graduating in two months and i still have no idea what kind of developer i actually want to be
Posted by More-Station-6365@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 12 comments
four years of CS and i can do a little bit of everything but i am not sure i am actually good at any one thing. everyone around me seems to have figured out their path. frontend, backend, data, security. they all sound confident about where they are headed. i just feel like i have been taking whatever classes were required and now suddenly i am supposed to know what i want to do for the next few years. did anyone else feel completely undecided this close to graduation or does it actually sort itself out once you start applying
hitanthrope@reddit
You want to be an employed one
Significant_Soup2558@reddit
Almost everyone feels this way and the ones who sound confident are mostly just further along in convincing themselves. Four years of broad exposure is not a weakness, it is actually useful early in a career when you do not yet know which problems you want to spend your time on.
The honest answer is that it sorts itself out through doing, not deciding. Your first role will tell you more about what you actually enjoy than four years of coursework did. Most developers do not find their lane until they have shipped real things under real constraints.
Start applying broadly across frontend, backend, and fullstack roles and pay attention to which job descriptions make you lean in versus glaze over. That instinct is data. Tools like Applyre can handle the volume so you are not manually grinding applications while finishing your degree.
Two months out with a CS degree and breadth across the stack is a fine place to be.
Elendils_Bear@reddit
True but you make money on having a specialized skillset. Where alot of places dont want juniors with a shallow wide skillset.
FourLeafAI@reddit
Interviews will help you figure out what you want. Apply to different types of roles and pay attention to what excites you during the process. Your reaction to their problems tells you more than course descriptions ever will.
Dull_Report3236@reddit
All the AI noise going around can make it overwhelming to be honest. One thing that AI probably cannot do as well would be CyberSecurity. In fact AI only makes it more prone to threats.
Achereto@reddit
Go for performance. Find an existing application that is slow, then write a competitor that is really fast.
A lot of today's software is around 1000x slower than it could be, but they don't have high performance competition. Once you understand how to get the easy ~30-50x better performance, you will quickly have success and your competitors can't do anything about it, because they would have to rewrite their entire program to get the same performance improvment.
More-Station-6365@reddit (OP)
honestly never thought about it from that angle focusing on performance as a niche makes a lot more sense than trying to pick a category and hoping it sticks something to actually look into
Achereto@reddit
For starting into that direction: take a look at Entity Component Systems (ECS). If you've been doing OOP (with classes and inheritance), try to set up the same project in both ways, then compare them.
To get an idea of how much is possible, you can also take look at tools like File Pilot and compare it to Microsoft File Explorer. Even in seemingly simple programs like that there is a lot of performance to gain and people who depend on software like that are willing to pay money for a smoother experience.
CookBrilliant8835@reddit
dude i think most people are just pretending they know what they want - like half my friends changed directions completely after their first job anyway
you'll probably figure it out once you actually start working and see what you hate vs what doesn't make you want to quit
More-Station-6365@reddit (OP)
the pretending part is what gets me everyone sounds so sure and i kept thinking i was the only one making it up as i go. good to know that is just how it actually works
bootyhole_licker69@reddit
totally normal, most of us just picked whatever first job offer came and only later figured out what we like just apply to a bunch, any experience helps, esp now when finding anything is insanely hard
More-Station-6365@reddit (OP)
this actually helps more than most advice i have gotten knowing it sorted itself out for people who felt the same way makes the whole thing feel less like a crisis