The Harsh Reality of Being a Software Engineer

[Music] you know being a software engineer it isn't all glitz and glamour what's up everyone jassy here and i really wanted to make this video because i see this like trend where people only really talk about the positive aspects of the tech industry and being a software engineer i myself definitely am guilty of that i have at least probably a dozen videos where i only really talk about the positive aspects of being a software engineer which can kind of make the industry and the job itself seem a bit unrealistic aspiring software engineers should have a deeper understanding of what the reality is like for software developers opposed to just these expectations of a six-figure salary and free coffee and snacks at work and being able to bring your dog to work for one as someone who desired all of those things i realized that those are major perks but there are some not so healthy things that come along with landing that dream fang job or really high paying salary so what are some of those negative things that come along with being in the tech industry as a software engineer working for a competitive company the first thing that i can think of is burnout so what causes burnout developers are always working harder to become more efficient and as you climb the ladder your expectations obviously grow larger you have more meetings but also have the same amount of programming which can get overwhelming quickly for one your backlog seems like it's a never-ending growing list of bugs and refinement and ui ux work and technical debt that your developer team never gets to because because most teams are typically like under man like there's usually like a need for more developers which is another issue in tech also success gets pretty addicting especially with all these videos talking about how people are making you know 120 000 right out of college people are making 200 000 in their 20s it makes you want to like make that amount of money as fast as you can so you jump from company to company and you're working on your skill sets at work obviously and then outside of work you're programming and coding all the time not building healthy sleep habits so that's one example of how programming or just the tech industry in general can cause stress and overload which leads to burnout that's an example of burnout while you're working in a job as a software engineer let's talk about the burnout that people experience before they even start their first day at work when i was preparing for technical interviews i seldomly had time for really anything else which really created this like poor quality of life i was not only programming for my regular job which was quite difficult at times and demanding but i also was studying data structures and algorithms basically a student after 5 pm which is a totally different beast like your actual software engineering job is significantly different than like what you're studying and preparing for which is another reason why i don't understand the purpose of some of these technical interviews they don't reflect what your reality is as a developer programming for a company takes creativity and collaboration along with having the ability to google stuff and go on stack overflow to debug your code or figure out how to create whatever thing that needs to be created whereas in an interview they can ask you any questions so i was studying algorithms and data structures i was doing at least two medium lead code questions a day along with watching stanford lectures on data structures and algorithms and i even went as far as doing virtual peer interviews through pramp which i definitely recommend that definitely helped me a ton and i also got really good objective feedback from people who don't know me the point that i'm making is applying to a million jobs because let's just be honest like linkedin at this point is just a resume stack along with preparing for technical interviews interviewing and then starting the job to make a lot of people feel exhausted i know for one that after i finished my interviews i was like i don't think i ever want to do a technical interview again i was preparing for my technical interviews it was during the holidays so literally during new year's eve i celebrated with my wife and her family for like a couple minutes when the ball dropped and then after that i was on the ipad studying for the technical interview that i had like in the next five or six days it's such a horrible feeling when you get declined from a company where you made it to like the final round of interviews and that happened to me a couple times now obviously i'm really grateful to even have those opportunities but you can feel really defeated when you like do three four five rounds of interviews and then you don't get the job and then you don't really get a clear reason for why you didn't get your job oh you just need to work on data structures more or algorithms more but that's such a vague statement and that really is predicated on who's interviewing you at the time and how nitpicky they're being there's this other thing in tech that can be really annoying which is that double standard for one there's that you know whole gotta be able to prep for the interview and study for like a act or sat that no other industry really has to deal with and then there's that double standard that oh you should really be you know eat cold and sleeping like that should be your lifestyle it can feel that way especially when you're a junior developer because see when you're a junior developer your job really is to just learn the code base like as well as anyone and knock out as many pull requests as possible it seems like to be considered a successful developer you need to not only open and close a bunch of prs in a sprint but also need to code outside of work and be up to speed with all the latest technology and see that's probably one of the more frustrating things when it comes to the tech industry especially if you're someone like myself who has other interests outside of coding i honestly feel like i can't keep up like i like to work out i like to play basketball i like to i don't know go on walks with my wife and do photography and videography you know i kind of have a youtube thing going on that takes a lot of time and sometimes i feel like i am not doing enough as a developer here my like co-workers talk about all this new technology that they have experience with outside of work and the things that they're doing outside of work and it makes me feel like i'm slacking when in reality i'm not because what other industry do people expect you to do the same kind of work that you do at work at home for like fun like only industry i could think of is like athletics right you have practice in your games but then you're also expected to work out and do other things to get better and technically programming is like that because it is a skill set and it does seem like a lot of your value is based on how well of a developer you are despite the fact that the company told you that they didn't hire you because you weren't a culture fit a culture fit and that's the irony of it all we all know that yes programming is a very competitive field especially landing a really good job but there's a lot of in demand jobs and there are way more jobs than there are programmers but there's that feeling that you get where you feel like you're in jeopardy of potentially losing your job or looked down upon if you feel like you're not the best developer on your team i think there's a lot of imposter syndrome that goes on within the tech community especially amongst developers and a lot of comparing which is really unhealthy because the reality is if you have programming skill sets and you're working for a company as a developer you are very valuable i know that some people eat sleep code and they're fine with that but some of us we enjoy technology and we like programming we need to rethink how many hours we should be programming especially for like our mental health because programmers are interacting with computers all the time all day and we need that human interaction so i definitely think we need to reevaluate that 40 hours a week whole thing for everybody but definitely for develop anyways that's my rant on why you maybe should not become a developer or really the harsh realities of being a software engineer and my motivation behind this video isn't to discourage you but i recently saw how difficult it was for my wife and her peers throughout their coding boot camp and i can only imagine how excited they were in the beginning i'm about to become the software engineer and make all this money which is definitely a reality but going through their coding bootcamp a lot of people realize that hey this really isn't for me and i think i just was thinking about like all the opportunities and the money and not thinking about the stress of critical thinking all the time that concludes this video i hope you all enjoyed it comment down below some of your thoughts on this topic i'm curious to see what you all think i love engaging with you all through the comments section and as always have a wonderful blessed rest of your week i'll see you all soon peace [Music] you

Channel: Gyasi Linje

Views: 1,831,417

Keywords: software engineer, software engineering, software developer, programming, computer science, software development, code, coding, software engineer day in life, programmer, software developer career, learn to code, day in the life of a software engineer, developer, learning to code, how to code, why not to be a software engineer, gyasi linje, why you should not be a software engineer, reasons not to become a software engineer, software development advice, why you shouldnt become a, cs

Id: Ws6zCMdp9Es

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 11 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/DangerousPainting423]

Ex software dev. You have to keep coding all the time. At work. At home. It is a skillset and the industry constantly changes. People should tell you that up front. It was fine for me but other people really struggled with that.

[u/tendrloin_aristocrat]

This happens to every jabroni that gets into software dev for the “perks”. I love to see it.

[u/Bus404]

“Your value is dependent on how good of a developer you are”….. no shit