Software engineering is the best career

[qwertyasdfgh]

This is obviously US focused, but still. Anyone can move here if they have decent experience and some connections. There are tons of foreigners making it big here.

You go through a 3-4 year university degree (maybe a masters degree if you're foreign), with the opportunity of internships which pay $7k+USD/month.

Once you graduate, you have companies willing to pay you $150k-200k USD out of college, and which easily climbs up to $300k-350k in a few years. If you want to put in the extra effort you can get that up to $500k in a few more years.
Perks are amazing (free breakfast/lunch/dinner, free health insurance, shuttles bringing you to/from work) and you can easily find a team where you only need to work ~40 hours or less. Can retire by the age of 40 if you wanted to and still live a very luxurious life.

I ended up in this position partly by chance, and I am so grateful.

Anyone already in or trying to go into software engineering?
Anyone think there is a better career out there?

 

[Deleted member 6789]

Have fun studdying with dindus and ching chongs

Meanwhile chad business major joins a frat fucks 100 hot girls and gets hired as CEO of a company for being tall and white

 

[St. Wristcel]

Meanwhile chad business major joins a frat fucks 100 hot girls and gets hired as CEO of a company for being tall and white

BRUTAL KEEP WATCHING HOLLYWOOD MOVIES... CEO’S ARE (((SUBHUMANS))) WITH 160 IQS THAT ROT ALL DAY AND BETABUXX

 

[qwertyasdfgh]

Have fun studdying with dindus and ching chongs

Meanwhile chad business major joins a frat fucks 100 hot girls and gets hired as CEO of a company for being tall and white

View attachment 740288

Might as well work at McDonalds because some privileged white chad became a CEO amirite?

 

[Deleted member 7173]

Is a comp sci degree enough to land a stable software engineer job?

 

[Raax]

without the right teacher, its very hard to do software engineering

also you have to be really fucking good at math if i m not mistaken and math is my weakest link

 

[sytyl]

Anyone already in or trying to go into software engineering?
Anyone think there is a better career out there?

ye
my first real non internship/non coop full time job I was grinding ~8-12 hours a day though for a year
now that I've gotten good at what I do, I'm at a better company and spread work that should take me 4 hours to do to keep me "busy" for a week

the 150k-200k figure is for the top 10% of graduates when it comes to skill/aptitude to learn lol and most of those people have really good internships, most people don't get that much even as a senior salary

 

[Deleted member 6789]

Might as well work at McDonalds because some privileged white chad became a CEO amirite?

Either way you’re a cuck don’t get to happy dindu

 

[Deleted member 6789]

BRUTAL KEEP WATCHING HOLLYWOOD MOVIES... CEO’S ARE (((SUBHUMANS))) WITH 160 IQS THAT ROT ALL DAY AND BETABUXX

Computer cuck cope

 

[Deleted member 6789]

Finally something from you that’s not giga-retarded

Cope everything I say is true and scientifically backed

 

[Deleted member 7725]

Where tf do you get these $7k intern and $150k starting salary numbers? I've been struggling to even find a good job with a comp sci degree from a top 50 uni.

 

[Gosick]

ye
my first real non internship/non coop full time job I was grinding ~8-12 hours a day though for a year
now that I've gotten good at what I do, I'm at a better company and spread work that should take me 4 hours to do to keep me "busy" for a week

the 150k-200k figure is for the top 10% of graduates when it comes to skill/aptitude to learn lol and most of those people have really good internships, most people don't get that much even as a senior salary

Do you consider yourself in that 10%? I assume its high iq gooks or shut ins who make it in that percentile. NGL, 8-12 hours is pretty rough, I personally dnt have the mental fortitude to do that for a entire year even if I was offered loads of money. Lazy privileged shareholders earn more just by rotting which is demotivating af.

 

[qwertyasdfgh]

ye
my first real non internship/non coop full time job I was grinding ~8-12 hours a day though for a year
now that I've gotten good at what I do, I'm at a better company and spread work that should take me 4 hours to do to keep me "busy" for a week

the 150k-200k figure is for the top 10% of graduates when it comes to skill/aptitude to learn lol and most of those people have really good internships, most people don't get that much even as a senior salary

You don't even need to be that good at actual software engineering to get a job at these top companies.

