At A Crossroad: Software Development Or Other IT Role Instead?

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what is up I uh didn't have my camera plugged in so like an idiot hopefully it doesn't turn off again it turned off literally right at the end of the last video we'll see how that goes though uh I'm just leaving the office I'm going to go to LinkedIn for a question that came in it's a pretty long one which is good um so we're going to start I'm reaching up because I'm at a bit of a Crossroads could use some advice landed an IT internship awesome congratulations I've enjoying it a lot I love how interactive it is I get to work with people move around not just be stuck behind the desk all day that's great uh every now and then I get to write scripts and I really enjoy that part but I do wish coding was a bigger part of my job

okay so on the side I've also started my own web agency where I build websites and full stack applications that's that's awesome um depending on what the client needs uh I'm also about to graduate in 5 months with a CS degree awesome I'm feeling a bit stuck on which direction to take I really enjoy coding and I've been considering a software engineering career but this it internship has made me realize how much I like that feel too this is this is a good problem to have this is awesome with graduation coming up in May I feel like I need to make a decision quickly and I really appreciate any advice you'd have on how to figure out the best path forward great um so awesome thanks so much for for sending that in um if you are someone watching this if you want your question

answered uh stop beeping at me um that's number one step number two is leave a comment below uh or look for Dev leader which is my main YouTube channel and my my social media handle that I use for my personal brand send me a message uh if it's on LinkedIn it's Nick centino uh my profile should be open so uh would be happy to hear from you and uh answer your questions okay so where to start like I was kind of saying I think that this is a great problem to have um you know this person's saying I wish coding was a bigger part of my my job so obviously that means that they're interested in it they seem to have a business on the side doing that which is awesome so like all all good things and it also sounds like they're enjoying this

uh I don't know exactly when they're saying it field like that could be it could be support it could be a bunch of things right uh but the point is it's a field that is going to make this light come on it's a field that maybe is um I don't know it's what's the word I want to use uh adjacent I guess like a you know programming adjacent software development adjacent kind of role uh which is cool um you know they're saying they get to write scripts and stuff at work so that's a little bit of programming involved awesome but it sounds like in their role at work what they're doing they're not building applications they're not like getting to build systems it's probably uh writing and I'm making assumptions here making tools to be able to get data uh perform some operations in on

repeat whatever it happens to be but probably pretty small scale compared to building up you know an application or a service and uh all that kind of stuff so again I think good spot to be in when you have options like this uh but I can totally understand uh now they're kind of like okay there's this pressure because it is an internship um they are going to be graduating and like what path do I take right so again first off congrats uh good job on the internship good job on sort of the side business my I I I probably have some opinions about like what I might do and how I might pursue things but I also I don't like giving advice when it's like here's what I would do because like you're not me um and I need to acknowledge that every like no

one no one's going to be me only I am me and um I also want to be able to provide like almost like a framework for thinking about this kind of stuff I'm just trying to decide on the order that I want to try and navigate that um but maybe maybe it's good to start with the framework and then I can kind of talk about how I fit into that framework um okay so the framework that I think is important is there's this balance between like um what you're good at and what you love and what pays and I'm going to make an assumption here uh because I don't know about the it role and stuff right but I'm assuming I'm assuming that pays some rate that you're happy with or comfortable with at least and um so that's like a good spot I would

say maybe if someone was putting in front of me two rolls where I was like Hey like there's a very obvious discrepancy in the pay maybe that's going to be a huge driv Force here if I had to guess and again I don't have data around this this is just me making assumptions if I had to guess going down the path of being a software developer versus a pure it role um I might guess that the software development path is uh perhaps a like a higher ceiling let's say okay I don't know that for a fact uh so if people have data on this and it's different that's totally fine that's why I'm trying to give you a frame work to think through but the intersection that I'm interested in kind of presenting to you is you know what you're good at what you love

and what's going to pay and I think that it's important for you to understand how you value those things the other thing and I've said this in other videos is like where you're at with that today may be different than a year from now 5 years from now 10 years from now because Who You Are are as a person and your scenario and your situation your environment all these things are going to change and evolve over time so it's probably worth paying attention to that like yeah like you know if you had to face this kind of decision later on you might make a very different choice and that's totally okay it's not it's not right or wrong it's just like or I should I should almost frame it like it's uh as long as you're consciously thinking about this will be making the right

