in different tech. Better to get really good at one stack and understand the business so that your job cannot be easily outsourced.
@@UnlessRoundIsFunny Former COBOL developer here: please always be careful with such affirmations, and always take each person's experience with a pinch of salt... COBOL developers are like chemists - I used to be one before working in IT -: while it is true that COBOL developers will always be in demand, this does not mean that there will be a demand for all COBOL developers. COBOL developers working for Lehman Brothers in 2008 were not as lucky as your friend was! Yes, even as a COBOL developer, despite the legacy code base: you can be laid off, AND it can take a while until you find a new position! And while it is a good niche, your possibilities are much more limited!
@@nreed7718 Yeah i just did 2 years of full-stack development, right now my mood is fuck full stack not worth the extra things to keep up with. Next year i'm going back to backend "devops"... I can use my free time better and pick up Game development the sole one reason i actually started wanting to learn programming. Im have almost a decade of professional experience.
System Engineer here. Expecting us to work on side projects on our free time is a bit of a problem in IT in general. , the amount of times I've been asked in interviews if I have an home lab is insane. Even crazier is the looks they'd give when I'd say "No, if I need to try something I'll do so in a virtualized environment". Thankfully I'm self employed now don't have to deal with this as much.
i have 20 years of experience and have worked for two of the faang companies, and it’s been almost a year since i’ve found a job. it’s the hardest market ive ever experienced. i used to get recruiters hitting me up daily, now im applying daily and getting ghosted! good luck yall!
@@huinyavainait kind of sucks, I don’t mean to gatekeep but seeing HR, sales, finance, and marketing take over tech and try to lay us off while getting similar salaries in insane
@@redshift415 I have 40+ years experience, and yeah, it's one of the hardest market I've had to look for a job in. (and I'm actually pretty current on the technology..)
@@garyp.7501 I have 60+ years of experience and yeah, this is super tough I always liked technology I am 2000+ leetcodes in and still cant find a job. I was there when Apollo launched btw.
The stress is a big issue. I have known a lot of software engineers who have had mental and physical health issues from the stress, myself included. And we as a society are so reluctant to include stress as a factor in developing issues like type two diabetes for example, that this is almost certainly a great understatement. The late night stress is some of the worst for health. And as an industry we do on-call in ways which are pretty close to being indefensible from a human cost perspective. Upper level decision makers, often who have never experienced these issues, unintentionally add a lot of unnecessary stress and hardship simply by failing to deal with the human cost side.
the stress comes from your own perception of the relationship between your identity and time. see in school you get a test and if you finish it in 2 days you failed.. but if you finish it right at the end of class you pass. and if you finish it in 20 minutes you are genious. this is all conceptual nonsense. ego identity vapor. its not real. you are who you are no faster or slower. but you carry that weight into your adulthood.. and now you mad at yourself for being too slow. who defines the speed? did you wall flower when they asked you how long it was gonna take and you gave them the thing they wanted to hear not the truth? or did you die along with a dying project and didnt just let it die while you live? cmon bro.. detatch yourself from the bull. you are not the work. and the time means nothing only the deed. and the journey is everything. eckart tolle said you are not a lawyer, or a programmer. you are not a brother or sister or son. you are nothing. wuwei
@@j.c.s5630 That's one aspect. The issue that got me was in managing very large systems with late-night incidents. When the mission critical distributed database is falling apart late at night, that imparts a lot of stress. In fact I would say my experience is that late night stress from on call is the biggest and least avoidable stressor.
@@WorldTravelerCooking yeah but you accepted that job. and if something else force you to accept that job well that something else you opted in for. something you opted in for way down the line.. like you took out some student loans way back.. and that cascaded into a series of decisions that required you to do late night job. you could have done that late night job at your own pace and they would have fired you in 6 months and you would have had 6 months unempployment insurance to retool then pivoted some other direction. theres alot of stuff out here trust me im a gangster with this .... i stayed home with my mom and ran some experiments. then i got married. every step i kindof didnt go for the shiny things everyone else goes for. like the 3 man bachelor pad in brooklyn. or a new car to impress the ladies. matter fact ive never owned a car and im 50. i bike to work that means i can get fired that means i can take chances that means i can start studying for the next job when i know im not going to last with these people. of course my retirement savings are nil. well cross that bridge when we come to it. you yourself youve been working hard towards retirement. even the college degree was a hedge against a golden years where you can only sit around the house cause you got no money for vacation. me i dont care about vacation.. last time i went to peru and i hated it. water bad. people dangerous. i appreciate the mundane. i always take my time with things
@@j.c.s5630 There's a reason I quit the job that was giving me health issues. Nobody understands how stress will break them until it does. The fact is though, stress leads to human error and human error leads to big losses. Companies therefore need to do a better job of addressing this issue and if they don't then everyone loses, the employer included.
There is so much information to know about web/programming. So I don't understand how most people can think they can goto a bootcamp and be experts in 3 months. It takes time to digest and understand. As you mention making anything above 80k is alot of pressure on the programmer to make it work.
A bootcamp provides foundational knowledge, but without a portfolio of real-world projects outside of the bootcamp, an attendee will not be suitable for even a junior level web developer / software developer role. Forget entry level roles because they rarely exist and are rarely entry level except the wage.
Yup. This is delusional. It's also done with predatory sales of selling s service which doesn't deliver. It also been really bad for the industry it kinda worked for a while because the industry was so short on dev's so people would hire some of them. Now it comes back down to the you need 5,000+ hours exp or your not getting past the tech interview. Now we have 3.1 million npm modules (yes really) which is a result of this outcome. But in really theres only about 500 really mean anything half decent. The decay in terms of standards in the industry is insane in the last 5-10 years. There also way to much focus on the code rather than the problems being solved. When you ask the guys who came from boot camp in a code interview to explain control system theory. They fall apart.. rapidly
@@catherinelijs Not at the prices they are charging. I have been a dev for 28years. I have worked with all sorts of people. Been to all sorts of interviews and interviewed 1000's of people. What we do with bootcamp people is take them on for job thats nobody wants like localization, proof reading, spelling, grammar, manual QA or support They typically are not able to make to a dev standard and they often don't progress to a standard to be a dev even when given the time an opportunity to do so. There is a crisis in the industry currently where people don't realize the standard for the last decade has been lowered because there has been a skill shortage. In the last year or so that standard has just returned to pre 2010 levels since there isn't a skill shortage. The bootcamps were working in that period of time. Now they do not. Should see them die out in the next 2 years.
I'm a 3D character artist for my day job. I 100% agree about doin the same stuff outside of work: I can't do it. This passion has turned into a job. It's so hard to sit down at the end of the day and do even more of it as a hobby. Now I'm teaching myself to code web3 dapps in my freetime.
this is spot on, nobody told me about the physical and mental health sacrifices i'd have to make working in tech. Especially in the UK, it's a very abusive career path to take, very cut throat and you're expected to know literally every aspect of development not just one part... it's killer
Thanks for sharing! It’s a shame that workers in tech don’t get any recognition for the stress they face because society thinks that just because we work in front of a computer we shouldn’t have stress like those working manual jobs
So many comments. Adding my 2cents. I was self taught, started coding when I was 7. Had toyed around with computers for 13 years when I got my first computer work when I was 20. I got double degrees in both Network Engineering and Software development. On my travel back and forth to work, 2h a day on public transport, I read new book about software. I got a big library of them at home. All that I bought for my own money. Never made more than $70k/year. Had 24/7 support with 15min from call to start working. Try to shopping grocerys with that, you have your laptop in your car with you at all times. Okey, 24/7 wasn’t that often, but still. School should be enough, I agree. Also, I feel offended when I hear ”bootcamp is all you need”. Just writing this as a reallity check for some, and a hint to others. Software can be fun, but it’s a lot of learning, life long frustration, and not always as good payed as people think.