Assuming you can get an interview at these top companies (ideally previous experience such as internships + a referral which will increase your chances), then it just comes down to how you do on the interviews which is a completely different skill. All of the questions these companies ask during interviews get leaked and published on interview prep sites such as leetcode.com. After practicing a couple hundred of these questions over the course of a few months, the average person should be very well prepared for these interviews. Heck, when I had my interview, half of the questions I got asked were pretty much identical to ones I had already done before.

Boom, you now have a 6 figure job. The actual skills used in software engineering can then be learned on the job.

 

[qwertyasdfgh]

Where tf do you get these $7k intern and $150k starting salary numbers? I've been struggling to even find a good job with a comp sci degree from a top 50 uni.

USA (SF/Seattle/NYC) at companies like Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon. Where are you located? Do you have any previous experience?

 

[qwertyasdfgh]

Is a comp sci degree enough to land a stable software engineer job?

For any regular software engineering job? Assuming you are willing to move around (in case you live in buttfuck nowhere), yes.

For one at a top company? Previous experience such as internships is preferred, so are referrals, but those are not always needed. It's mainly about 1) getting your foot in the door for an interview and 2) gaming the interview.

 

[Deleted member 7725]

USA (SF/Seattle/NYC) at companies like Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon. Where are you located? Do you have any previous experience?

Good luck being in the 1% that get internships there. I'm in a USA metro area so every job is filled.

 

[sytyl]

Do you consider yourself in that 10%? I assume its high iq gooks or shut ins who make it in that percentile. NGL, 8-12 hours is pretty rough, I personally dnt have the mental fortitude to do that for a entire year even if I was offered loads of money. Lazy privileged shareholders earn more just by rotting which is demotivating af.

maybe now yeah, after 2-3 years of full time work the playing field is pretty level when it comes to broad knowledge
it was my fault completely that I spent that much time grinding when I didn't need to
even the less ambitious of people I knew that barely passed classes still got decent government jobs tbh

You don't even need to be that good at actual software engineering to get a job at these top companies.

Assuming you can get an interview at these top companies (ideally previous experience such as internships + a referral which will increase your chances), then it just comes down to how you do on the interviews which is a completely different skill. All of the questions these companies ask during interviews get leaked and published on interview prep sites such as leetcode.com. After practicing a couple hundred of these questions over the course of a few months, the average person should be very well prepared for these interviews. Heck, when I had my interview, half of the questions I got asked were pretty much identical to ones I had already done before.

Boom, you now have a 6 figure job. The actual skills used in software engineering can then be learned on the job.

yeah you gotta grind leetcode for a few months

USA (SF/Seattle/NYC) at companies like Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon. Where are you located? Do you have any previous experience?

lol, you have to grind leetcode + have good grades + really good projects under your belt to get an internship at such places, not everyone has the diligence to do all that

Good luck being in the 1% that get internships there. I'm in a USA metro area so every job is filled.

market's saturated af for jr developers with no work/coop/intern experience since nobody wants to give people without experience a chance because of how long rampup time is

best thing you could do for yourself is just lie and say you worked somewhere for two summers doing bug fixes and whatnot

 

[Deleted member 10172]

Have fun studdying with dindus and ching chongs

Meanwhile chad business major joins a frat fucks 100 hot girls and gets hired as CEO of a company for being tall and white

View attachment 740288

he will become a chad when he gets bimax and genio then he will cuck u lol

 

[Slayer]

STEM, contrary to popular rhetoric, is very oversaturated and thus success mostly depends on luck/circumstances outside one's immediate control.

Tech especially is almost as cutthroat as business in terms of undergraduate prestige predicting income. The flashy FAANG companies you listed will only recruit from certain highly-selective target schools, which anyone who is old enough to read this forum will likely never get into provided they don't already have the insane requisite high school stats. (It's actually like this in every engineering discipline.) Even then, the high cost of living in the cities associated with these companies kind of offsets the salary.

For anyone in high school or early college reading this, the single best career in terms of individual merit correlating with income is medicine (and even then there's some bs but it's the best).

Your undergraduate institution and major do not matter for getting into an MD school. All that matters is GPA, and to a lesser extent MCAT score, then extracurriculars like shadowing and volunteering. And if you're black or hispanic you can get in with comparatively mediocre stats.