decision for you it's not not a wrong decision just because it's different at some other point in time so um if we think about this intersection of these three things like it sounds like and this why I'm saying it's a good spot to be in it sounds like you enjoy programming right so that's that's cool cuz you you're saying I wish my role had more of it U it also sounds like you enjoy it because you have a side business doing some application development and and again I have to make an assumption here but I would assume if you didn't like doing it you probably wouldn't start a side gig doing it unless you're like man I hate it but like I'm getting money for it that's that can be okay too so my assumption is that you enjoy it so uh not only on

the programming side but with the it role again it sounds like you enjoy that because you're saying in the comment like or in the question sorry like you know it's kind of opening up your eyes to like what else is available there and that's that's great so on that category it sounds like I don't know if there's a tie there I can't tell from the question being asked if like one of these things really stands out over the other so in terms of what you love to do or what you're interested in doing maybe that's a tie but again in terms of this framework I would say this is something that you can and should evaluate as you go forward and what could happen is say you pick one of these paths for now okay and then you go down the the road a little

bit and you're you're still in this career path you may at some point say I just want to try the other one not because I dislike what I'm doing but I've been curious about this other path I want to explore it there is nothing wrong with that I think a lot of people when they're getting started in their careers they have this fear and I I get it because I think my brain is kind of wired this way but like I can't change later right I went to school for something or I'm selftaught for something and like I've made it this far and I just got to dedicate myself and this is the path I'm on and that's it but um one of the reasons on my main YouTube channel Dev leader that I do a podcast the podcast literally the entire point is like

I get to talk to interesting people but I get them to tell me their story about how they got to where they are in their role and I do that because so many people will talk talk about career changes and other super interesting things like that and I think that not enough people um like take note of this I got to move over here um so again I'm saying that out loud to remind you like you're not locked into one path indefinitely and it's like oh no I messed up um which is great this is good good stuff um so on the like side you know if you both of these things are things that you like right now awesome if you happen to like one more than the other maybe you know you score that higher when you're doing this analysis for yourself but

let's talk about the what you're good at um I can't answer this for you either unfortunately but this is part of the framework that I want you to think through you should be thinking about like how you can apply yourself to that and how you can level up that skill so just to give you an example um and I'm totally making this up because again I don't know you uh maybe maybe your skill level on development and your skill level on your what you're doing in your it role maybe those are on par right now and maybe the reality is that for your development skills you're like hey I get to practice this stuff outside of work because I am doing uh a side job or maybe I should have um I should have probably called this out as an option maybe what you're saying

is I want to do that side gig full time I I never even thought about that um so maybe that's an option too I want to revisit that one and I'm going to try not to forget um let's assume it remains a side gig though just want to get in the fast Lan sorry gu flying with his yellow lights um okay so your skill level for these two things might be on par right now and where I was going with this is that in terms of the opportunity for growth you may find that because you have this side gig you're able to like get more practice at this skill uh so what I what I mean by that is your ability to progress technically may be greater in the software development or programming side of things just because you're doing it more um but that

might not be the case maybe maybe you're saying heyy look like work is uh opening up my eyes to so many things I'm not really getting challenged in my side gig that's doing web development you're kind of just doing it in a steady state um so again I can't answer this for you I'm just trying to put it in front of you to think through and um when it comes to like Skilling up and growth and stuff like this it's not purely like a you know what am I better at it's like the opportunity to learn it could be that you have an interest in like kind of crossing over to that like what do I love to do maybe you're the type of person that always wants new technical challenges right so the the idea of being able to try different things and then

get good at them like that might be something that's appealing for you but the whole point of this is thinking about where your skill levels at the opport unities for progressing in that skill uh is that coming at a work time is that a hobby thing is there overlap um because not only is it how like going to play into how effectively you can do your job technically but it also might indicate like you know if you're working for someone else how fast can you progress not that technical skills are the only thing but it's a helpful thing if you could be Skilling up at that so something to think about um and then I guess the final part I'm flying through this so this talk might be quicker than I thought and it's funny too because it said it was going to be a

super long drive home but uh it's like all traffic to my right and the fast Lane's completely fast so it's awesome except for this cop sitting over here got someone pulled over yeah he does sucks to suck buddy um okay so the last kind of thing is around the pay and this is where I was saying I also don't know um so I I'm basically answering this entire question by saying I don't know anything so sorry but uh I think that this is something that you need to evaluate for yourself when I talk about this kind of thing I I maybe I'll do a bit storytelling here so I think obviously for people being compensated at least fairly should be the minimum bar you set right and uh obviously I think for most people you know all things equal if you could make more money

