I don’t think I can see myself doing this career for the next 15ish years and I’m wondering if I made a bad decision

Posted by Inner_Ad_4725@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 14 comments

I broke in as a new grad about 1 year ago after deciding between medicine & tech. Tech seemed like the easier path to making good income quickly. So I busted leetcode hard and made it in to a decent new grad role. But now that I’m here, if I’m honest I feel like I’m struggling. I don’t enjoy the job intellectually as I did CS. Feels like a lot of debugging, reading docs, on a computer all day & feeling very isolated. My original goal was honestly just get into FAANG & make good money. I think I can do the leetcode / system design interviews well enough. But after working this new grad role, I don’t think I’ll make a great software engineer. The actual work for whatever reason is not clicking with me, and I’m a bit unsure what to do. The isolation isn’t helping my mental health either. Am I just not cut out for software as I thought I was?

14 Comments

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dustywood4036@reddit

It can get better but you have to put in some time first. Similar but different story. Electrical engineer to CS because it was easier.

Inner_Ad_4725@reddit (OP)

Are there any outside resources you found helpful, or just learn as you go on the job

I was you over 20 years ago. I had to learn .net from a book. Definitely not learning at the same pace anymore and when I pick up something new it's because I'm looking for a better solution to a problem.

BishopOfBattle@reddit

I wrote about this recently, but having spent the last 20 years working for many big companies, building everything from web apps, to mobile apps, to XR apps, to 3D war games for the military, I've had a very rewarding career building cool things, often with really cool teams of smart people. Sadly, that hasn't been the case for many others I've worked with who didn't have the same mental fortitude to maintain balance in their lives. In that same time, I've witnessed engineering jobs completely destroy the health of so many people. Everything from severe work addiction destroying relationships, to burnout and FOMO destroying mental health, to too much time spent in front of a computer destroying physical health, much of which has been normalized by clever marketing, greedy leadership, and social media. While I'm sad to see us entering into a new era where people will no longer have these developer opportunities, because they have definitely been good for so many, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't also relieved. I have no idea what the world's going to look like in five years when AGI is a more cost effective solution for companies than human developers, but I'm hoping it's going to force people to spend more time outside, and with loved ones, regardless of all the challenges it carries with it.

aseradyn@reddit

Debugging is a core skill for sure. Not everyone finds the perfect career on the first try. Software Dev is my third or fourth try. Use this as a learning experience - what parts of the work do you like, and which do you dislike? What other careers share similar characteristics to the parts you like?

patio-garden@reddit

> The isolation isn’t helping my mental health either. Are you working remotely? If so: try to get a job in office. If you're in an office everyday, try talking to your coworkers more. Maybe you need some hobbies that will help you interact with people outside of work. > But after working this new grad role, I don’t think I’ll make a great software engineer. The actual work for whatever reason is not clicking with me I wonder... - Do you feel like you don't know enough? If so, I'd suggest joining an at-work technical book club. Or doing self-study about random aspects of your job. - Do you just straight up not care about coding? There could be other specialties that are more interesting to you, such as devops, or cyber security, or QA and test automation (my personal obsession). > I broke in as a new grad about 1 year ago If I were you (and I feel like I was you a few years ago), I'd suggest doing the following: - Try to learn as much as possible about tech and how to be a good engineer. - Explore your options. Does grad school sound interesting? Will your work pay for it? (Mega corporations with often pay for grad school if the degree is relevant to them.) Do you want to switch to a different industry? Try to have informational interviews with people in those industries. Try to get a feel for what their day-to-day work is like. - Stick with it for a year or two. It sounds like you're really new to this industry. You might enjoy it the better you become. And if you **really absolutely hate it with every fiber of your being**, well, the experience will teach you a lot about troubleshooting, working with technology, and potentially give you a leg up in whatever industry you want to switch to in the future.

Izikiel23@reddit

The problem lies with your motivation. Anything you are in just for the money will be a slog, because money is a consequence of your work. This job is for people who like solving problems and getting into the nitty gritty details, or collaborate with others to solve problems. Once you get a real job you realize most of the time is spent reading and talking to people to understand the problem, then read a bit more to try to not reinvent the wheel, then write some code, and then write tests to validate (ai is helpful for this last step), then when you deploy be available if anything breaks and add fixes. you and a lot of others who are in it mainly for the money are the first to pivot careers into something more fulfilling. alternatively, if you are in it just for the money, do your job, but don’t make it your life (An save as much as you can and invest it so you can stop doing the job earlier in your career)

Vladimir_crame@reddit

Job is difficult, few people want to do it -> swe get paid a lot to do it -> a lot more people join... ... to discover that it's a difficult job, and that they'd rather not do it after all

Altruistic-Cattle761@reddit

\> CS Feels like a lot of debugging, reading docs, on a computer all day & feeling very isolated. I meannnnnn, yeah, if this sounds bad you're likely to have a bad time in a CS career. There are definitely roles you could get into with a higher people quotient, Sales Engineer, Solutions Architect, Support Engineer, Technically Solutions Engineer, Technical Operations, etc etc (there are a lot of nonstandard titles in this kinda-operations-kinda-engineering space) are all roles that might entail more what you like, and less of what you don't. ime they all have a generally lower comp ceiling, but if you're going to be miserable and flame out with a vanilla SWE role, the higher comp doesn't matter much. How much premium do you put on job satisfaction?

Distinct_Bad_6276@reddit

You need 3 years of experience to post here.

Ok_Scholar_9099@reddit

lol don't worry, we all only have three years at best left in our careers. I wouldn't worry about doing this for another 15 years haha.

ExperiencedDevs-ModTeam@reddit

Rule 1: Do not participate unless experienced If you have less than 3 years of experience as a developer, do not make a post, nor participate in comments threads except for the weekly “Ask Experienced Devs” auto-thread.

Creepy_Ad2486@reddit

There's no easy path to making good income, especially not quickly. "...feels like a lot of debugging, reading docs, on a computer all day" Yeah man, that's programming. If you don't think you can hack it, stick with it until you find something else. Jobs are hard to come by these days.

Sheldor5@reddit

> seemed like the easier path to making good income quickly. that was your first and biggest mistake

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