Thank you! I'm really glad you found it useful, especially as you also noticed the amount of bs out there regarding SWEs on youtube and other social media!
One myth that I would bring up that you don't (and most HR departments haven't figured out either) is the myth that knowing a framework and a language is enough. It might be enough to start to get a job but my experience has been that programming is about 80% domain knowledge (understanding of problem domains, etc), 15% algorithms and data structures, and 5% languages and frameworks. You can know the languages but if you don't understand the problems you are trying to solve, you won't be successful. Of course you can be hired without the domain knowledge (because people have to build that) but you had better spend time actively learning the domain and business sides if you want to be good at what you do. That also means that if you have a particular interest in an industry, as a software engineer, it makes a lot of sense to specialize in that industry.
My rule for hiring engineers starts with business knowledge, then domain knowledge, followed by data architecture, next platform knowledge, and coding skills. Not that coding isn't important. It's just that if they know the others, the onboarding, training, and KT will just be so much smoother.
100% this. I was working on a dev project involving accounting. We got one of the account trained up to be a programmer, so he could take over the project when we moved on to the next project, while he was helping me. This was 20 years ago, last I knew he was still in charge of that project a few years back.
Thanks for making this video. I'm a developer myself, and all that crap I see from these tech "influencers" does not reflect at all what the real tech experience is. On top of that, before landing my current job, I felt miserable thinking I was stupid and not as smart as these tech "influencers" for not landing a job after graduation... These kind of stuff needs to be stopped, even that crap of a "Daily routine of a Consultant in a Big 4 Company or Blue Chip Company"... Anyways, thanks for clearing this up, really appreciate it.
Been coding professionally since 1998. During my 20s when I was single yeah I spent a lot of my free time coding and learning as much as possible just because I honestly loved coding. There was no TH-cam or social media telling me I needed to do so I just wanted to learn as much as I could. I’m married with kids now and that has taken a huge backseat to spending time with my family. I still take a few hours here and there throughout the week but nothing like those early days from my 20s. Life is about balance. Find a good balance. A man should bear his burden in his youth.
@@snowheader2200 it’s a bible verse: Lamentations chapter 3 verse 27 - it is good for a person to bear their burdens in their youth. Basically it’s saying work hard in your teens and twenties while you are young, healthy and single. I was broke and struggling during those early years and I am glad I went through that while I was young and single. Lay a foundation during those early years so that you can build upon it later in your 30s and 40s where you should worry less about trying to gain job/coding experience and focus more on yourself and family.
Something else I see that doesn't come up is the cost of living relative to salary. $300k sounds like a lot if you live in some random place, but you aren't getting $300k in some random place. Cost of living really nerfs the salary aspect. You can often have a higher standard of living on $150k in an average city than $300k in the Valley or New York.
People don’t realize that the average worker in tech makes just about 10% to 20% more than an engineer. Realistic salaries are $60K to $180K with most sitting pretty around the $90K-$120K mark
Knowing many people working near min wage jobs in other industries, I'd say $300k is plenty ton lot, even in a high cost of living area like NYC. I'm speaking as a New Yorker myself.
@@kevinsjournal Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean to imply $300k in a place like New York is destitute or anything like that. Real estate probably highlights what I mean the most.
I'm an Architect responsible for several major projects. I have a family and kids, but I make time to code on the side. Its fun and its something I can teach to my kids too
I'm old school though. To me, all languages are not segmented into backend, frontend, fullstack. They are all one to me. I know a bunch of languages and code in them every day almost. A lot of young people have been fooled into pigeonholing themselves into controllable boxes. In my day, we had the hacker culture as the norm. If you have this mentality, you dont have to worry about finding work
Finally, a genuine video dispelling a lot of these SWE myths. I've been a Software Engineer for 1.5 years, and as great as it is, it's just like any other desk job. That means pressure to perform, and all the workplace politics you find at any job!
4:34 I really hate that attitude from employers. I don't want to code after work hours after I spend 5+ years in the industry. Maybe sometimes when I find an interesting framework, but definitely not all the time.
Solid advice. Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm on the other end if this journey... I found a lot of what you said to resonate with throughout my own experiences. Ageism is my new battle. I knwo enough to not be bamboozled and i think that makes me less valuable/vulnerable to grind culture.
Well the thing is that, no everyone has a side project but throughout my humble career of just 11 years most of the good developers have some side project that they are working on, out of passion it doesn't need to be for money. Most of the times it's just small stuff to experiment with new technologies that are now emerging. I do it myself and i do love my job and i would do it even if the pay wasn't great, now i am not a bigot and i do realize that not everyone has the same aspirations as me so if you're happy with the 9-5 it's fine and i am with you thumbs up.
Yeah, i Completely agree with you. people started bum rushing into fullstack react stacks, everyone and their uncle studied and learned it. looking at fullstack or frontend roles I see HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of applicants. while I specialized in backend dev, Golang and niched even further to microservices. and Suddenly I see not even 1% of the applicants these fullstack roles were pulling in
Great video and good points. I work in IT since 16 years and I agree with most of your points. Especially the part with programming as a hobby / side hustle. I myself program as a hobby, but I would never expect coworkers to do the same. You can be a great software engineer and do a 9-5
As a mom to a 7mo old that’s furthering my education/portfolio to become a software engineer, I really appreciate you making this video. It was one of the first vids that didn’t sell an unrealistic dream, but still gave me hope that I can succeed.💖
Thank you so much for watching! I really wish you all the best in your journey of becoming a developer and hope you land the dream job you're looking for!
You are totally on spot with the first one, I've seen people working on the same company I work for, Microsoft btw, doing those "a day in the life" videos and I always think "jeez I want those days too" 😅They are completely misguiding for young or aspiring engineers
Saying Bill G never took a day off in 30 years, then showing a quote of him saying he only did that during his 20's. 10 years is alot shorter time to do something like that than 30.
It was a different time back then, electronics were just being discovered, and it was exciting and new. Today it's "Why is it taking so long to load" and "Why isn't fixed yet" or "What use are you now that we have A.I."
I'm hoping that you're able to find a job that doesn't require you to be on-call constantly, or that at least has a manageable schedule where the entire team rotates instead of just the juniors as punishment. Also, haha, I hope I was a helpful mentor!
SWE pay in the US is wildly higher than the rest of the world {including Canada & Western Europe}. US based SWE is going to be offshored to Canada at this rate.
Yup. Hence why US job market is insane. I see people failing 300 job apps. Wtf. I made 5 when I was a grad and got 3 offers. Now I get headhunted even in this dogshit market.
Problem is bootcamps are way to short. In germany we have a 3 year apprenticeship to become a software developer. There is no need to actually go to college. You will learn how computer work and how to code and work in a company with developers, who will teach you as well. That way you will know everything you need to know.
"You can't be mediocre at a bunch of different languages and frameworks and expect to get hired". For most of the jobs I have been hired to, they didn't really care what language or framework I used on previous jobs. The interview process was generally a system design question and a DSA problem but they were agnostic to the chosen language.