all things equal you probably would say that's a better spot to be in uh the challenge is that's kind of hard to find because usually when it's make more money there's some other requirement is going up or you're trading more right like maybe it's more time right your work life balance goes or you're doing less interesting work or something that you don't love as much um could be anything but it's usually not everything is equal and you just get more money at some other opportunity so I think it's totally fair and some people shy away from this and I think my upbringing tends to make me think about this in a way that I shy away from it but there is nothing wrong with you know deciding that you want to do something because it pays more there is nothing wrong with that and I

think I was kind of taught when I was younger that like I think you know my my mother was coming from the right place when she said this but like you know money is not everything um you know I would still love you if you wanted to do a job that wasn't like a lawyer or a doctor and getting paid tons of money like she tried to instill to me like I want to make sure that you're doing something that you're happy doing because she would tell me you're going to be doing that your whole life so you better hope that it's something that you love to do and I don't think she meant to imply you can never do anything else but she meant it's your life like work is going to be a part of your life and she wants to make sure

that her son is spending his life doing things that he loves to do so I think that's a like a a positive thing but I think some of the side effect of that is that it almost at least for me makes me think in a way that's like oh well you should feel guilty if you're factoring money in now the reason I'm bringing this up is because I have talked with people and this includes sort of how I tend to think a little bit like that this Guild Creeps in when it's like I'm talking about money I want to get paid more there's this opportunity that's you know it'll higher salary or better stock or something and it's almost like you feel guilty for it but like why do we like where is that feeling coming from some people listening to this or watching this

might say Nick that's like it's more money I'm taking it and again that's like that's totally fine what I'm trying to just call out is for those of you that feel a little bit guilty and you're not sure why like I I can totally relate to that now I think there's a balance as there is with all things and as much as I would love to get paid more and more money there comes a time where it's like what are you trading for that and the the storytelling part is that I wanted to bring up that not only you know how my mother raised me but uh and you can't see it cuz it's dark in here and I'm not editing the videos and doing anything fancy but like I have a tattoo I have two my forearms are tattooed on my left side I

have an hourglass tattooed on my forearm on the inside and the tattoo is a it's an hourglass that has money in the top of it and the money flows into basically in the bottom like a Barren Wasteland where the money just falls into an empty pit and I like the look of the tattoo so my T I have a couple of tattoos that don't mean anything um and I love when people ask oh what's your why do you have that tattoo what does it mean and I'm like I think it's cool that's all uh no meaning but this one does have a meaning and the meaning of that is to constantly remind myself that if the only reason if the only reason I am doing something is that at the end of the day it makes a dollar in my uh or a number in

my bank account go up that's the only motivation for it that's not a good reason to be trading my life for it and I say it that way because at that point if you're just doing it to make a number go up what are you actually getting if that's the motivation the difference here is like if you're like hey I need more income to support my family or I need more income because I want to be able to travel more or like you know there's a purpose behind why you want that you know I want to I want more income so I can invest now so I can have more time later like having purpose behind it having like being intentional for why you want more money I think there's nothing wrong with that but the tattoo is a reminder for myself that if you're

just working and spending all of your life to make a number go up in a bank account and no sort of vision or concept of what like why you're doing that I think that's a dangerous spot to be in um I think a lot of humans in general uh and I guess people that have a similar personality type to me it almost I don't want to use the word Addiction I think that's too strong of a word and I don't like to use that word uh just to throw it around but I think that we can get very attached to seeing things like a number in a bank account or in your stock portfolio whatever it's saying like look it's going up look it's going it's almost like a game right like it's exciting like I can yes like this I'm I'm I'm winning but

like what are you winning we don't die and get a high score at the end um like so what do you plan to do with the money so anyway I wanted to touch on that so to go back to this person's question in terms of the framework that I'm trying to propose here I would say like you may want to consider like uh in terms of a career path how that factors in in terms of pay and I I want to throw in the reminder cuz I think this is really important you might pick the other like I'm just going to make this up right maybe uh this is based on no data maybe you want to go in the it route maybe you're like hey this might pay less I really love doing it and I feel like I can learn a ton and

like I have good skills here and that's a like that's a that's great that's your decision you own that awesome and if you go a year into that two years or whatever it is and you're like oh I feel like I screwed up I feel like this isn't the thing for me or even if it's not screwed up because I hope people don't feel that way but if you're like hey I think I want to try that other thing that's the more positive way to look at it this thing is good that I'm doing but I want to try this other thing you can right so if you're like hey I prioritized these other things and now this part of my life um I want to start a family or I want to travel more and I want to have more in come I think

