The Truth About Starting a Career in Software Engineering

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, I'm just going to a message that was sent in. This is on threads and someone sent a message asking about my thoughts on if you wanted to become a software engineer these days like what would you do for school like what would you go study that kind of thing kind of uh kind of path are we we looking at and I think I think uh there's going to be a lot of different opinions on this kind of stuff. Uh I don't think that there's anything that's, you know, uh 100% right or 100% wrong. That's basically a philosophy I I generally have. And uh I think even more so like over the past couple years and we'll probably see more of this kind of trajectory is that there's going to be more people that are kind of like, well, why why bother, right? Um like don't we have AI?

like AI is writing the code like things are different uh you know software engineering is cooked software engineering is different everyone's a product manager like everyone's got a take on this um and while I don't like fundamentally like disagree that things are changing and like will you know basically stay stay changed uh compared to what we had been looking at in software engineering and we'll continue on you know some path that's uh with a lot more AI involved. I think I do fundamentally disagree with people that say there's no point in uh like furthering an education um and deeper understanding of these things. Now, um, for what it's worth, I think there is a huge spectrum of like, you know, how how valuable your your say your post-secary education is in terms of your field of study based on the uh topic you're studying, based on where you go for that, based on how much effort and time you're willing to put into that, based on the cost of it.

You know, some places maybe education's free, maybe it's subsidized heavily. In other places, uh maybe it's not. Maybe that means like, you know, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And so, like, I can't answer this in a universal way that just is like, you know, follow these three simple tips that doctors don't want you to know about and you'll be the best software engineer in the world. Like, I think it's just kind of a I don't know like way to to frame it. So I can't do that will not try to do it but I'll give you my opinion on it. And so even when I was going to university uh I went for computer engineering and uh like I got to learn about circuits. I got to learn about hardware and computers and you know some software concepts and a lot of what I focused on earlier on in university just because of how the program is.

Um, there was physics, there was chemistry. I had, you know, math for most years that I was in university. And like I don't do a lot of the math that they taught us uh in university. So like was it all a waste? Like was that not worth it? And I would say I still think that it was worth it. I would still absolutely do it again. Um even though I hated the school part. Um, I had internships. I wouldn't trade that part for anything. But there was still, um, some like foundational things that I learned from going to school, especially when it comes to engineering. And I think this is the, you know, the meta point that I want to get across. Um, I think if you do a better job than me in terms of like giving a about the stuff you're learning, I was more just like upset than I like, you know, uh, suddenly wasn't feeling like smart at school anymore.

Like I wasn't engaged in it. It was more like um, yeah, I don't know, like just more frustrated and like not wanting to do it. But some people like love to learn. They're like, "Yeah, it's hard work to like be doing projects and study for things, but like they're excited to learn and get better at things." I was absolutely not like that. So, I feel like already if you can just do a better job being engaged than I was, you'll do it will go significantly further for you. But the meta point here is that going to school in a field that was related to software engineering taught me about engineering in general. And that meant a lot of like how do we look at things in an unbiased way? How do we look at data, collect, you know, meaningful data? How do we do an analysis on things?

How do we compare and contrast? Like all those things that I just said have literally nothing specifically to do with software. at all. Right? You could this could be a you know a channel where I talk about civil engineering or I don't know mechanical engineering, chemical engineering. The the point is that like the the domain doesn't matter. There was so much to learn and understand and practice with respect to engineering that that was a huge benefit. And I think that a lot of people miss this because they either um by the way disclaimer because the way it's going to come out of my mouth is going to make it sound not the way I intend. Um I don't think you have to go to school for engineering uh necessarily to you know to work in the field of software engineering. Um you know there are people that do boot camps or people that do computer science instead of engineering.

There are people that don't do any of that and they transfer in and they they can still be, you know, great in the field of software engineering. Now, I think some people miss out on what engineering actually is. And it's not that that makes them dumb or that means that they'll never be good at it. I'm just saying like I think that when they bypass some of the education or you know whatever it happens to be that maybe it's just practice if they bypass the portion of the learning that focuses on what is engineering that's a gap right like software engineering is not just like what is you know the fanciest algorithm that can be written it's not like how do we just keep refactoring code to like make it match what see in the books. It's not like the it's not those things. Those are parts that happen in software development.

But I think a lot of people miss out on what is involved in engineering, right? There's uh just for a little bit of extra background and why I'm talking so much of engineering specifically is like I don't think a lot of people realize this but in many countries like engineering is a professional designation right like there are places like Canada is one such place different provinces that regulate this you can't use the title engineer unless you are a professional engineer it would be like saying I am a lawyer and not being a lawyer. I'm a doctor and not being a doctor. It's a professional designation. You need to go to post-secary education that is accredited. You need to have hours signed off by a professional engineer. You have to take an ethics exam. This is the part I want to talk about, right? So, forget the rest of the stuff.

If you're like, "That's Nick. I don't believe in regulations and stuff like that." That's fine. Not here to convince you otherwise. Um, the ethics part was something super interesting. So when I was going to school for engineering like there were like every year it was 5 years of uh of university and and every year they were talking to us about um ethics and I always thought it was like it seemed funny to me in the beginning because I'm like well like what do you mean we need like courses on ethics? Like some of the examples that we were being introduced to in the beginning, I'm like you'd have to be like stupid not to see this being an ethical problem. Like come on, man. Like it's like oh like you're going to take extra money to do something bad. And it's like clearly that's an ethical problem.

