I'd like to better understand what career options other software engineers have explored.
If you are a former software engineer:
1. What are you doing now?
2. Why did you leave software engineering?
2a. Sick of pointless discussions about languages/frameworks/architectures, none of it matters to low-traffic/low-tech business.
2b. Sick of meetings/arguments to decide what to build. Making business and tech decisions simultaneously is amazingly efficient; e.g. no wasting time over-engineering for a requirement that may not even be important.
2c. Wanted to try and combine/balance my skill with my passion.
2. I was in software for 20+ years. It was all I had ever wanted to do from the time I was 13. In hindsight, I’d say you have a phase of the moon in which to make your money and get out. It’s a brutal industry and you will likely face burn out at some point and you need to be prepared for that moment. I was in many different roles and responsibilities over that time, but the bottom line was I hit a point where none of it was fun, the clients were a pain in the ass, and it was just time to do something else that better fit my life.
If a young person came to me and asked for career advice, I’d be very direct about what to do and not do in a tech related field.
2. Startup I was working for was acquired by FAANG co. Able to retire from FAANG after four years of plumbing / ops / politics / meetings. There was awful latency at all levels, from dev environment to deployment. I found it extremely boring compared to startup life.
I would say don't judge software engineering by how it is practiced at the FAANG level (where you can seriously get away with just a handful of changes per half) and try to find a small scrappy team of smart high-energy folks.
Many people (myself included) are motivated by the impact their career can have. The impact of a great leader is exponentially larger than that of a direct contributor (based on the number people they can typically influence, and the amount of resources at their disposal to pursue “bigger” ideas). A great engineer who is also a great leader will garner more respect from their team, and will be more effective than a great leader who was not a great engineer.
I’m currently a Director of Engineering, and have a goal of becoming a CEO. This is something I never remotely considered, and even scoffed at early in my career.
The transition has been difficult and exciting. I considered myself to be an excellent engineer, so transitioning to a role where the new challenge is how to convince other brilliant (but possibly less honed) technical minds to do things has been extremely fulfilling. It forces me to think harder about my habits as an engineer and why they are important and how I can communicate that — it also forces me to have humility and admit that some of my habits may not have been as good as some things other folks are doing. It’s been extremely fulfilling, and I’m much more excited about my future than I was during the last few years I was a software engineer.
1) I'm a professional cartographer, sort of. I make wooden topographic maps.
2) A bunch of reasons. I was never "supposed" to work in software -- I went to school in mechanical engineering, and wanted to get closer to something like that. My side biz was becoming viable, I wanted to do something entrepreneurial, and even though I had a pretty good gig, no company is perfect if you're there long enough.
I don't know if I'll go back to data or software some day. Things were great in the map business before the pandemic, they're ok now, and hopefully they'll be great again in the future. I still do a lot of data analysis and write a lot of software for my business, it's just interspersed with a lot more sweeping, sanding, etc.
I still love troubleshooting systems and doing hands on work that doesn’t involve writing code with other SWEs, so I’m considering what options I have.
I basically don’t want to be part of a code review or design discussion ever again.
Right now I'm working on getting back into IT (Network security).
But, while work isn't a source of joy for me, it is a source of structure. I'm still trying to figure out if my life would be better without it.
I operate the place as well as being the head baker, and the skills required are vastly different. There is some overlap with soft skills, managing others, attention to details, and so on.
2. Still involved in software, but I discovered years ago that I can’t accomplish much while I write the code myself. The bakery is a family endeavor, but I’m using it as a way to collect as much business experience and capital as possible to be able start my next big thing. But I must say, having time away from a screen is nice too.
I left because whether or not I was working my brain was. I get less actual time off now but I feel like my batteries get completely recharged. Plus I get paid to fly helicopters which is still unbelievable to me.
2. It's not so much leaving Software Engineering, it's reframing it. Software Engineer when done well is about creative thinking and problem solving. If you feel that you are in a rut, try going to an organization that's not just about coding. If you are really not interested about Software Engineering as a discipline, I'd start by taking a break then reassessing.