Literally major in underwater basket weaving to get a high GPA, do really well in your science-based prereqs (gen chem, bio, physics, math), and take the 4 years of your joke major to study for the MCAT and you get an instant ticket to the middle class.

 

[Mr_Norwood]

There will always be some immigrant with a higher test score than you.

India and China are 2 billion people

 

[Slayer]

STEM, contrary to popular rhetoric, is very oversaturated and thus success mostly depends on luck/circumstances outside one's immediate control.

Tech especially is almost as cutthroat as business in terms of undergraduate prestige predicting income. The flashy FAANG companies you listed will only recruit from certain highly-selective target schools, which anyone who is old enough to read this forum will likely never get into provided they don't already have the insane requisite high school stats. (It's actually like this in every engineering discipline.) Even then, the high cost of living in the cities associated with these companies kind of offsets the salary.

For anyone in high school or early college reading this, the single best career in terms of individual merit correlating with income is medicine (and even then there's some bs but it's the best).

Your undergraduate institution and major do not matter for getting into an MD school. All that matters is GPA, and to a lesser extent MCAT score, then extracurriculars like shadowing and volunteering. And if you're black or hispanic you can get in with comparatively mediocre stats.

Literally major in underwater basket weaving to get a high GPA, do really well in your science-based prereqs (gen chem, bio, physics, math), and take the 4 years of your joke major to study for the MCAT and you get an instant ticket to the middle class.

I might actually make a separate, more detailed thread on this since this forum is filled with literal children and they really need to hear this advice.

 

[sytyl]

STEM, contrary to popular rhetoric, is very oversaturated and thus success mostly depends on luck/circumstances outside one's immediate control.

Tech especially is almost as cutthroat as business in terms of undergraduate prestige predicting income. The flashy FAANG companies you listed will only recruit from certain highly-selective target schools, which anyone who is old enough to read this forum will likely never get into provided they don't already have the insane requisite high school stats. (It's actually like this in every engineering discipline.) Even then, the high cost of living in the cities associated with these companies kind of offsets the salary.

For anyone in high school or early college reading this, the single best career in terms of individual merit correlating with income is medicine (and even then there's some bs but it's the best).

Your undergraduate institution and major do not matter for getting into an MD school. All that matters is GPA, and to a lesser extent MCAT score, then extracurriculars like shadowing and volunteering. And if you're black or hispanic you can get in with comparatively mediocre stats.

Literally major in underwater basket weaving to get a high GPA, do really well in your science-based prereqs (gen chem, bio, physics, math), and take the 4 years of your joke major to study for the MCAT and you get an instant ticket to the middle class.

It's actually sad how easy it is to get into an MD or DO school in the states compared to canada

 

[TsarTsar444]

med school mogs

 

[Deleted member 9072]

maybe now yeah, after 2-3 years of full time work the playing field is pretty level when it comes to broad knowledge
it was my fault completely that I spent that much time grinding when I didn't need to
even the less ambitious of people I knew that barely passed classes still got decent government jobs tbh


yeah you gotta grind leetcode for a few months


lol, you have to grind leetcode + have good grades + really good projects under your belt to get an internship at such places, not everyone has the diligence to do all that


market's saturated af for jr developers with no work/coop/intern experience since nobody wants to give people without experience a chance because of how long rampup time is

best thing you could do for yourself is just lie and say you worked somewhere for two summers doing bug fixes and whatnot

average google employee

AVERAGE BUSINESS MAJOR

 

[Deleted member 9072]

It's actually sad how easy it is to get into an MD or DO school in the states compared to canada

what it's harder to get into med school in America than Canada???

 

[Deleted member 9072]

Good luck being in the 1% that get internships there. I'm in a USA metro area so every job is filled.

jfl people from shitty unis in Canada got internships at faang (harder though) but their grades were high as fuk plus projects and a great resume. I know some personally.
@sytyl

 

[sytyl]

what it's harder to get into med school in America than Canada???

it's way harder in canada, especially ontario - which is why many canadians (that can afford it) go to american schools for medicine (or to australia/ireland)

 

[Slayer]

It's actually sad how easy it is to get into an MD or DO school in the states compared to canada

Yeah from what I hear from lurking reddit and SDN Canada is fucking brutal.