I don't know what it is like today because as you indicated there are only videos on opposite ends of the spectrum, but here is what it was like in my day. I started my programming career in 1990. Back then, we were gods. Basically if you could turn on a computer, and wanted to work, you had a job. I got kicked out of high school in grade 12, did not go back. I got my first full time programming job shortly thereafter. I did eventually go to college... for 5 months and graduated from an accelerated program. For the next 25 years, I usually worked pretty hard, not because I had to, but because I loved it. For the last 10 years though, I have been working from home for a bank. I put in a couple hours a day for a 6 figure income, generous bonus, 4 weeks vacation and benefits. Years ago you needed only the basic of skills to get a good job. Today you need a laundry list of skills for the most basic of jobs. It is sick.
Thank you for your input and your experiences. You're right, the more in-demand this field is, the more requirements get piled on, it's very difficult to get a first job in software without any experience
One other thing I have noticed is that there is a massive difference in open source software communities based on gender. This isn't something which is a comfortable conversation but it is an important one. Men have a tendency of coming into an open source project via a hobby and then building a career around the software. Women have a tendency to come into a community via a job and leave when they change jobs. This has unfortunate implications when it comes to career advancement but there are probably social and economic realities which make this what it is. There are probably a lot of men too who are just there for a job, but then they don't rise to the point where their expertise on a particular technology is particularly valuable in itself. In my case, this has lead to a slow-to-establish but nice career around Postgres and some other technologies (which is more typical for men because we can delay having kids longer and so pay less of a personal cost for a slower-to-build career), but I look around and there are a lot of people who were able to establish much younger than me, and so my experience cannot be typical (actually it is not typical as my degree is in history, but I digress). So this gets at something that I think is a structural barrier to gender equality in this field and we need to have some discussions about how to enable it to be lessened.
@@catherinelijs After watching a lot of these "A Day in the Life of a Software Engineer" videos, it makes me wonder how these FAANG have been able to operate. Perhaps that explains the reasons for the recent tech layoffs. 😀
I think most of the problems come because "programming is another job" now, while it is wrong. It should be the passion (this means it cannot be many / enough of the programmers). It's like to be a painter. For example me, I read 1st book about programming when I was 6 because it had nice pictures. 1 month later I was sure I will be programmer. I wrote programs on paper for next 4 years until I got my 1st device. Now I make a money from it for more than 25 years. Never had problems (2)-(3) for sure. Because I would write programs for free, it is nice when I'm paid too.
I agree some of the best have non-computer interests outside of the 9-5 with hobbies. However, some of us, perhaps socially awkward types, our hobbies are computers. Doesn't make us the best, or even good, but it's what we live for.
No shame in doing what you enjoy, and if you enjoy coding as a hobby, that's even better, but there's plenty of engineers that just need to take a break from the screen when they're not on the clock
The biggest challenge is the reality wall slam. I have worked with countless young folks who think they should be paid crazy salaries and they have 0 experience. 😂
On the hiring side, I think part of the problem is that HR departments are pretty bad at sorting candidates. When I have been in the hiring manager's position here, I have always insisted on screening the resumes myself because otherwise you get arbitrary crap filters thrown on by people who don't understand the requirements. One thing I would highly recommend for anyone new to the field is to try to go for jobs where you can reach out to the hiring manager, and to do that to try to assess whether you are a good fit. It makes you seem interested and it gives you an opportunity to get some real feedback.
I was working in tech and would come home and program my side project. I had two kids and my wife at the time worked nights so I was taking care of them and would program late into the night. So it can be done. But at the time, coding and learning was fun and even when I got into a SE role, my personal projects are not the same as what I do at work. Though these days I prefer to ride around on my motor cycle rather than sit behind a computer screen.
I'm sorry. I work 8 hour days and no more. Rarely do I work outside of work hours. I always try to make it so I don't have to work outside of work hours.
its more the other way around, people who are coding as a hobby tend to make a living on that later, and so they are obviously better, just like some who does woodwork in his fretime gains a lot more experience and start with basic knowledge upfront, and reality reflects that
One misconception i had when choosing my career as a software dev was that being good at coding would mean I was good at being a dev. Turns out there's also a whole lot of trying to figure out why the build is broken and dealing with challenging humans.
High paying jobs are generally in high cost of living areas. Burnout and high pressure bosses is a negative for those high paying jobs. Typically those coming out of school landing the best jobs come from high end schools. Things people will seldom tell you.
I actually was able to get my job right after a 6-month boot camp (Revature which got me bought out by Infosys) and have been working for 2 years now (1 year in Infosys as contractor, Company I was contracted to then offered me full-time position, I accepted with a nice pay bump). But I also had a 4 year degree in IT (boot camp took people who didn't have degree in IT as well) Many people in that boot camp, especially those without a degree in IT didn't manage to make it, but a handful or 2 of each batch were able to get a job right away
Myth 1: Not really a myth, I mostly attend meeting and only code for about an hour. Btw, if your PM asks you why your feature is behind schedule that means you should have raised that issue earlier. Myth 3: We code as a hobby because we like to code. You don't have to do it but if you feels that coding is a chore then maybe switch something you're passionate about and not code for the money.
As a fellow software engineer, I agree with most of the points here, but I disagree that specialists (like React engineers) are more valuable than generalists. I do think companies BELIEVE they are more valuable and may pay them higher salaries in some cases, but in my decade+ of experience in the industry, the best engineers I’ve worked with have all been generalists. There is something to be said about bringing a wide variety of skills to the table to tackle a complicated problem. I find that specialists often have too narrow of a mindset and tend to get lost whenever something drifts slightly out of their comfort zone. I’ve seen it happen multiple times. I have no experience with coding bootcamps, but I’d be surprised if they actually produce well-rounded engineers at all. There is simply no way you can learn all the skills necessary to be successful in just a few months.
It's all cool until you have to fix the bug at friday cob, or ship blocker defects show up out of the blue, you have to meet kpis but you are behind schedule.
I started programming at 13 years old. It hit me like a religion. Some people say they love their job... no you don't, you like your job. I love programming and, not so much today, but at the beginning I actually did go to work, code all day and then come home and was on my computer after work, not necessarily on side hustles, but doing overtime or working on code projects for myself. It is not a reasonable across the board expectation, but people like me were an employers wet dream.
The yt algorithm promotes this video to IT professionals, while the target is obviously someone from outside the tech stack. Anyone, it was relaxing to listen to...
I feel like it’s a huge missed opportunity to omit the existential crisis waiting for the next Zoom meeting to start. Or that fun 3 minutes while we “wait for everyone to join” and I contemplate my life choices.
I totally missed the point of this comment in the video - are people in crisis when waiting for others to join the meeting? I didn't get it. Sorry, guess I'm too old school.
Im an electrical and computer engineer. People from IT will think they do what i do. Theyll say, "oh, im in IT too" Oh no honey, i power cities and design circuits. Ive never fixed someone elses computer in my life. Aside from my own. I code. But i am not a software engineer at all nor am i in it...
In my opinion the main lie which I heard from different people about this profession this is that this profession is effortless but actually that's not so effortless particularly with this moment that you necessary work really hard in order to achieve something great otherwise you will be achieving this very long time and about this video it really awesome and I really like your content, continue make it😊
Especially MRR tweets on twitter are normally just to garnish the person followers and is not a true representation of what it entails to run your own business and clients. I have seen many people quit their jobs because of this "build in public" lore, and seen many fail and return to their jobs.
Worked in IT Operation for 17 years before resigning. 12 - 14 hours a day onsite, usually got home at 00:30am and weekend mostly we still have to work also since it is the time we can do maintenance. Finally resign since my body can't handle it (even I learn a lot of multisets of skill). If you are still able to work and balance it with your personal life + salary is good, then it still a good life.