But then they, you know, as you're getting more advanced in it, they're giving you examples where you're like, man, it feels like if you pick either option, it's not a good move. that you have to you have to do you have to make some decision and then be able to justify it based on ethics. And so the point is that there's actually um a lot of other stuff that's not just like uh technology focused. Come on person, you put your signal on. Move over if you're going to move over. No. Okay, that's fine. You do you. Um, so there's it's not just like you know algorithms, it's not just data structures, it's not just chemistry and physics and math. Engineering was also a lot about ethics. So again, I went to school for computer engineering and yes, there were courses on math, circuits, programming, but there was this huge underlying, you know, every year focus on ethics.

And so I think there's just this huge missed opportunity or misunderstanding of like what's involved in engineering. And uh I think that that's like a basically a huge opportunity for people in post-secary education to learn about because I think regardless of AI like cuz if if people want to say well there's no point in focusing on software engineering because AI I would say man like there's still so much to like to learn and to practice when it comes to just engineering. The cool thing about that is that if you do focus on that, you do practice what it means to to do engineering, like that's applicable beyond just software, right? Regardless of who or what is writing the code, regardless of whether it has nothing to do with code and you want to go into another domain, I think you can apply engineering principles to plenty of things in life.

So I would highly highly recommend uh engineering is a discipline, right? Um just to give you one more example, I had a a classmate that was in computer engineering with me and he said like I actually want nothing to do with uh hardware or software when I graduate. He wanted to go into like uh more of like the political sciences side of things. And I said, dude, why are you putting yourself through all this? like uh our our program was notorious for being a pretty rough one at the University of Waterl and I was like why why would you do this to yourself if that's not even what you want to do and it was for a lot of the reasons I'm talking about right now which is like the going through a lot of the the discipline engineering rigor that we would be taught and get to practice was going he felt was going to be very valuable um even outside of just software engineering.

So um yeah, if you want my take, I would say that going to some sort of schooling for some type of engineering would still be extremely beneficial. But again, look into the, you know, the costs of things. I can't make that recommendation for you. Um, I think what this person is probably more interested in aside from just my engineering take is like, well, you know, computer science, software engineering, like what programming do I take? Like like, you know, do I have to go learn about um machine learning now and take AI courses? Like all I know is that by the time I even record the rest of this video, uh, like the landscape is already changing, right? It's changing so fast. Um, I can't imagine that if I said, "Hey, like here's a list of courses and stuff that would be good that like, you know, by the end of this calendar year or the end of next calendar year that that uh that advice wouldn't shift.

And it's not that it would be obsolete, but like it feels like things are moving so fast with respect to it that my advice would be out of date, which is why I started with the part that I feel like is very durable, which is just practicing engineering. So, um I do think like I think that if there's an opportunity where you can learn about machine learning and different concepts that make up a lot of our uh like systems that we're becoming more reliant on when it comes to AI models, things like that. I think that would be awesome to learn about. Um, it's one of those things where in my mind I'm like, even if that's not something you're going to be actively needing to know every day, like do you really need to know how, you know, the black box of the model works?

Like maybe not. Maybe you could go your whole career and that literally won't matter at all to you, right? That's like for me to be able to drive this car, do I need to know how every single part works intimately? I don't. Is it helpful to know more? I think the answer is yes. So if the if the framing of this postsecary education or like you know what do I focus on? If the question itself is more like what's the minimum I have to do to be employable, I think that's a very different question than like what's uh what's good for me to focus on so that I can be better in my practice, right? And the the answer to like what's minimum employable is like there's people that don't have any post-secary education or any formal training and they're fine. Uh is that going to make it harder?

perhaps. Does that make it wrong or right? Like, you know, not for me to say. So, like, what's the minimum? I don't know. Like, depends who you talk to, right? But I do think if you want to be better, then spending more time honing your craft, I think, will help. And that means, hey, if there's more that you can learn formally, uh, if there's more that you can be practicing and building, do it. So yeah, my my take would be like, hey, if if the opportunity is there, um I would highly recommend some type of post-secary education that touches on some type of computer science, software engineering, uh machine learning, different parts of AI for background. Um I think that would be great. Uh if if you can afford to do it sort of thing. I think if there's an opportunity in your schooling for internships or co-op programs, 100% absolutely do everything you can to make that happen, right?

That's literally work placement. You literally get to do work. I don't I don't know what could be better than that. And then I would say also um you know my my personal opinion is very much like I think engineering goes a long way. And so I would highly recommend if you can you know do something uh related to engineering if you want transferable skills that that I think are very durable. Um but I think that's my take right um you know the specific courses and where to go and all that like I don't think that's going to make a big difference. um you know, do make the decisions that are going to keep you engaged and learning because um if that's not met, I think it's going to feel pretty wasteful. So, hope that helps. I got to look for a doughnut shop here. I don't know if I can park on this side of the road, but we'll see.

Let's get to this light. Can I park here? Let's find out. I think the answer is yes. Oh, yeah. Cool. Okay. If you got questions about software engineering, career development, if it's like this person, right, um, leave them below in the comments. You can message me on any social media platform. Just look for dev leader. Um, and yeah, otherwise you can go to codemute.com and you could submit questions anonymously and I will make a video just like this one for you and other people that hopefully it helps. Thanks. Take care.