Is Anyone Actually Fulfilled With A Software Engineering Career?

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Hey folks, we're going to the experience dev subreddit today and this topic is someone asking about if anyone's really fulfilled in this career software engineers and uh they go on to say like it has nothing to specifically do with like with AI because I think a lot of the a lot of the time this topic is coming up now it's like you know things have changed now I don't feel fulfilled But I guess this person is doing a little bit more of a a zoom out and looking at things I don't know more more generally over a longer time horizon and just kind of uh stepping back to to ask this kind of thing. So I thought it would be good to talk about.

I think for me this is sort of a relevant recent conversation because uh we had an intern with us and we were having conversations about career education things like that and um I don't know like to me like whether or not it came across this way I feel like this was sort of a a topic that I was trying to to make a little bit more clear when talking with this person. So, with that said, if you have questions about software engineering, career development, that kind of stuff, go ahead ask in the comments or you can go to code.com and submit stuff anonymously. And for me, fulfillment in this career, I think it looks I I think it's sort of acknowledging that it can look different for different people. And uh even for yourself as an individual, it will probably look different at different points in your life.

Um and I I think I don't know I I kind of have this perspective on uh not just your software engineering career, but probably lots of different things in your life. Um, I don't know, like depending on you as a person, what age you're at, that kind of thing, the lived experiences you've had, you you may value it's I I feel like it's probably likely that your core values will stay roughly the same, but um there will be a shift in things over time. And you know, one I I talk about this even with my wife, like one thing that I think probably shifts for a lot of people is like, you know, for kids, right? Like some people may may say from early on in life, you're like, "Oh, like I know I really want to have kids in a family." And then for other people maybe not.

And maybe that changes at different points in your life and how you you're prioritizing, you know, family, career, education, like I think those things change. And so I think when it comes to fulfillment and what you're getting out of your career, I think that that probably also changes. Um, again, your core values probably remain mostly the same, but a shift. And so the reason I'm saying this is not uh I don't know to try and say like this is the most insightful observation ever but but more more because I think that if uh if it's not something that you are thinking about ever then there's probably an opportunity here right so I'm not saying you have to like have this reflection like weekly or something like that but I do think it's important to periodically whatever that looks like for you to reflect on this

so that you know you're not 5 years into a role at some company being like holy like what am I even doing here like you know it's it's been uh 5 years in this role but it's been you know 4 years and 11 months of uh of you know hell or like nothing enjoyable or whatever. um you know maybe only that little honeymoon phase at the beginning where everything's like very new is uh exciting and different or whatever feeling fulfilling feeling like some sort of progress in life. And so instead of having these huge gaps like that where um where time sort of passing by and you reflect how how can you do that a little bit more often? Right? That doesn't mean that like I said weekly or some super frequent cadence that you're like doing this reflection going okay I have to change everything do like 180° and go a different direction.

Uh I'm just saying that you may want to try to find a way to be more in tune with this. So, um, you know, one of the conversations with a with an intern is really like, hey, like you're you're college, university, like what's after, right? Um, is it is it school? Like, you know, going for a mast's or something like that? Is it relating to the workforce? Um, if you pick one of those things now, whether it's school or the workforce or I don't know, you want to take time off to travel, whatever. If you do one of those things, does that mean that like you can never do the others, right? Is it a permanent choice? And I think the answer is no.

I think that uh you know I think some people might make it uh the argument that say if you're to prioritize your career right away and then you're you know kind of in the 9 to5 grind that maybe it makes it more challenging to try you know going back for a mast's uh or finding time to travel that kind of thing. So I'm not saying that it's uh you know trivial or anything like that to be able to balance those things but I don't think that you know it it makes it such that you can never do them. And I think that's that's important. I think it's important to realize that decisions like that aren't necessarily final because I don't know I right now for me in my like point in life I feel a lot of uh at least some relief compared to some decision- making earlier on in life cuz a lot of things felt super final, right?

like if I if I'm going to go like I had contemplated going for a masters after school and it was like if I do this like this is this is absolutely final and like now that I've have some working experience I'm like I I know that's not true. I know there are people that um for you know to give you one example right like they're working full-time they do their masters part-time um and they just do it over an extended period of time right so they they have found a way to do this and that works for them and they didn't have to go fundamentally change like they didn't have to quit their job to go back for their masters kind of thing so I think there's there's options Um, so you know that was one of the sort of conversations with the intern is like what happens after school.

Um, and then the other thing was like we're talking about industries, we're talking about roles. Um, you know, he I think it was really cool for him. he had the opportunity to talk with uh with people at work from different backgrounds, different experience levels, things like that. Um you know, what what does a software engineer do versus a a product manager do? um having uh conversations around like what you know as you're advancing in your software engineering role like you know is it that you have to become a manager at some point like is there a path that's that's purely you know technical individual contributor we have data science roles like what what is that um so just having this opportunity to see like there's within a software engineering company that you may have other roles and things like that. So, um again, like those those are things that you could end up moving between, right?

Um just to use the example for managers, there's plenty of people that have been an IC, gone into management, gone back to being an IC. Um it's not something that is carved in stone or like a a door that only goes one way. So, um I think it's important to realize that if you're making decisions like that and inevitably you find yourself like, "Hey, I'm not necessarily enjoying this or it's not as fulfilling as I imagined." There's opportunities, right? This guy's trying to go super fast. Go ahead, buddy. All you. There you go. Honda trying to drive one foot behind me. No, thank you. Um, you don't need to do that. When I think about fulfillment, I've talked about this in, you know, different videos. When I think about that in my career, um, you know, I I I often bring this like back to to impact and impact is sort of a weird word because I know that we use it a lot like for performance and things.