Sure, I had coffee breaks. Tons of them. Plenty of snacks too. Usually after midnight as I need to rebuild servers for the next few hours before the morning starts. :P
$150K is for most seniors. People don’t realize the biggest salary numbers are from California and New York where median home prices are double what the Americans is
Yes! This is critical and I’m glad to see people standing up for themselves and ensuring their career and jobs works for them and not the other way around
Software engineers with a great salary aren't always destined to save and invest such a salary. This is especially important for those who hit their first great salary; they study personal finances ASAP. More money can easily mean more debt risk, especially with sneaky payment plans these days.
You're 100% right. Investing is such an important topic as well as trying your hardest not to suffer from lifestyle inflation because you need to set yourself up to be ready in case the good times don't roll on forever.
There will be good times, and there will be bad times. Never take anything for granted. Never get complacent. Don't overspend. Save and invest your money. Get financially independent as soon as possible, and move to a nice, cheap location to live (as far from Silicon Valley as you possibly can).
This is great advice and not overspending and investing should be something that everyone does, but it's the TikTokers flashing crypto and someone else's Lamborghini that get the youth thinking that's the life
Imagine creating the data structures but failing to develop an algorithm to sort it out. Implementing the maths, physics in any language is quite difficult though all the solutions are there, figuring it out is another journey and I use w3schools.
3:13, what!?? Those people are full of shit. Don't listen to them. What about his "think week" two times a year? This is reading in a remote spot without access to technology and contact with employees and even family.
I tell them that I watch letters and numbers on the screen and sometimes I press letters and numbers on the keyboard. This answer is compatible with most people.
Bill Gates is indeed a very large inspiration for many people. Spend most of your youth working non-stop. Spend the remaining of your old years going to Epsten island
SVP in a global 100 MNC. Techie by training. moved from that role a VERY long time back. My parents tell their friends i fix computer for a living 😂😂 I get requests to do things like troubleshoot pc issues and to build pc by their friends all the time 😂
damn right, software engineer = spend a lot of time to create and maintain systems. it is a hard job when you meet no chioices, create new one instead emplyers scrap all things at last minute then do the new one doing similar things
Ignorance is a bliss and people do love being ignorant. :) Most jobs in this industry can be described as - simply put - life sucking. There is a reason why smart software devs try to get away from the actual development and more towards managerial positions or find a quite niche where there is a change once in a decade. Constant, rapid and unexpected changes, underpaid, long hours incl. horrible crunch time periods, poor resource management (and management overall), lack of perspective, constant need to learn new tech even if just to be able to answer a stupid question from your superior/client and not to look incompetent yourself etc. The "have 2 meetings, play some table tennis, get 10 smoothies and a buffet lunch for free at the company's canteen" is extremely rare and reserved most for huge companies (think Google, Facebook etc.). Then again, people who work like that are usually the first ones to go when the job cuts start (just check the headlines dating up to a year back and see how many tens of thousands have been let go!).
There's opportunities in non-trendy, and non-tech companies where change is slow and a work life balance is better, but everyone focuses on the top end companies to "get 2 meetings, play some table tennis, get 10 smoothies and a buffet lunch for free at the company's canteen" as you said
If I need to be an extrovert to be software developer, why not choose project management, business analysis, or jobs in general that you don’t really need technical skills and sadly the majority get a better pay than developers. I don’t know about USA however in Europe that is true. A developer in Greece where I am from, gets paid 1200-1500€ and a project manager 1500-2000€ per month.
Compensation tops out pretty quickly for most engineers. You could be making $150k after 5 years or 20 years, unless you are willing to move into lead or manager roles. Also, compensation very much depends on industry and location. People flexing $500k+ TC on the Blind are outliers, giving noobs and outsiders the wrong impression. A handful of big tech companies pay top dollar, but those companies have tremendous scale and earn obscene revenue for their small headcount. There is intense competition for these limited number of roles. Most engineers are "average" and will work in average roles.
No one's life is perfect. Before wanting some other's life, be conscious of all the downsides you would have to take. Just improve yours.. the more happiness you need to show on socials, the more sad you are
We're simple minded folks and usually marginalized things when we a clean youtube video. It's why some folks perceive software engineering as simple. lol....Humans tend to be simple minded.
“What comes to mind when you tell the average person who doesn’t work in tech that you are a software engineer?” They’re gonna ask me to fix their wifi or their printer, aren’t they?
I don't code for more than 30 minutes every day. Even with ChatGPT, I'm getting lazier. Coding becomes boring after a while, and you end up doing it just like any other job.
Another lie is the job is actually interesting. This is not always true. For instance, if your job is to maintain some existing product, the work is pretty lame.
24 years in I.T, I found best for longevity is don't follow trends, have multiple skill sets and find something no one else wants to do.
A friend of mine worked as a programmer for Cincinnati Bell for 43 years, and he survived round after round of layoffs for decades because he was one of the very few people in the company who knew COBOL, which had been abandoned by the cool IT kids back in, what, the 80’s? Several mission critical systems had been programmed in COBOL back in the day, though, and they were still running on it when my friend retired in 2014. He hated the job, and I think his superiors hated him, but that was his niche and he was bulletproof.
It gets old switching tech stacks every few years, too. You waste time re-learning how to do the same things in different tech. Better to get really good at one stack and understand the business so that your job cannot be easily outsourced.
30 years here, I back your opinion.
@@UnlessRoundIsFunny
Former COBOL developer here: please always be careful with such affirmations, and always take each person's experience with a pinch of salt...
COBOL developers are like chemists - I used to be one before working in IT -: while it is true that COBOL developers will always be in demand, this does not mean that there will be a demand for all COBOL developers.
COBOL developers working for Lehman Brothers in 2008 were not as lucky as your friend was!
Yes, even as a COBOL developer, despite the legacy code base: you can be laid off, AND it can take a while until you find a new position!
And while it is a good niche, your possibilities are much more limited!
@@nreed7718 Yeah i just did 2 years of full-stack development, right now my mood is fuck full stack not worth the extra things to keep up with. Next year i'm going back to backend "devops"... I can use my free time better and pick up Game development the sole one reason i actually started wanting to learn programming. Im have almost a decade of professional experience.
System Engineer here. Expecting us to work on side projects on our free time is a bit of a problem in IT in general. , the amount of times I've been asked in interviews if I have an home lab is insane. Even crazier is the looks they'd give when I'd say "No, if I need to try something I'll do so in a virtualized environment". Thankfully I'm self employed now don't have to deal with this as much.
I am a socially awkward ~introvert~ autistic developer :-) And now it takes months to find a job even for seniors with 20 years of experience…
i have 20 years of experience and have worked for two of the faang companies, and it’s been almost a year since i’ve found a job. it’s the hardest market ive ever experienced. i used to get recruiters hitting me up daily, now im applying daily and getting ghosted! good luck yall!
yea, they say it will be this way now, for autistic/ introverts SW engs...
gotta develop comm. skills
@@huinyavainait kind of sucks, I don’t mean to gatekeep but seeing HR, sales, finance, and marketing take over tech and try to lay us off while getting similar salaries in insane
@@redshift415 I have 40+ years experience, and yeah, it's one of the hardest market I've had to look for a job in. (and I'm actually pretty current on the technology..)
@@garyp.7501 I have 60+ years of experience and yeah, this is super tough I always liked technology I am 2000+ leetcodes in and still cant find a job. I was there when Apollo launched btw.
The stress is a big issue. I have known a lot of software engineers who have had mental and physical health issues from the stress, myself included. And we as a society are so reluctant to include stress as a factor in developing issues like type two diabetes for example, that this is almost certainly a great understatement. The late night stress is some of the worst for health.
