10 years a Software Engineer
— 10 musings of career and life
As I complete 10 years as a software professional, I try to write down 10 points I realized in the course of this journey. I have pushed through my career with ebbs and flows being thankful at times for the industry that offered me extreme goodness and loathed at times too. After all what job does guarantee a utopia? Every walk of human life is analogous and a career is no different. You cannot just sit back with a beverage in hand and call a thing right or wrong as the context in which a decision made would not be the same when you relax and reflect. So, how does it all go about? Is there something like a career plan or template that can probably work for a software professional? No plan works for all but the following may help the most, I suppose. Cheers!
- Passion and profession can be different! It’s absolutely “OK”!
This is one thing that haunts every software engineer at some point. More so when you are at the troughs of your curve and start questioning whether the world had a different plan and you foolishly landed up here to make money. The guitar that always dusts at some corner starts calling for you and some idea which never saw the light of the day starts yelling at you for not being an entrepreneur. When no idea or hobby is bad, passion is mostly an extrapolated state of mind which keeps changing mostly due to the external factors that you are put into. Hold on! Isn’t passion something that should drive someone from within? Now is this new liking due to a missed promotion or a forgettable appraisal? Layback, give it a thought! After all, you can still succeed enormously in your profession as you figure out your passions and pursue them. The right-hand thumb rule being, don’t let them fight out your brain, rather work them out to co-exist. Don’t believe it? A star whom I have huge admiration towards, ABDeVilliers, considered one of the greats to have ever walked the 22-yards, hardly practices or talks cricket when he is not part of any tournaments or leagues. When asked about how does he come back from yak-shipping and puts even the best to shame, his simple mantra, I don’t worry about it, the more I think or push myself to it, I stop enjoying the game which is essential to be a performer! Now, let’s take a thing or two from the wise man :)
2. The college you graduate from will not matter as significantly as you think.
As life happens, we do mature and progress in our thoughts and it only hurts when the lack of seriousness in the past, hurdles our future. While it’s absolutely ok to enjoy your college, what if it becomes a bottleneck to excel in your career because of the mediocrity or lack of seriousness at that phase of life? Have you ever blamed yourselves or at times even your elders for not enlightening you on how important it is to graduate from top-notch colleges? So, you don’t need to any further. I don’t boast of any great college background but I can say I had the chance to knock on the doors of many top companies or simply put the ones in trillion-dollar leagues and the ones that are about to make it there. I have even been asked in some interviews as to why is that I graduate from a college that not many are even aware of, and, with some confidence, I can say that I’ve been always able to convert that to my strength than weakness. Doesn’t it show a great deal of pursuit to have made it to the doors of the same company, from a college that’s not very heard off, than being there from a campus that already offered a head start?
3. Product vs Service: Yes, the difference is real and the former is always the better!
As a professional, you do know that most of the happenings in your career is a factor of the organization you associate with. Your organization will have a business model and no matter how you excel, there is always an umbrella of scope beyond which you are throttled. Now, can you really blame the organization for that? Maybe not. I did start my career with a service company and it did not take a Bodhi tree for me to realize that I’m under the wrong umbrella given my ambitions. I quickly put myself out of all the apprehensions and made a risky move of joining a start up of 15 odd devs that paid off so significantly for years to come. To put in cinematic style, in the long run, it’s not the movie that matters, it’s the role you get to play that keeps you happy. Needless to say, the kind of movie and the remuneration are major factors too and they are directly proportional to the role!
4. It’s ok if that “Dream Company” remains a dream
Now, who better than a hardcore RCB fan to vouch for unfulfilled dreams. Every one of us has dream companies we always wanted to work for multi-fold reasons. Its human psychology to have dream traits in every dimension of life and career is no different. Should that dream always put you to sleep as that’s the state when it’s closest to you? You strive for it with all your might and if just doesn’t happen it’s totally fine. Have seen many instances of dream companies turning into house of frowns and desperation, again it wasn’t the fault of the dream or the dreamer, it’s just how reality is. So it may not be a great idea to be hard bent on that dream company if that’s taking you down a negative spiral. On the contrary, if the same can instil discipline in how you approach your work then go for it! Beware that it takes a wink of an eye for the latter to turn to the former.
5. You need not be a gifted developer to stand out and excel
Isn’t it a common thing for us to think of how gifted someone is when it comes to understanding tech and being flexible for coding in any language you ask? At times, it feels as if the person was made to be a techie and this is where his “Nirvana” is, while on the other hand you don’t get to understand anything in the first go and it takes few repetitive loops to get a hang of things. Bluntly putting, this is a form of classic debate of hard work vs smart work discourse. This is one topic that’s been all over the place and I don’t need to re-iterate the same but will give you a one-liner that always rings in my mind whenever I think I was probably not gifted at something. “Any form of engineering can be engineered,” said one of my professors at a conversation when I asked him on how to deal with skills that don’t come inherently, like in my case, computers are a thing that doesn’t come naturally to me while I grasp things quickly in other disciplines. However, can I not engineer to be a better computer engineer? Come on, that’s the course you do to graduate after all :D Keep revisiting different aspects of the course you did few times over the years and I bet every revisit will be more enriching than the original itself was. A puppy has to eat 5 times a day while a dog eats only once. It’s just about the time it takes to transition.
