I have been a software engineer in Singapore for two and half years now, and I would like to share my personal thoughts on the PROs and CONs of being a software engineer. Hope this article gives insight to those who are hesitating to start a new career in this industry. These are all based on my personal experience, you are welcome to share your thoughts in the comment.
Why you should become a Software Engineer
Salary is competitive in the market
Employers pay software engineers well in general, not to mention the Big Techs. They are willing to invest in these engineers to make their systems robust, secure, and feature-rich. This is a salary report from JobStreet Singapore in the year 2022 for the highest paying industries ranking:
Highest Paying Jobs in Singapore
Besides, the career path for software engineers is quite defined and the pay cap for this job is extremely high (it depends on how capable you are).
Relevant resources online for self-improvement
As a software engineer, there are a lot of great (and sometimes free) resources online for you to pick up during or after your work time. You can invest all your time into it and it creates a flying wheel effect on your career. You can use your skills to build your side projects, and use the knowledge that you know from building them on your day job as well. How perfect is that!
High demand in the job market
We are in the era of technology now and software engineers are in demand in the job market. You get opportunities to knock on your door almost every day, even though it is slightly slowing down now given the current economic situation.
Computers have more expected behaviors than human
I guess most introverts will agree with me on this one. Sometimes you get unexpected behaviors from the computer, but that would be most likely the things that you might have missed out.
But dealing with humans is so different. And it is hard or impossible to debug.
Perfect job for remote working
I have been working in a hybrid mode as a software engineer, and it is seamlessly perfect to work from home. Due to the reason that I am in a multi-national team, it doesn’t really make a difference for me to work in an office (but I don’t get free coffee and snacks at home). The collaboration tools for software development projects have greatly improved the processes.
Why you shouldn’t become a Software Engineer
Tend to lose hair quicker than other jobs
That’s just … painful. This happens when you have been debugging the same issue for the whole day and realized that you just need to restart the development server to make things work.
Don’t pull your hair or scratch your head too hard when something doesn’t work out. Just don’t.
Must always keep up with the pace of the industry to stay competitive
Things are changing and evolving in the industry at a lightning-fast pace. You have to keep on reading materials and up-to-date with the new information in order to stay competitive as a great software engineer. Sometimes you might be burned out by that.
Stiff neck and back
Software engineers tend to sit longer in front of computers than other job types. Make sure that you pose yourself correctly from the beginning and this is something not to be neglected. One way is to stand up and do some stretches every 45 minutes of sitting.
Do share with me what are your thoughts on these and how would you advise people who want to get into this industry as software engineers.
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