the job of a Software Engineer

Sometime during my lunch or over a glass of beer, we discuss about the work life of software engineers. The irony is most of the software engineers seem to be unhappy with their job. It looks quite amazing that a high paying, unsoiled, high-tech job also cannot make people happy. Some of the common complaints that most of the software engineers have are work pressure, bad supervisors, not proper utilization of skills, no onsite opportunity, heavy competition etc.

As I always love to be the devil’s advocate, I argue with people who say Software job is difficult. They have their complaints as above and I always have my side of words. Here is what I have to say….

I think Software jobs are one of the most easiest among available jobs. First let’s talk from the beginning, let’s talk from recruitment. Can you tell me what is the job which is easier to get than a Software one? If you are in an average standard engineering collage and have a good percentage of marks, you are most likely to be picked by a good software company in campus recruitment. If you are out of collage and want to get into a software job, do a crash course on Java, Data Warehousing or any hot technology you most likely will get a job. Even though its bit hard to grasp the technology in couple of months and crack the interviews but in order to get a similar status and similar paying job you have to work much harder.

When somebody says software is a high pressure job, I suddenly think about Policemen, Army personals, Doctors and Lawyers. I am not sure, I may be very well wrong but does this software job work pressure is anywhere near to the former jobs that I just said. Each and every job has its own pressure and tensions no doubt about it. Even a garbage collector has its own job pressure. They also have to complete their job in time and thoroughly. But the way a software engineer describes about their work pressure, I often feel like laughing. One funny thing I always remember. My father is a Criminal Lawyer. Once I was saying about my job and he asked me what if you don’t go to office for a day. I said, “Some work would be stopped, deliverables would be affected blah blah”. He said, “Well all that can be avoided if you work more the day before or someone else work on behalf you or in worst case the work can be put on hold for the next day. But if I won’t go to the Court for a single day you never know my client would be hanged or jailed or fined.”

Other very good things of software jobs are foreign opportunity, good salary (of course working 10-14 hrs a day). So these aspects are some of the rarest things that other people can imagine. A software guy gets to see the whole world which is a dream for all other industry people.

The secret weapon of software engineer is changing the job. In other industries it’s very difficult to change the job frequently. But in software if you have any problem with your boss, if you need a salary hike or if you need a higher role, you can switch the job easily to get all those. Other important aspect of job change is, once you do that, any bad comment or remarks associated with you are erased. You start a fresh career with the new company. In many other private jobs and in government jobs this not the case. If you have done anything wrong that will haunt you for sometime and affect your career.

Let’s talk about working with difficult supervisors and ill mannered co-workers. Without describing much what I can say is, it’s fairly easy to avoid these guys in software companies compared to any other company. You will definitely suffer once you are not in good touch with your boss but it could be easily avoided in software companies. If anything is not working, you remember the secret weapon!?

Now if you talk about the competition among peers, its very stiff in other companies. In software everything is scientific and measured. Everywhere else its more of artistic and lot of politics mixed, which makes it harder for anyone to handle. If you see in terms of number also the number of people you are competing with in a software company is lesser compared to other industries.

Other complaints like not getting onsite, no hikes this year, no proper utilization of skill, seem to be luxurious complaints. Which I never cared a lot.

Whatever say there are some real challenges for software engineers. Certainly its not a cake walk to be a software engineer. Like they have to be very dynamic and diversified personals, smart, they always have to live in a world of anarchy and ambiguity which itself is a tough thing. I am not discussing those here. I might write a different blog for this.