If you're trying to, you know, advance in your career, what kind of impact are you having? But, um, I want to maybe talk about it from like a different angle. Um because I think uh when I think about impact from like a fulfillment perspective, um the framing is like what like what kind of what kind of impact are you having on an area of of life that means a lot to you, right? And so like that's the difference. It's not like specifically impact for for the company you work for or some specific organization unless those are something that you are so aligned with that like you get a lot of fulfillment out of that. And so what I mean specifically here is like if you think about the areas of life that you are passionate about, right? What to me it's like what kind of impact are you having on those areas with uh with your work?

That's how I perceive it at least. And I know that even talking about this. Some people um some people are of the mindset like hey for for work like I don't I don't care about work. It's a 9 to5 and like the sooner that I don't have to be at work um you know then I can start enjoying my life whether that's working and then retiring or as soon as 5:00 hits like now sort of life begins. I've shared before like I don't really have this philosophy like I I like to work um but I want to make sure that I'm working in things that like feel fulfilling to me and uh and like I don't know things like things look different right like I I like giving this comparison because I think that uh there's enough sort of like split or difference with these things that it it paints picture that I think explains it.

You can be the judge of that. Um, so I I use the example like where I'm at in my career right now where um so I used to work in digital forensics, right? And so we'd make desktop software for investigators, examiners, law enforcement to be able to um you know recover data and and look through data so that they could understand what was going on with digital devices and then uh really try like as the as this, you know, the mission statement like bring the truth to light, right? And so that was impact on a um like in the grand scheme of things like overall like touching fewer people uh but felt very impactful and if I switch things around to like where I'm at now the work I'm doing you know uh affects experiences for like hundreds of millions of people and So very very very broad impact in terms of like volume, surface area, that kind of thing.

Um I do one more change here and then one more. Cool. Um, so you know that's less less specific, much more broad and um I think there's a huge difference here, right? is like like the impact there's so much more impact in the second but it's uh it's less on a like per person it's like less impactful to me right like the you know someone having slightly higher latency on a request that they're sending to Microsoft I'm like I get it like I don't want that to happen that's part of what I'm doing but for that individual if you know if their one request happened take an extra second one time. Uh I'm sorry but uh for you know the person who we helped you know try to ensure that they're uh sort of the the criminal involved in a case is put behind bars because you know uh true evidence was uh was uncovered or the other way right like someone was proven innocent because of what we were doing.

Like to me that's a lot more impact more meaningful right it's not that like I was saying it's not like I want people to have a slow experience with Microsoft products but on a per individual basis like I I feel hopefully that makes sense right like there's uh the individual impact is much feels much greater to me in one case versus the other and so um for me one of the ways that I reconcile that is like in my in my role now as a manager um compared to before like I I spend time more with individuals um because I in my role am right I I focus more on people uh people's career progression their growth like helping people try to um and so like I'm getting that personal fulfillment out of that, right? That's the more like individual basis kind of thing.

And it's not that I didn't do that before, but like I had um you know part of my day was also contributing to the codebase uh of course like building products in a startup and having a team and then two small teams and then kind of shifting now to like you know the impact I have looks different. Um, and you know, one of the like realistically, one of the things that I feel like as someone who's very into software engineering, one of the things that I regularly still have like uh like struggles with is this this idea of like I I do genuinely love to build things like I like putting things together. And so in my role like my nineto-5, right, like I'm I don't do that. I'm not doing that. I'm helping a team do that. And it's not that I'm not allowed to contribute or anything like that.

It's just that realistically my focus and time it doesn't really um facilitate as much opportunity for that. If I were spending more time trying to actually code things, then I would be, in my opinion, spending less time on the important things in my role. What's nice is that AI has helped with that, helped provide some of that opportunity where I can find some ways to to contribute a little bit more, which is nice. But uh my point is that kind of like to to live by what I'm saying is like I do have to have conversations like that with myself like what what do I actually value here? Right? If some time goes by and I'm like hey I've been you know I've been managing teams now for for 13 years and I've shifted a lot more specifically into managing teams. Is that a continued direction?

Right? like is that is that proving to be as fulfilling as I as I hope? Yes or no? Um if not, what does that look like? If yes, how do I lean into that more? But I think that's a conversation I I regularly to some degree have to have. Again, whether that's quarterly, yearly, whatever. I don't have the right answer, but I think it has to happen more than once every 5 years kind of thing. And so that's what I encourage for you, right? It's like try to have this reflection what what are things that you value because it will change over time depending on what's going on in your life and um yeah it might be that the domain that you're in. So maybe like software engineering hell yeah like that's the thing but maybe you're working in a in a domain for a company that you're not super enthused about and it's really difficult to feel like engaged and motivated by that work.

Maybe that's an opportunity to like to sort of reconsider. Not software engineering as a career, but maybe what you're doing for work. Maybe it's your role, right? Maybe if there's engineering managers listening to this and you're like, "Wow, like I I got promoted into an engineering manager role, but I'm not sure if I like find this fulfilling. I keep trying to go code because like that's the thing I go like I enjoy, but like I needed the promotion. It pays better, whatever. like maybe it's just worth considering like how do you how do you get back into something that you feel more fulfilled. So, um to answer this Reddit person's question like does anyone feel fulfilled in their career? Um I hope so. I hope so. I think even for me like I I I enjoy what I do. Could I be more fulfilled? I think the answer is yes.

And so because I am someone who likes to work, I I don't ever want to just stop at like this feels okay. I work too much to have that as part of my life where this feels okay. So something to think about. But hope that helps. That's my my thoughts on this Reddit post. Um and like I said near the beginning of this, if you have questions about software engineering, career development, that kind of stuff, leave below in the comments. Otherwise, codecute.com. You can submit stuff anonymously. There's a big hair on my camera which is clearly not mine because we ain't got much of that going on. But I will see you in the next video.