And as an industry we do on-call in ways which are pretty close to being indefensible from a human cost perspective. Upper level decision makers, often who have never experienced these issues, unintentionally add a lot of unnecessary stress and hardship simply by failing to deal with the human cost side.
the stress comes from your own perception of the relationship between your identity and time. see in school you get a test and if you finish it in 2 days you failed.. but if you finish it right at the end of class you pass. and if you finish it in 20 minutes you are genious. this is all conceptual nonsense. ego identity vapor. its not real. you are who you are no faster or slower. but you carry that weight into your adulthood.. and now you mad at yourself for being too slow. who defines the speed? did you wall flower when they asked you how long it was gonna take and you gave them the thing they wanted to hear not the truth? or did you die along with a dying project and didnt just let it die while you live? cmon bro.. detatch yourself from the bull. you are not the work. and the time means nothing only the deed. and the journey is everything. eckart tolle said you are not a lawyer, or a programmer. you are not a brother or sister or son. you are nothing. wuwei
@@j.c.s5630 That's one aspect. The issue that got me was in managing very large systems with late-night incidents. When the mission critical distributed database is falling apart late at night, that imparts a lot of stress.
In fact I would say my experience is that late night stress from on call is the biggest and least avoidable stressor.
@@WorldTravelerCooking yeah but you accepted that job. and if something else force you to accept that job well that something else you opted in for. something you opted in for way down the line.. like you took out some student loans way back.. and that cascaded into a series of decisions that required you to do late night job. you could have done that late night job at your own pace and they would have fired you in 6 months and you would have had 6 months unempployment insurance to retool then pivoted some other direction. theres alot of stuff out here trust me im a gangster with this .... i stayed home with my mom and ran some experiments. then i got married. every step i kindof didnt go for the shiny things everyone else goes for. like the 3 man bachelor pad in brooklyn. or a new car to impress the ladies. matter fact ive never owned a car and im 50. i bike to work that means i can get fired that means i can take chances that means i can start studying for the next job when i know im not going to last with these people. of course my retirement savings are nil. well cross that bridge when we come to it. you yourself youve been working hard towards retirement. even the college degree was a hedge against a golden years where you can only sit around the house cause you got no money for vacation. me i dont care about vacation.. last time i went to peru and i hated it. water bad. people dangerous. i appreciate the mundane. i always take my time with things
@@j.c.s5630 There's a reason I quit the job that was giving me health issues. Nobody understands how stress will break them until it does.
The fact is though, stress leads to human error and human error leads to big losses. Companies therefore need to do a better job of addressing this issue and if they don't then everyone loses, the employer included.
@@WorldTravelerCooking preach
There is so much information to know about web/programming. So I don't understand how most people can think they can goto a bootcamp and be experts in 3 months. It takes time to digest and understand. As you mention making anything above 80k is alot of pressure on the programmer to make it work.
A bootcamp provides foundational knowledge, but without a portfolio of real-world projects outside of the bootcamp, an attendee will not be suitable for even a junior level web developer / software developer role. Forget entry level roles because they rarely exist and are rarely entry level except the wage.
Yup. This is delusional. It's also done with predatory sales of selling s service which doesn't deliver. It also been really bad for the industry it kinda worked for a while because the industry was so short on dev's so people would hire some of them. Now it comes back down to the you need 5,000+ hours exp or your not getting past the tech interview.
Now we have 3.1 million npm modules (yes really) which is a result of this outcome. But in really theres only about 500 really mean anything half decent. The decay in terms of standards in the industry is insane in the last 5-10 years. There also way to much focus on the code rather than the problems being solved.
When you ask the guys who came from boot camp in a code interview to explain control system theory. They fall apart.. rapidly
I think it's a good starting point. Ideally it's stretched out to at least a year but then it's not profitable for the bootcamps...
@@catherinelijs Not at the prices they are charging.
I have been a dev for 28years. I have worked with all sorts of people. Been to all sorts of interviews and interviewed 1000's of people.
What we do with bootcamp people is take them on for job thats nobody wants like localization, proof reading, spelling, grammar, manual QA or support
They typically are not able to make to a dev standard and they often don't progress to a standard to be a dev even when given the time an opportunity to do so.
There is a crisis in the industry currently where people don't realize the standard for the last decade has been lowered because there has been a skill shortage. In the last year or so that standard has just returned to pre 2010 levels since there isn't a skill shortage. The bootcamps were working in that period of time. Now they do not.
Should see them die out in the next 2 years.
@@0x007AI can't agree. Dated a woman who barely spent time in a boot camp & landed a 100k job. Got me thinking I need to do the same now. Lol
I'm a 3D character artist for my day job. I 100% agree about doin the same stuff outside of work: I can't do it. This passion has turned into a job. It's so hard to sit down at the end of the day and do even more of it as a hobby. Now I'm teaching myself to code web3 dapps in my freetime.
this is spot on, nobody told me about the physical and mental health sacrifices i'd have to make working in tech. Especially in the UK, it's a very abusive career path to take, very cut throat and you're expected to know literally every aspect of development not just one part... it's killer
Thanks for sharing! It’s a shame that workers in tech don’t get any recognition for the stress they face because society thinks that just because we work in front of a computer we shouldn’t have stress like those working manual jobs
So many comments. Adding my 2cents. I was self taught, started coding when I was 7. Had toyed around with computers for 13 years when I got my first computer work when I was 20. I got double degrees in both Network Engineering and Software development. On my travel back and forth to work, 2h a day on public transport, I read new book about software. I got a big library of them at home. All that I bought for my own money. Never made more than $70k/year. Had 24/7 support with 15min from call to start working. Try to shopping grocerys with that, you have your laptop in your car with you at all times. Okey, 24/7 wasn’t that often, but still.
School should be enough, I agree.
Also, I feel offended when I hear ”bootcamp is all you need”.
Just writing this as a reallity check for some, and a hint to others. Software can be fun, but it’s a lot of learning, life long frustration, and not always as good payed as people think.
Well said! 🙏🏻
The problem is the world views a "socially awkward introvert" as a huge issue at the job market.
The closest to reality description of SWE that I've seen so far on TH-cam! Thank for for breaking down all those myths!
Thank you! I'm really glad you found it useful, especially as you also noticed the amount of bs out there regarding SWEs on youtube and other social media!
One myth that I would bring up that you don't (and most HR departments haven't figured out either) is the myth that knowing a framework and a language is enough. It might be enough to start to get a job but my experience has been that programming is about 80% domain knowledge (understanding of problem domains, etc), 15% algorithms and data structures, and 5% languages and frameworks. You can know the languages but if you don't understand the problems you are trying to solve, you won't be successful.
Of course you can be hired without the domain knowledge (because people have to build that) but you had better spend time actively learning the domain and business sides if you want to be good at what you do.
That also means that if you have a particular interest in an industry, as a software engineer, it makes a lot of sense to specialize in that industry.
My rule for hiring engineers starts with business knowledge, then domain knowledge, followed by data architecture, next platform knowledge, and coding skills. Not that coding isn't important. It's just that if they know the others, the onboarding, training, and KT will just be so much smoother.
100% this. I was working on a dev project involving accounting. We got one of the account trained up to be a programmer, so he could take over the project when we moved on to the next project, while he was helping me. This was 20 years ago, last I knew he was still in charge of that project a few years back.
Thanks for making this video.
I'm a developer myself, and all that crap I see from these tech "influencers" does not reflect at all what the real tech experience is.
On top of that, before landing my current job, I felt miserable thinking I was stupid and not as smart as these tech "influencers" for not landing a job after graduation...
