My *Honest* Advice to Aspiring Software Engineers

Software engineers were being overvalued before and now we're just correcting for what makes sense. This was probably closer to what the expectation was back in 2018. Everybody was just throwing money at you. These so-called tech pros were making upwards of $300,000, $400,000, and even half a million dollars as junior and mid-level engineers. This is me back in 2018, a fresh new grad from UW-Madison. I had just landed a job as a junior engineer at a data analytics startup in Chicago, and it was fully remote at the time. I got to travel and live in Greece, making $75,000 a year while paying $300 a month in rent, which was insane to me at the time. My hours were flexible, and every evening I got to explore the rich culture of a beautiful European city. Life was good, to say the least. 2020 was more about having so many job opportunities. I would get LinkedIn messages from recruiters twice per day. It was great, especially considering where we are now. You're probably in a position where you were told that becoming a software engineer was the answer to having this grandiose life. A life of flexibility, high pay, the ability to challenge yourself, and even carry a little bit of prestige that came along with the title. So I wanted to talk about whether or not there's still some truth to that narrative. Can you still make $300,000 total compensation packages in the Bay Area and even eat free food on a freaking campus? What's my honest advice about becoming a software engineer right now? Well, let's break it down. To start, we need to define a tech bro. What the heck is a tech bro? Let's find out. So an educated male lacking in social skills who also happens to work in tech. Many of them are libertarians, of course, who seem free Elon Musk and or people trying to reinvent the wheel with some dumb new technology. And then the example they give, this is the tech bro. With this new Blorgscorg 3000, people will easily be able to get around the city without a car. Alice says, please stop trying to reinvent the train. So that's an idea of what a tech bro is. Clearly, tech bros have a bad rap. But deep down, they were the envy of the internet. These so-called tech bros were making upwards of $300,000, $400,000, and sometimes even half a million dollars as junior and mid-level engineers. They were making day in the life videos about how amazing their lives were, how they barely did any work, and how they went on lavish vacations all the time. I mean, seriously, when do they even work? But here's the thing. Social media doesn't always show the entire picture. We all know that. When you see these glamorous videos of people coasting by in tech and making a lot of money, there's actually a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that go into the whole process that isn't actually being shown. To earn that coveted tech bro label, you typically have to go to a good university, study leet code for hours, go through several rounds of interviews, and then keep up with the demands of work and politics long enough to get promoted. Now, I'm not defending tech bros necessarily. I'm just saying that there's a lot more to it than eating free food and getting massages every day at work. And I hate to say it, but most people would hate actually doing the work required to get these glamorous jobs. The perks actually make it look easier than it is. So what does this have to do with becoming a software engineer now? Well, first, I'm just trying to create transparency over what it felt like to be a software engineer back in 2020. People have a very distorted view of the market today because they didn't really know what was going on back then. All they had for reference was the videos they were watching online, which again was over glamorized. The common tech bro, even though it's cringy to admit, was actually creating some sort of value. Otherwise, Zuckerberg wouldn't bother paying his engineers upwards of $500,000 a year. Don't be fooled by the relatability content for working two hours a day and dragging yourself out of bed to actually get to work at 11 a.m. That's not actually true. Okay, so is it a good idea to become a software engineer now? What all has changed between then and now? Well, a lot and a little. As we mentioned earlier, the tech bro life wasn't exactly what we expected. This was probably closer to what the expectation was back in 2018. Oh, wait, you guys can't see that. Hold on one second. Okay, so this was closer to the expectation. Learning quickly and managing time with your manager. So in 2020, you were expected to learn quickly, as is any software engineer. But honestly, you weren't necessarily expected to learn at a pace where you were working extra hours. There was more flexibility around that. Next one, medium productivity. So that means a PR every week. And I think every week is probably not that much. It really depends on your team too. But having a couple PRs a week, I think that would indicate, okay, you're semi-productive on the team. You could coast to some extent. But of course, you still need to have an understanding of the code base and learn and participate in those weekly discussions with your team. Next, show up to the team meetings and participate in conversations. Again, this is kind of self-explanatory. You just participate in the conversations. Just observe what's going on. A lot of times, actually, even the first two years of my career, I didn't really speak much in meetings. And I did get feedback that I should speak more. But when I didn't really have much to say, I mean, I did my work. I showed up on time. I didn't really have much to say there. Reasonable flexibility on deadlines. Also, honestly, there was a lot of reasonable flexibility back in 2020. I think if something wasn't going to get done and you communicated with your manager, the manager would be really good about allowing you to push the deadline back. Now, not so much. And lastly, autonomy with your development and testing. So again, back then, you had a lot more freedom over how your work was going to get done and when it was going to get done. Again, the when part is more about that movable deadline. But how you get your work done was totally up to you. You could work asynchronous a lot of times. You didn't really have to show up to all meetings if you didn't feel like they were relevant. There wasn't that much accountability in terms of time spent at the job, but there was a little bit