Harsh reality of being software Engineer

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 in it