These kind of stuff needs to be stopped, even that crap of a "Daily routine of a Consultant in a Big 4 Company or Blue Chip Company"...
Anyways, thanks for clearing this up, really appreciate it.
I’m really glad you enjoyed it!
Been coding professionally since 1998. During my 20s when I was single yeah I spent a lot of my free time coding and learning as much as possible just because I honestly loved coding.
There was no TH-cam or social media telling me I needed to do so I just wanted to learn as much as I could. I’m married with kids now and that has taken a huge backseat to spending time with my family.
I still take a few hours here and there throughout the week but nothing like those early days from my 20s. Life is about balance. Find a good balance.
A man should bear his burden in his youth.
Bear the burden for what?
@@snowheader2200 it’s a bible verse: Lamentations chapter 3 verse 27 - it is good for a person to bear their burdens in their youth.
Basically it’s saying work hard in your teens and twenties while you are young, healthy and single. I was broke and struggling during those early years and I am glad I went through that while I was young and single.
Lay a foundation during those early years so that you can build upon it later in your 30s and 40s where you should worry less about trying to gain job/coding experience and focus more on yourself and family.
@@snowheader2200in theory for a relax adult life
@@snowheader2200the burden of his future.
@@snowheader2200Taking the time to learn things.
I am retired software engineer since cards/RJE/assembly. 50% Wall St. & 50% Internet Startups. An honest video!!! Good luck with the truth!
Something else I see that doesn't come up is the cost of living relative to salary. $300k sounds like a lot if you live in some random place, but you aren't getting $300k in some random place. Cost of living really nerfs the salary aspect. You can often have a higher standard of living on $150k in an average city than $300k in the Valley or New York.
People don’t realize that the average worker in tech makes just about 10% to 20% more than an engineer. Realistic salaries are $60K to $180K with most sitting pretty around the $90K-$120K mark
True. Can't be overstated how important COL when discussing salary
Knowing many people working near min wage jobs in other industries, I'd say $300k is plenty ton lot, even in a high cost of living area like NYC. I'm speaking as a New Yorker myself.
Include taxes deduction
@@kevinsjournal Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean to imply $300k in a place like New York is destitute or anything like that.
Real estate probably highlights what I mean the most.
I'm an Architect responsible for several major projects. I have a family and kids, but I make time to code on the side. Its fun and its something I can teach to my kids too
I'm old school though. To me, all languages are not segmented into backend, frontend, fullstack. They are all one to me. I know a bunch of languages and code in them every day almost. A lot of young people have been fooled into pigeonholing themselves into controllable boxes. In my day, we had the hacker culture as the norm. If you have this mentality, you dont have to worry about finding work
Finally, a genuine video dispelling a lot of these SWE myths. I've been a Software Engineer for 1.5 years, and as great as it is, it's just like any other desk job. That means pressure to perform, and all the workplace politics you find at any job!
Thanks for the kind words!
4:34
I really hate that attitude from employers. I don't want to code after work hours after I spend 5+ years in the industry. Maybe sometimes when I find an interesting framework, but definitely not all the time.
Finally, a down to earth video. Love it!
Thank you! I really wanted to create something that cuts through the common SWE bs out there.
Solid advice. Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm on the other end if this journey... I found a lot of what you said to resonate with throughout my own experiences. Ageism is my new battle. I knwo enough to not be bamboozled and i think that makes me less valuable/vulnerable to grind culture.
Two of them work at my company and I can see how much code they produce. They don’t do shit haha
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
😹😹😹😹😹😹
😆
Who are the two of them? Is it Sarah pan?
Well the thing is that, no everyone has a side project but throughout my humble career of just 11 years most of the good developers have some side project that they are working on, out of passion it doesn't need to be for money. Most of the times it's just small stuff to experiment with new technologies that are now emerging. I do it myself and i do love my job and i would do it even if the pay wasn't great, now i am not a bigot and i do realize that not everyone has the same aspirations as me so if you're happy with the 9-5 it's fine and i am with you thumbs up.
Yeah, i Completely agree with you. people started bum rushing into fullstack react stacks, everyone and their uncle studied and learned it. looking at fullstack or frontend roles I see HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of applicants. while I specialized in backend dev, Golang and niched even further to microservices. and Suddenly I see not even 1% of the applicants these fullstack roles were pulling in
Hint: all web is crap. Stay away from anything even remotely related to any web development, and you'll be happy.
Gawt damn, she caught me with the Minnesota call out 😂
Great video and good points. I work in IT since 16 years and I agree with most of your points. Especially the part with programming as a hobby / side hustle. I myself program as a hobby, but I would never expect coworkers to do the same. You can be a great software engineer and do a 9-5
Fully agree!
Love these honest videos, great to see this kind of realistic content as a counterbalance to a lot of the tech influencer mythology out there!
Thank you! I really wanted to get a video out that shows the real truths about SWE these days since a lot of other videos seem to be living in denial.
This is why I made a realistic vid and will continue to make parodies of them. Great take on the day in the life!
Thank you so much for watching! I'll check out your video!!
@@catherinelijs Much appreciated!
As a mom to a 7mo old that’s furthering my education/portfolio to become a software engineer, I really appreciate you making this video. It was one of the first vids that didn’t sell an unrealistic dream, but still gave me hope that I can succeed.💖
Thank you so much for watching! I really wish you all the best in your journey of becoming a developer and hope you land the dream job you're looking for!
You are totally on spot with the first one, I've seen people working on the same company I work for, Microsoft btw, doing those "a day in the life" videos and I always think "jeez I want those days too" 😅They are completely misguiding for young or aspiring engineers
Great presentation. As a 61 year old (still hands on) 25 year vet, I can attest that you are accurate.
Thanks for watching, really appreciate it!
One of my coworkers in the field of software engineering is a rescue worker in his freetime, but he always rescues in both jobs in different ways. XD
Saying Bill G never took a day off in 30 years, then showing a quote of him saying he only did that during his 20's.
10 years is alot shorter time to do something like that than 30.
It was a different time back then, electronics were just being discovered, and it was exciting and new. Today it's "Why is it taking so long to load" and "Why isn't fixed yet" or "What use are you now that we have A.I."
Oops, that was an oversight. The point still stands, though! That was a lot of sacrifice.
real shit. im on call right now 😭
also i think you were my mentor during lighthouse labs
I'm hoping that you're able to find a job that doesn't require you to be on-call constantly, or that at least has a manageable schedule where the entire team rotates instead of just the juniors as punishment. Also, haha, I hope I was a helpful mentor!
SWE pay in the US is wildly higher than the rest of the world {including Canada & Western Europe}. US based SWE is going to be offshored to Canada at this rate.
Yup. Hence why US job market is insane. I see people failing 300 job apps. Wtf. I made 5 when I was a grad and got 3 offers. Now I get headhunted even in this dogshit market.
Problem is bootcamps are way to short. In germany we have a 3 year apprenticeship to become a software developer. There is no need to actually go to college. You will learn how computer work and how to code and work in a company with developers, who will teach you as well. That way you will know everything you need to know.
Good to have you back Catherine. I love your professional approach to your videos.
Thank you! I'm back and really dedicated to making more similar videos to counteract some of the lies that are out there on social media about SWEs.
People in Minnesota do not make $150k after 5 years typically. Also after 8 years you basically max out and will only get cost of living adjustments.
"You can't be mediocre at a bunch of different languages and frameworks and expect to get hired". For most of the jobs I have been hired to, they didn't really care what language or framework I used on previous jobs. The interview process was generally a system design question and a DSA problem but they were agnostic to the chosen language.
Thank you for sharing your experience!