more accountability on what work you ended up getting done. So that was totally up to you. Okay, so how exactly has this changed? So now you no longer get to manage time with your manager. You need to manage your time with AI. I think that's really important. Kind of also self-explanatory. AI is taking the market like a storm. So you need to know how to use tools like Copilot, like OggLube, like all these different internal tools that your company will probably use. Try to use that to 10x your productivity. Okay, now because of AI, you can no longer do PRs every week. You have to do PRs pretty much every other day, honestly. So probably four to five times a week. You probably can't read my writing. But four to five times a week for PRs, I think that's pretty normal, especially given that you're using AI tooling. That's the new expectation. You can no longer just show up to these meetings. You actually have to participate in them. And you have to actually bring a lot of value in terms of system design, in terms of programming. All of these technical skills are now something that you have to showcase out loud to your teammates. And the reasonable flexibility on deadlines, you can say goodbye to that because that's no longer the case. Now deadlines are a lot tighter and you're not going to get as much leniency. You're most likely going to have to come up with a very valid excuse if you have to push the deadline back. Otherwise, you're going to have to talk to your manager's manager to help them understand what's going on. So if that means working longer hours, typically that's the case. And lastly, autonomy with your development and testing. Say goodbye to that because you're going to be micromanaged a lot more. So that's kind of the biggest difference with that aspect. You're going to want to get used to someone breathing down your neck. And I think that's a normal part of the process, especially when you're working in a market that doesn't value you as much anymore. So you might look at these differences and think, okay, what's the point? Why would I want to be a software engineer when it seems like so much more effort to make the same amount of money that people were making just two years ago doing 20% less? Well, you could think about it like this. The market that we were in before was a unicorn. That wasn't normal. People were making tons of money. They were traveling. They had no accountability. And of course, I don't want to negate what I said earlier. The tech bros did make it seem too good to be true. And there was still a lot of work to be done. You didn't have to study, do leak code problems to get into these tough companies. Once you had the job, though, conditions were a lot better than a lot of other professions. You didn't have to show up for 24 hours a day like a doctor. You didn't have to spend hours after work looking at briefs like a lawyer. You did have a lot of flexibility and autonomy and freedom. Now, if you think about it, it just feels like a normal job. That's the main thing that's changed, right? There's less demand for you. And so you're treated as such. And that's just a normal thing in the market. I think we have to come to terms with that. It may get better over time, but I don't want to promise something that I actually don't have any control over either. I really hope in two or three years, we're done with the layoffs and we are back to not the 2020 phase. I don't know if that will ever happen again, but like go back to some sort of normalcy. So that's kind of the way that you can look at it, where the market has just normalized. It hasn't gotten worse. And if you keep that positive mindset, it'll help you find a job moving forward. So the question we've all been asking ourselves, is it still worth it to stay in tech? In my humble opinion, yes, it still is. Hear me out. The main thing is you should stay in this industry for the right reasons. We've already seen the people that have joined tech just for the money. So the biggest perk I would say working in tech, I would say the money. Like I know somebody else might tell you like it's so exciting to problem solve. Like, OK, it's all great. But if I have to pick one thing, like I think money is great. That, my friends, is the wrong reason. Sure, you'll make money in the beginning, but you'll work for five years until finally you realize that you're burnt out. You're not enjoying the work and you hate your coworkers. Only do it if you're somewhat passionate about solving problems every day and learning new technologies pretty often, because this is the type of job where you're going to continuously learn new things. I know there's different levels to software engineering, but because things come out so quickly, sometimes junior engineers might be the experts compared to principal engineers. And you'll just have to get used to that. Now, that being said, we did go over the new expectations for being a software engineer in 2024. Yes, it's going to feel more like a job than an everyday party. But honestly, it should feel like a job. Software engineers were being overvalued before, and now we're just correcting for what makes sense. You'll still be compensated well, you'll still get free food if you're in the Bay Area, and you'll still have a decent amount of flexibility. For context, when I started in the industry, I could not even work from home for a single day. I had to sit in traffic for one hour a day each way every single day. I know, the horror. The fact is, what we have today is still a luxury. But in order to keep this luxury, you just have to work a little bit harder to get it. It's not dissimilar to being a doctor, a lawyer, or a psychologist. Those jobs are actually a lot more physically demanding, and in terms of your hours spent, a lot more demanding on that side as well. Yes, tech may not have great work-life balance, or at least the image of a great work-life balance, but when you compare it to other industries, other jobs, it is actually pretty solid. You can get better than this, in my opinion. In this role, you'll just have to show that you're more competitive and driven to actually get things done a little bit quicker than you're normally used to. And again, you'll also have to be driven to use new tools, ahem, AI, to stand out from the crowd. So those are my two cents on what it's like to be a software engineer and if you should become one if you're thinking about it. So hopefully my advice helped. I'll see you in the next one.