that lane ends buddy you don't really have a lot of Runway um I there's nothing wrong with getting to a different phase of your life and saying like I want to prioritize a higher income and then going after that now that might work the complete opposite way I'm not saying the software development necessarily will pay higher than the it I'm just giving you an example so my point is that you're not necessarily locked in even more reason if this person is considering doing the web development stuff on the side and they want to go into it you're still practicing those skills it's not like you're going to go 5 years and be like oh I haven't coded anything because I think that becomes some of the opportunity cost is like hey I would like to switch but now I'm not so sure because the competition's

going to be higher but again I will remind you I interview people on my main YouTube channel on my podcast that's not the whole reason I have the channel that's just one of the types of content I make but in the podcast I get people to try and explain their journey and you would be if you're the kind of person that thinks that you're trapped in like one career path you would be absolutely amazed to hear different people talk about their stories like people that are like 30 years old 40 years old switching careers I mean like I'm there's a I actually haven't interviewed him on my my main podcast I had a another podcast that I haven't done for a long time with a former colleague of mine I think the guy that we interviewed was 40 I think I might have his age

wrong I'm sorry um anyway he's awesome his name is Brian Jenny but he like he was I think he said he was doing a either Uber or a cab driver at one point it was probably Uber H in between like after I can't remember what he was doing before and uh I I think he was saying he was in I might have the story wrong so I apologize but like in San Francisco and he was driving around a lot of people that were sof developers and he started to hear them talk and he was like that sounds really cool I'm interested and he taught himself out of code and now he's an engineering manager so I think he's an engineering manager at least uh was doing like Tech lead or team lead positions and I think he's an em now uh and he teaches people

online he's got like a side business for that point is just yet another example of someone that was like I want to do this I'm going to go ahead and get focused on it um so you can always transition to different things later the um part I wanted to bring up before I forgot usually I forget these things but I remembered is like if this person's asking about a should I fulltime like you know I'm going to graduate should I full-time do the side business this is where like uh if I Channel myself here like I'm pretty risk adverse and it's great if this person has some business coming in on the side I can't speak to how much business that is or how much they feel they can scale it so that's something to consider but I would use the same framework I just

talked about I know that if I were to answer that for myself because I have answered this for myself in the past and I still do it today I would not personally right out of school for my risk tolerance I would not go into I'm going to try my own thing and I didn't do that I went to another startup one that felt like it was exciting but also lowrisk because they weren't relying on external investment and they were already uh like they had a profit can't think of words so they're already profitable no external investment they had customers I'm like this feels low risk I'm going to do it um today at this point in my life I have a a side thing called brand ghost so I'm building a social media uh scheduling platform um and I like if I look at my

risk profile I'm not like hey I'm just going to leave Microsoft and and build brand ghost like nope to this day my risk profile tells me absolutely not um but again this is something that this person would have to evaluate um and I I guess I didn't really include it in the framework I said like how much do you love it how good are you at it and your opportunity to earn um but arguably like your risk profile is the other thing that you should factor into that um and that could be a conversation too like when you're picking your job so say say this person's like okay I'm going to keep that on the side and now they're going to go into it full-time or they're going to go into being a software developer depending where they like want to apply in stuff like

the types of companies that you apply to your risk profile May kind of sway you in different ways uh and this I think maybe is a little bit of a dated way to look at it but I know historically people would say like oh startups are that's the risky way and big Tech is the very safe way obviously with layoffs and different things and uh the job environment I think people are changing their mind about that but there is an extra layer of risk with startups which is the company depending on the how old the startup is the company just might not exist the likelihood of that happening to a larger company is not zero but it's probably significantly smaller that that just happens out of nowhere or that they're struggling so much like that so something to think about um but yeah like my

risk profile says like I would need a significant amount of side income before I could even entertain that thought of like I'm going to leave my main job but that's me you might be completely different um so again like hard for me to give this person a recommendation but I think the framework and how I think about it that's what I could offer up but I think that's probably it um I'm trying to think if there's some good Meta Meta points that I can quickly summarize um one of them I think is like it's going to be hard to make a like a wrong decision I think that you're in a great spot that you have a couple of options that you really like uh it's way it's a way better spot than being like man like I hate this thing but it pays well

and uh and I'm good at it uh but this other thing I really love but it doesn't pay well like I don't know that would be a a shitty spot to be in but I think this is like you know it's good and I don't think you're going to pick wrong so I hope that's comforting at least I realize that by saying that it might not feel great cuz you're like just give me the answer I don't have it um I think that's a good spot to be in you're not going to mess up and you can always change I think that's probably one of my biggest points to get across here is that uh you could always reconsider a different career path um and the nice thing is that sounds like these two types of roles are very related um at least relatively adjacent