I don't know what it is like today because as you indicated there are only videos on opposite ends of the spectrum, but here is what it was like in my day. I started my programming career in 1990. Back then, we were gods. Basically if you could turn on a computer, and wanted to work, you had a job. I got kicked out of high school in grade 12, did not go back. I got my first full time programming job shortly thereafter. I did eventually go to college... for 5 months and graduated from an accelerated program. For the next 25 years, I usually worked pretty hard, not because I had to, but because I loved it. For the last 10 years though, I have been working from home for a bank. I put in a couple hours a day for a 6 figure income, generous bonus, 4 weeks vacation and benefits. Years ago you needed only the basic of skills to get a good job. Today you need a laundry list of skills for the most basic of jobs. It is sick.
Thank you for your input and your experiences. You're right, the more in-demand this field is, the more requirements get piled on, it's very difficult to get a first job in software without any experience
Glad you caught the train on time. What's going on today is beyond words.
One other thing I have noticed is that there is a massive difference in open source software communities based on gender. This isn't something which is a comfortable conversation but it is an important one. Men have a tendency of coming into an open source project via a hobby and then building a career around the software. Women have a tendency to come into a community via a job and leave when they change jobs. This has unfortunate implications when it comes to career advancement but there are probably social and economic realities which make this what it is. There are probably a lot of men too who are just there for a job, but then they don't rise to the point where their expertise on a particular technology is particularly valuable in itself.
In my case, this has lead to a slow-to-establish but nice career around Postgres and some other technologies (which is more typical for men because we can delay having kids longer and so pay less of a personal cost for a slower-to-build career), but I look around and there are a lot of people who were able to establish much younger than me, and so my experience cannot be typical (actually it is not typical as my degree is in history, but I digress).
So this gets at something that I think is a structural barrier to gender equality in this field and we need to have some discussions about how to enable it to be lessened.
Really underrated video. Wish you luck! 🍀
Thank you! Stay tuned as I have more topics in mind that I hope you'll enjoy
@@catherinelijs After watching a lot of these "A Day in the Life of a Software Engineer" videos, it makes me wonder how these FAANG have been able to operate. Perhaps that explains the reasons for the recent tech layoffs. 😀
Funny enough I'm trying to get into tech and thanks for the clarity 🎉
I'm so glad you found it useful!
I think most of the problems come because "programming is another job" now, while it is wrong. It should be the passion (this means it cannot be many / enough of the programmers). It's like to be a painter.
For example me, I read 1st book about programming when I was 6 because it had nice pictures. 1 month later I was sure I will be programmer. I wrote programs on paper for next 4 years until I got my 1st device. Now I make a money from it for more than 25 years. Never had problems (2)-(3) for sure. Because I would write programs for free, it is nice when I'm paid too.
This is interesting
Thank goodness I was retired before the internet really took off before any social media at all, barely any email too.
Thanks for posting an honest video about people in tech life
Thank you! I'm glad you found it useful, I was really looking forward to seeing what you guys would think of it!
Thank you for sharing honest experience
Thank you for watching!
Thanks! I needed this. I’m getting back into tech after being chronically ill and seeing all this doom and gloom stuff was starting to get to me.
I agree some of the best have non-computer interests outside of the 9-5 with hobbies. However, some of us, perhaps socially awkward types, our hobbies are computers. Doesn't make us the best, or even good, but it's what we live for.
No shame in doing what you enjoy, and if you enjoy coding as a hobby, that's even better, but there's plenty of engineers that just need to take a break from the screen when they're not on the clock
The biggest challenge is the reality wall slam. I have worked with countless young folks who think they should be paid crazy salaries and they have 0 experience. 😂
On the hiring side, I think part of the problem is that HR departments are pretty bad at sorting candidates. When I have been in the hiring manager's position here, I have always insisted on screening the resumes myself because otherwise you get arbitrary crap filters thrown on by people who don't understand the requirements. One thing I would highly recommend for anyone new to the field is to try to go for jobs where you can reach out to the hiring manager, and to do that to try to assess whether you are a good fit. It makes you seem interested and it gives you an opportunity to get some real feedback.
Agreed, although I feel like everyone's now doing this exact thing - reaching out to HR - so it's hard to stand out again.
I was working in tech and would come home and program my side project. I had two kids and my wife at the time worked nights so I was taking care of them and would program late into the night. So it can be done. But at the time, coding and learning was fun and even when I got into a SE role, my personal projects are not the same as what I do at work. Though these days I prefer to ride around on my motor cycle rather than sit behind a computer screen.
I'm sorry. I work 8 hour days and no more. Rarely do I work outside of work hours. I always try to make it so I don't have to work outside of work hours.
As you should. Life is damn short.
its more the other way around, people who are coding as a hobby tend to make a living on that later, and so they are obviously better, just like some who does woodwork in his fretime gains a lot more experience and start with basic knowledge upfront, and reality reflects that
One misconception i had when choosing my career as a software dev was that being good at coding would mean I was good at being a dev. Turns out there's also a whole lot of trying to figure out why the build is broken and dealing with challenging humans.
Our whole system was built broken.
who earns more in US, a product manager, or a software engineer?
thanks for this video catherine! so so helpful for someone starting out like me
You're so welcome! If you're interested in JavaScript, I have a few videos that I hope could help you out if you're just starting out
yes a video on college vs bootcamp please!!
High paying jobs are generally in high cost of living areas. Burnout and high pressure bosses is a negative for those high paying jobs. Typically those coming out of school landing the best jobs come from high end schools. Things people will seldom tell you.
I actually was able to get my job right after a 6-month boot camp (Revature which got me bought out by Infosys) and have been working for 2 years now (1 year in Infosys as contractor, Company I was contracted to then offered me full-time position, I accepted with a nice pay bump). But I also had a 4 year degree in IT (boot camp took people who didn't have degree in IT as well)
Many people in that boot camp, especially those without a degree in IT didn't manage to make it, but a handful or 2 of each batch were able to get a job right away
Thanks!!!
Makes sense.
Myth 1: Not really a myth, I mostly attend meeting and only code for about an hour. Btw, if your PM asks you why your feature is behind schedule that means you should have raised that issue earlier.
Myth 3: We code as a hobby because we like to code. You don't have to do it but if you feels that coding is a chore then maybe switch something you're passionate about and not code for the money.
As a fellow software engineer, I agree with most of the points here, but I disagree that specialists (like React engineers) are more valuable than generalists. I do think companies BELIEVE they are more valuable and may pay them higher salaries in some cases, but in my decade+ of experience in the industry, the best engineers I’ve worked with have all been generalists.
There is something to be said about bringing a wide variety of skills to the table to tackle a complicated problem. I find that specialists often have too narrow of a mindset and tend to get lost whenever something drifts slightly out of their comfort zone. I’ve seen it happen multiple times.
I have no experience with coding bootcamps, but I’d be surprised if they actually produce well-rounded engineers at all. There is simply no way you can learn all the skills necessary to be successful in just a few months.
It's all cool until you have to fix the bug at friday cob, or ship blocker defects show up out of the blue, you have to meet kpis but you are behind schedule.
I started programming at 13 years old. It hit me like a religion. Some people say they love their job... no you don't, you like your job. I love programming and, not so much today, but at the beginning I actually did go to work, code all day and then come home and was on my computer after work, not necessarily on side hustles, but doing overtime or working on code projects for myself. It is not a reasonable across the board expectation, but people like me were an employers wet dream.
The yt algorithm promotes this video to IT professionals, while the target is obviously someone from outside the tech stack. Anyone, it was relaxing to listen to...