6. There is no supplement to Family!
Of all the points I write, this seems to be the one that’s most cliche, but this is something that one should never ever trade for. After all, what’s the first thing that led you to go out there and work? Wasn’t that in some way associated with the family? For some, it may be to afford their family a better lifestyle, and for some, it may be to excel and make their family proud in social circles. With no further judging, can you try and talk to yourself out, for the question “why do you work?” for straight 2 mins without so and so of any family aspect creeping in there? Eventually, all you do in your career is in a way to complement your family and it shouldn’t let become a supplement. When push comes to the shove, it’s your family that shows up and holds your back and at no cost should that be traded. Anomalies do exist in every system, but, don’t let them become bugs and further escalate to crash the same and you know what I mean :wink
7. Watch out on your health — mental and physical both
Late-night works, pressure situations, corporate parties, and many habits do become a part of your routine. A significant portion of your social circle will be your colleagues. Needless to say, one-off situations are always welcome, overdoing anything is just going to hurt. A software professional is no less than a sportsperson, so think of yourself as one and don’t give in to too many habits that will only take a toll on the body in the days to come. Be vocal about regular meetings that may not match your time zone and that’s a no compromise. Do have time to engage with your friends outside the workspace circle as that may totally throw you off to have none around in case you happen to switch jobs. I was as reckless as it can get for the first 5 years of my career and switched paths drastically in the latter 5. Having seen both sides of it, I can say it’s only better to course correct than to know it the hard way as health in any form is too costly an asset to learn from self-experiments.
8. Delaying a life goal to accommodate a milestone at career? Think twice, or, may be thrice, or, may be till you are sure. Period.
Now, this is something that comes down to the core of what you want in life and what you prioritize more? Unlike the health, family or any other pointers mentioned above, where the aspects hold true in a generic sense, this is very contexed and personality-driven. I’ve been an audience to cases where a delay in life goal, say, to be married or rather to have a kid to accommodate a taxing project that positions someone better for a career upgrade, has at times paid off and at times has collapsed what otherwise would have been a perfect life for the fence-sitters. Coming to me, I have never switched goalposts of any personal milestones to accommodate things at work. It can totally vary based on the conditions at home and phases of life one is at, but this is something that can be gained clarity with inclusion of the people who would be directly impacted if your decision happens to go the other way. A collective decision is the only better way to choose a path at crossroads as no matter where the it leads you, you still have to walk it together and an uninformed decision would only cause troubles down the road.
9. Make hay when the sun shines and create a sufficient nest egg for the days of slumber
I have always felt that the life of a software professional is almost identical to that of sportsperson. You always need to be on your A-game and an iota of laziness can bench you. You will be outpaced with skills very soon and experience never gives that great an edge as you like to believe. So, make hay when the sun shines. Prepare yourself financially for the days when you can no more bring your A-game to the fore. Once you are financially sound, that does stipulate emotional strength to be ok with not being ambitious as you don’t run the fear of “what if not this ?”. Invest, right from day 1. Investment is as good as adopting a child. You have to let it grow to reap the benefits, you can’t cut it short for some luxuries midway only to lack a caretaker when the sunsets. Start with 80:20 equity to debt and keep re-balancing by 5% every 3 years to reduce the risk associated.
Financial mantra : Risk < Savings < Investments < Expenses.
Cover yourself for risk, go for 6 months of salary as liquid savings, and once you meet both these goalposts head towards Investments. When all are taken care of, it’s guilt-free expenses!
10. The million dollar question, when to retire and how do I plan?
Go back to that analogy of a sportsperson. Your career is short-lived. Play it aggressively with full potential till you can take it, and in the process, plan for retirement too. Don’t taboo discussions about your retirement as it may sound daunting. Let your own retirement not surprise you as it comes. Accept the fact that you will have only yourself to support maybe around 45. Don’t risk planning anything beyond that number as that may only extrapolate your plans and your body does deteriorate with all the toiling and may cause panic to creep in as you near. Please do consult a financial planner as we are not pensioners and need to have a sense of discipline to channelize our finances to be relaxed as we age and not panic. Financial planners are very economical and are highly underrated. You may not need to sustain with them if you can grasp the ideas and tend to build upon them over the years which is called “personal finance”. I have hardly come across my fellow colleagues who are really disciplined in their finances and lead of life of denial when it comes to retirement. I have set myself a retirement goal of 40 in the worst case complexity and 35 in the best case complexity and the average is 37! Typical time complexity analysis tells me I’ve 5–6 more years of runway left to hit my O(n) milestone as I rest this lengthy write-up and get back to my desk!