1. Climbing mountains, hiking. 2. Have a goal to learn something new everyday.. thats how i measuring quality of the day.. zero learning = bad day 3. From time to time short term works to earn some money. Usually companies very surprised then i tell them that i prefer short term projects. Shorter = better
So far so good ;) (approx 10 years)
Good luck
I took the chance to be CTO at a startup. However, one of the CEOs was quite a critical person who yelled at female workers, thus I decided to quit. Fortunately, I always kept a strong relationship to my former employer who wanted me to be their co-CEO.
Nowadays I do not really find time to write software. However, I still give directions and choose technology to use.
I’m still thinking, that currently I’m not where I want to be. So I find this discussion quite interesting.
2. Got FU money and was able to do nothing.
* Left SE job for a PhD in CS, roughly 50% of a good SE salary here in Northern Europe
* Do some Product Management/Innovation advisory on the side
I left SE because I found the type of programming one typically does, as well as the Jira ticket-pushing, uninspiring. I still write code, but (almost) only because I enjoy it (a PhD in CS does not necessarily involve much, or any, programming).
2. After close to thirty years, I'm tried of all of the administrative overhead and attempts to make me part of it. Every job for the past decade and a half has tried to push me into management despite my clear statements that I don't want to manage people. When I've refused, the responsibilities were still handed to me, just without the title I turned down. Simple tasks like getting a $20 coding tool approved could take months to go through the purchasing process and then through the approval process for the software itself. Buying it out of pocket at my last company was considered a major disciplinary offense. Weekly HR tasks for endless non-technical trainings, status reports and "check-ins" with managers and co-workers even though I have daily contact with my manager and co-workers. These reports weren't for consumption by anyone in my management chain of command but for HR who demanded to be part of the internal processes everywhere. It's administrative overhead gone mad and seems to be growing pretty much everywhere.
I never made FAANG type money but also am not a big spender so I have plenty of time, a couple of years, before I have to start making money again. I'm not necessarily against doing software development but can't go back to the corporate world. The way it operates is just too far removed from how I'd like to develop software. At least by quitting during a major unemployment event, should I ever need to return to the corporate world, the resume gap won't be a red flag.
By this I mean the ones were they have enough money to pay you well and a reasonable product/business with a high chance of success, but they're still small enough for you to have an impact in the organization (we were under a 100 people when I jumped in). Really smart people and a culture that fits my personal beliefs.
The first year was tricky, switching from the slowness of the large company to the constant change and challenges of the startup.
Once you get your bearing and feel that you're pulling your own weight is fantastic, been there for the past 8 years or so.
My point is, there may not be a need to change careers completely, maybe just find the right group of people to work with.
But I expect this job will end within 6 months anyway (if it was going well, the rest of the team would not have quit), so I'm going to be doing consulting when this is over. I'm working on the materials and workshops now, focusing on leadership and team dynamics, because I want to try to help other teams fix the problems that make software professionals miserable.
2. Boredom which became kind of existential. I had reached a new career high, and suddenly didn’t have anything to strive for - at the time, I didn’t have the insight to try and ask for more impactful work, and I really leaned out of my job instead. The dream of doing a bike tour kept getting bigger and bigger. I couldn’t get the bike tour out of my head, and decided it was the perfect time in my life to jump on it.
I left mostly because I became fascinated by security, while I was being asked to secure software. I realised I had no real idea how to do this, and the deeper I dug, the more interesting it seemed.
I was also becoming bored by the relentless cyclic churn in software development methodologies and frameworks, and how fashion led the whole thing seemed to be.
2. Everyone hates the recruiting industry so it's ripe for disruption with an actual technical recruiter.
2. Wanted to try something different... last software engineer post was 2010. I became very interested in Evolutionary Computation, so I went for a sponsored PhD position.
2. I left because I got old. Twelve hours of concentration just isn't worth it any more.
After 2 years he’s happy to be back in air conditioning.
This is where I am now, more or less.