A beauty ❤
I feel like it’s a huge missed opportunity to omit the existential crisis waiting for the next Zoom meeting to start. Or that fun 3 minutes while we “wait for everyone to join” and I contemplate my life choices.
I totally missed the point of this comment in the video - are people in crisis when waiting for others to join the meeting? I didn't get it. Sorry, guess I'm too old school.
Im an electrical and computer engineer. People from IT will think they do what i do. Theyll say, "oh, im in IT too"
Oh no honey, i power cities and design circuits. Ive never fixed someone elses computer in my life. Aside from my own. I code. But i am not a software engineer at all nor am i in it...
In my opinion the main lie which I heard from different people about this profession this is that this profession is effortless but actually that's not so effortless particularly with this moment that you necessary work really hard in order to achieve something great otherwise you will be achieving this very long time and about this video it really awesome and I really like your content, continue make it😊
Expectation: chill work mixed with ping pong
Reality: stressed and overworked
Especially MRR tweets on twitter are normally just to garnish the person followers and is not a true representation of what it entails to run your own business and clients. I have seen many people quit their jobs because of this "build in public" lore, and seen many fail and return to their jobs.
Worked in IT Operation for 17 years before resigning. 12 - 14 hours a day onsite, usually got home at 00:30am and weekend mostly we still have to work also since it is the time we can do maintenance. Finally resign since my body can't handle it (even I learn a lot of multisets of skill). If you are still able to work and balance it with your personal life + salary is good, then it still a good life.
Sure, I had coffee breaks. Tons of them. Plenty of snacks too. Usually after midnight as I need to rebuild servers for the next few hours before the morning starts. :P
can confirm, definitely don't make a lot of money
150k after 5 years? i wish lol wtf
$150K is for most seniors. People don’t realize the biggest salary numbers are from California and New York where median home prices are double what the Americans is
I believe this is the median software engineer salary in the US currently, I could be wrong though.
As an engineer with 20 years of experience a will say only one thing "Work to live, not live to work!". Watch out from burn out and stress.
Yes! This is critical and I’m glad to see people standing up for themselves and ensuring their career and jobs works for them and not the other way around
Software engineers with a great salary aren't always destined to save and invest such a salary. This is especially important for those who hit their first great salary; they study personal finances ASAP. More money can easily mean more debt risk, especially with sneaky payment plans these days.
You're 100% right. Investing is such an important topic as well as trying your hardest not to suffer from lifestyle inflation because you need to set yourself up to be ready in case the good times don't roll on forever.
Big thank you. We need regulation on SM!
There will be good times, and there will be bad times. Never take anything for granted. Never get complacent. Don't overspend. Save and invest your money. Get financially independent as soon as possible, and move to a nice, cheap location to live (as far from Silicon Valley as you possibly can).
This is great advice and not overspending and investing should be something that everyone does, but it's the TikTokers flashing crypto and someone else's Lamborghini that get the youth thinking that's the life
All the day in the life creators have probably been laid off by now. Those videos made it easy for management.
hahaha! They blew our cover :(
What about people that study on their own instead of boot camps and college?
Will probably face the same about of barriers as a bootcamp grad, if not more
l became a software developer in 1983. software development has been reduced to an assembly line job
lol....code in the 1983 are simple single threaded
1:33 You are referring to what is known in Media Theory as Simulacra
Imagine creating the data structures but failing to develop an algorithm to sort it out. Implementing the maths, physics in any language is quite difficult though all the solutions are there, figuring it out is another journey and I use w3schools.
Sacrifices. Well said. Most people think this job is so easy...lol
The day in the life vids is actually realistic. You sit at a desk and code. They just try to make it less boring looking.
Don't forget going out for $25 lunch 😎
3:13, what!?? Those people are full of shit. Don't listen to them. What about his "think week" two times a year? This is reading in a remote spot without access to technology and contact with employees and even family.
I tell them that I watch letters and numbers on the screen and sometimes I press letters and numbers on the keyboard. This answer is compatible with most people.
I dont think they are even making 300K per year eorking 9-5. This money thing is the biggest myth and "you are in demand" is also a very big myth.
Bill Gates is indeed a very large inspiration for many people. Spend most of your youth working non-stop. Spend the remaining of your old years going to Epsten island
Bad Gates
Wow, it's Hard tô find a beautiful techlead girl in these field. Keep going 💪
SVP in a global 100 MNC. Techie by training. moved from that role a VERY long time back.
My parents tell their friends i fix computer for a living 😂😂
I get requests to do things like troubleshoot pc issues and to build pc by their friends all the time 😂
Omg 😂
damn right, software engineer = spend a lot of time to create and maintain systems.
it is a hard job when you meet no chioices, create new one instead
emplyers scrap all things at last minute then do the new one doing similar things
Ignorance is a bliss and people do love being ignorant. :)
Most jobs in this industry can be described as - simply put - life sucking. There is a reason why smart software devs try to get away from the actual development and more towards managerial positions or find a quite niche where there is a change once in a decade. Constant, rapid and unexpected changes, underpaid, long hours incl. horrible crunch time periods, poor resource management (and management overall), lack of perspective, constant need to learn new tech even if just to be able to answer a stupid question from your superior/client and not to look incompetent yourself etc.
The "have 2 meetings, play some table tennis, get 10 smoothies and a buffet lunch for free at the company's canteen" is extremely rare and reserved most for huge companies (think Google, Facebook etc.). Then again, people who work like that are usually the first ones to go when the job cuts start (just check the headlines dating up to a year back and see how many tens of thousands have been let go!).
There's opportunities in non-trendy, and non-tech companies where change is slow and a work life balance is better, but everyone focuses on the top end companies to "get 2 meetings, play some table tennis, get 10 smoothies and a buffet lunch for free at the company's canteen" as you said
If I need to be an extrovert to be software developer, why not choose project management, business analysis, or jobs in general that you don’t really need technical skills and sadly the majority get a better pay than developers. I don’t know about USA however in Europe that is true. A developer in Greece where I am from, gets paid 1200-1500€ and a project manager 1500-2000€ per month.
Compensation tops out pretty quickly for most engineers. You could be making $150k after 5 years or 20 years, unless you are willing to move into lead or manager roles. Also, compensation very much depends on industry and location. People flexing $500k+ TC on the Blind are outliers, giving noobs and outsiders the wrong impression. A handful of big tech companies pay top dollar, but those companies have tremendous scale and earn obscene revenue for their small headcount. There is intense competition for these limited number of roles. Most engineers are "average" and will work in average roles.
True, and also engineers can find great income and a good work life balance in non big tech companies even though they won't see the same Blind TC
No one's life is perfect. Before wanting some other's life, be conscious of all the downsides you would have to take. Just improve yours.. the more happiness you need to show on socials, the more sad you are
I've cleaned people's toilets for decades and only program in my spare time as a hobby. How's that for a comparison?
Absolutely nothing wrong with cleaning toilets.
@@catherinelijs Right, it has to be done. 😄
This video really helped
thanks!
We're simple minded folks and usually marginalized things when we a clean youtube video. It's why some folks perceive software engineering as simple. lol....Humans tend to be simple minded.
“What comes to mind when you tell the average person who doesn’t work in tech that you are a software engineer?”
They’re gonna ask me to fix their wifi or their printer, aren’t they?
Wait, are you saying they're different things? 🤔
I don't code for more than 30 minutes every day. Even with ChatGPT, I'm getting lazier. Coding becomes boring after a while, and you end up doing it just like any other job.
Another lie is the job is actually interesting. This is not always true. For instance, if your job is to maintain some existing product, the work is pretty lame.