not necessarily overlapping but you're getting to do some scripting and stuff I think that's good um I don't know I I also wanted to like kind of draw attention to like the fact that this person has something going on the side like I think that's super cool um the the reason I wanted to kind of have some extra attention on this is because if you've watched other videos I've made where I'm giving some guidance to more Junior people people are asking like hey what project should I build like how should I skill up I keep hearing people say I have to build an app and get customers my take is like absolutely not like build stuff on the side but like you don't need to you don't need to make it a business I think it's cool if you can but you don't need to

do it um and the reason I say that is because there's so many other factors that go into running a business than just like building software like you need to be able to do sales you need to be able to do marketing you need to be able to do customer support like there's so much stuff that happens and in my opinion if you're just trying to get better at developing software like you want to optimize your time for doing that however if you have the capacity to be able to do something like what this person's doing and they have a website building service on the side they have a you know full stack app development business like that's great it's great if they're able to accommodate that um because they are getting to practice doing all of those things so I just wanted to highlight

the only reason I don't suggest it is because I feel like it um if people keep saying I only have so much time I would say optimize it for building software but clearly if if you're able to kind of accommodate doing all of it that's super cool so I wanted to you know kind of congratulate this person for doing that uh it's uh it's not easy it's not easy being able to dive into that kind of stuff and I think that uh I think sometimes people maybe assume it is to give you an example like I've been programming for over 20 years and I've never had I've never on the side had a gig that was like someone's like hey build me a website and I'll pay you money for it never never come up I've definitely had people say hey I have an app

idea I think most programmers have probably heard that got a friend that has an app idea um but I've never you know no one's ever contracted me come on buddy holy what are we thinking here my God sorry this why I need two cameras someone stopped like four car lengths back so then the person in front of me had to like swerve out um I think yeah I was trying to say the closest thing I've ever done to that is like kind of a what's it like fractional CTO kind of thing where someone reached out and it's actually a good friend was like Hey I want some help with this but um yeah I've never taken like a you know signed a contract built some software on the side never done it but but it's not to say I couldn't I think the challenge is

that like I in terms of like being a salesperson and marketing myself it's just not a skill I'm very good at I need a lot more practice of that kind of stuff so I think this person's in a great spot if they're able to balance all those things but um yeah I think honestly I think that's it I hope I hope this person doesn't feel like I know in their question it sounded like they're under a lot of stress to make a decision but um you're you're in a good spot when you have a decision like this to make it's like you have paths forward that are all good so I can understand why that would feel stressful like how do I make the better of the the decisions but yeah like it's uh at least it's not like a looming deadline for something terrible

to happen um or the chance of something terrible happening it probably feels that way it probably feels like if I don't make the right decision then like I've made a bad one um or if I sorry if I don't make the optimal decision then I've made a bad one but it's like they're they're going to be good no matter what if I were this person like with kind of how I am like I would go the software development rout but that's my bias right uh I don't like doing it things in fact I absolutely abolutely hate doing it things so we're very different in that regard this is why advice on the Internet is such a funny thing like I don't like giving advice based on how I would do things because it's like I don't want I try to be as unbiased as I

can when I'm talking about stuff so someone's like Nick what would you do I'm like this is literally all of my bias so I don't know what you plan to do with that unless you align with me on Absol abolutely everything I feel like it's not very helpful so um I feel like and I'm curious if you have opinions on this if you've watched this far in the video do you value hearing like the framework side of things or you know are you more interested in hearing like what would you do we don't care about your Frameworks uh I'd like to know I think that's interesting I'm making assumptions right I feel like the framework is the more valuable thing maybe people don't give a crap about my Frameworks and they're just like tell us a story Nick uh that's why we're here but maybe

you want both too happy to do both I just don't want to um I don't want to be like weird entertainment value and then it's not helpful for you either so that's why I break it down how I do let's see how to back into this driveway I can't see anything and it's garbage day tomorrow so I got to get the garbage out okay folks I think that's it thanks so much for being here reminder if you have questions you want answered leave them in the comments below or look for Dev leader on social media or Nick centino on LinkedIn will also remind you on my main YouTube channel I do a live stream every Monday 7.m Pacific and it's topics like this so software engineering based and um you can join like happy to like I basically go right to the chat if people have questions in chat I spend all my time there otherwise I generally talk about a newsletter article that I put out on Saturdays so that's at weekly.

deev leer.com it will be the newsletter topic so weekly. deev L.C anyway I hope to see you on the next code commute if not the next live stream on dev leader so see you then take care