Just found this tiny channel and subscribed because it is hands-down the most accurate description of what a software engineer job is, and moreover, grows into. I say this as a CS grad, 13 years a software engineer, 8 years and currently at a FAANG company. Your points about 'this is code the customer will use' is spot on in terms of the quality bar. Operational issues coming into the picture is absolutely a thing especially for engineers working inside or on cloud infrastructure and services. My only slight disagreement with anything you said here is that you probably downplayed work-life balance as a software engineer. It is certainly achievable, but I think it really depends on the person. Operational issues (think AWS just after Thanksgiving -> mid Dec last year) no doubt are non-optional engagements and no one can really argue that some number of people on relevant teams (even beyond the oncall) will be called on to help take care of business. This plus customer deadlines like you mentioned are in addition to the standard corporate-political pressures of "so and so VP/director wants this" or "so and so team set a high level highly visible goal for the year and in order to meet it they need _____ by _____". Those demands can steam roll work-life balance and it depends on if the engineer is good at setting boundaries. Many of us are not based on personal experiences, personality, and for many work VISA status is a huge one that makes no one have solid boundaries when they feel they may just be out of a job and suddenly out of the country (U.S. typically). One interesting thing to add is that when in an operational role at less mature companies or teams, software engineers can need to dip into data-sciency roles on-demand. Analyzing log messages and find patterns to relate to what could be the root cause of a problem, or what is the full impact. This is mitigated by well designed dashboards and graph/visualization being available and will suppress the need for an engineer to need to come up with and run clever queries/grep to answer questions on the fly. I hope this channel takes off because you're a rare voice in this space (YT) making sense.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it and I want to share a realistic view of working in tech and all that it entails. I agree about work life balance. It highly varies based on the company, team and project you're on. What I find most difficult is just disconnecting from thinking about work on a mental level. I don't know if it's just me or the industry as a whole. Thank you for sharing your point of view and this wonderful encouragement to keep going!
That's quite helpful, I'm preparing to switch back to software engineer role from data scientist. And it makes me re-think about my position and career plan.
I intend to lunch into tech-prenuership. I'm considering the part to start from. Can you further advice. I have some products I will like to work on in the long run.
Which career path would you choose and why?
Data Science, because I'm good in Python, Excel, SQL and Statistics. All of them are used in Data Science 🙂
That was a really good comparison. Thank you.
Glad it helped :) what did you take from it?
I hate datascience and ML, but loves Software Engineering .
I can relate. I don't enjoy statistics as much which is the foundation of ML as much as I enjoy software engineering and building products :)
Just found this tiny channel and subscribed because it is hands-down the most accurate description of what a software engineer job is, and moreover, grows into. I say this as a CS grad, 13 years a software engineer, 8 years and currently at a FAANG company. Your points about 'this is code the customer will use' is spot on in terms of the quality bar. Operational issues coming into the picture is absolutely a thing especially for engineers working inside or on cloud infrastructure and services.
My only slight disagreement with anything you said here is that you probably downplayed work-life balance as a software engineer. It is certainly achievable, but I think it really depends on the person. Operational issues (think AWS just after Thanksgiving -> mid Dec last year) no doubt are non-optional engagements and no one can really argue that some number of people on relevant teams (even beyond the oncall) will be called on to help take care of business. This plus customer deadlines like you mentioned are in addition to the standard corporate-political pressures of "so and so VP/director wants this" or "so and so team set a high level highly visible goal for the year and in order to meet it they need _____ by _____". Those demands can steam roll work-life balance and it depends on if the engineer is good at setting boundaries. Many of us are not based on personal experiences, personality, and for many work VISA status is a huge one that makes no one have solid boundaries when they feel they may just be out of a job and suddenly out of the country (U.S. typically).
One interesting thing to add is that when in an operational role at less mature companies or teams, software engineers can need to dip into data-sciency roles on-demand. Analyzing log messages and find patterns to relate to what could be the root cause of a problem, or what is the full impact. This is mitigated by well designed dashboards and graph/visualization being available and will suppress the need for an engineer to need to come up with and run clever queries/grep to answer questions on the fly.
I hope this channel takes off because you're a rare voice in this space (YT) making sense.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it and I want to share a realistic view of working in tech and all that it entails.
I agree about work life balance. It highly varies based on the company, team and project you're on. What I find most difficult is just disconnecting from thinking about work on a mental level. I don't know if it's just me or the industry as a whole.
Thank you for sharing your point of view and this wonderful encouragement to keep going!
Perfect observation!
I will go for data scienctist👍very informative appreciate you
Thank you! Good luck in your data science career!
That's quite helpful, I'm preparing to switch back to software engineer role from data scientist. And it makes me re-think about my position and career plan.
Thank you for sharing! Are you still interested in switching to software engineering?
@@TechLeadersEmerging Yes, I just switched to software engineer this month!
Can you please share why you switched from SWE to data science and then back?
I intend to lunch into tech-prenuership. I'm considering the part to start from. Can you further advice. I have some products I will like to work on in the long run.
From non coding background know basic maths I would like to prefer Data science
I am choosing SW Engineering
I am an Accountant by profession is it possible for me to change my career in Software Engineering
Yes