I want to kms every day for majoring in engineering and not instead trying to get into a grade-inflating university and going to med school.

 

[sytyl]

Yeah from what I hear from lurking reddit and SDN Canada is fucking brutal.

I want to kms every day for majoring in engineering and not instead trying to get into a grade-inflating university and going to med school.

You're in america no? I'd say you could look into a post-bac program (the 1 year science programs) do well in that and then apply.

And yeah same, I'm in a comfortable spot now but not a day goes by without me regretting not trying to do medicine.

 

[Deleted member 10172]

maybe now yeah, after 2-3 years of full time work the playing field is pretty level when it comes to broad knowledge
it was my fault completely that I spent that much time grinding when I didn't need to
even the less ambitious of people I knew that barely passed classes still got decent government jobs tbh


yeah you gotta grind leetcode for a few months


lol, you have to grind leetcode + have good grades + really good projects under your belt to get an internship at such places, not everyone has the diligence to do all that


market's saturated af for jr developers with no work/coop/intern experience since nobody wants to give people without experience a chance because of how long rampup time is

best thing you could do for yourself is just lie and say you worked somewhere for two summers doing bug fixes and whatnot

Do u think learning coding is based

 

[sytyl]

Do u think learning coding is based

no it's cringe
jfl at people who code as a hobby outside of work it's indeed over for them

 

[Slayer]

You're in america no? I'd say you could look into a post-bac program (the 1 year science programs) do well in that and then apply.

And yeah same, I'm in a comfortable spot now but not a day goes by without me regretting not trying to do medicine.

Yeah I'm american, but from what I understand post-bacs/SMPs are retarded expensive and still don't necessarily guarantee admission anywhere.

idk maybe I'll just neet

 

[qwertyasdfgh]

STEM, contrary to popular rhetoric, is very oversaturated and thus success mostly depends on luck/circumstances outside one's immediate control.

Tech especially is almost as cutthroat as business in terms of undergraduate prestige predicting income. The flashy FAANG companies you listed will only recruit from certain highly-selective target schools, which anyone who is old enough to read this forum will likely never get into provided they don't already have the insane requisite high school stats. (It's actually like this in every engineering discipline.) Even then, the high cost of living in the cities associated with these companies kind of offsets the salary.

For anyone in high school or early college reading this, the single best career in terms of individual merit correlating with income is medicine (and even then there's some bs but it's the best).

Your undergraduate institution and major do not matter for getting into an MD school. All that matters is GPA, and to a lesser extent MCAT score, then extracurriculars like shadowing and volunteering. And if you're black or hispanic you can get in with comparatively mediocre stats.

Literally major in underwater basket weaving to get a high GPA, do really well in your science-based prereqs (gen chem, bio, physics, math), and take the 4 years of your joke major to study for the MCAT and you get an instant ticket to the middle class.

All throughout my life I've barely scraped by, putting in the least amount of work required to get to the next step. Average grades from elementary school up until and including college. And yet I've managed to make that jump from mediocrity to top paying software engineering job, simply because I grinded leetcode for a few months, got a few referrals to top companies, and passed the interviews. I also went to school in Canada, which put me at a disadvantage to Americans since I required a visa. If I can do it, anyone can.

I would have never made it into medicine, nor would I want to spend all of those extra years in college just to make a similar amount of money.

I'd also guess that people frequenting these forums are leaning towards introverted, and more likely to be happier in software engineering than medicine.

 

[Deleted member 10172]

no it's cringe
jfl at people who code as a hobby outside of work it's indeed over for them

No I was thinking of coding for like a side job, or coding to get a job

 

[Deleted member 10172]

All throughout my life I've barely scraped by, putting in the least amount of work required to get to the next step. Average grades from elementary school up until and including college. And yet I've managed to make that jump from mediocrity to top paying software engineering job, simply because I grinded leetcode for a few months, got a few referrals to top companies, and passed the interviews. I also went to school in Canada, which put me at a disadvantage to Americans since I required a visa. If I can do it, anyone can.

I would have never made it into medicine, nor would I want to spend all of those extra years in college just to make a similar amount of money.

I'd also guess that people frequenting these forums are leaning towards introverted, and more likely to be happier in software engineering than medicine.

Proud of u buddy boyo, keep grinding

 

[noobeater]

based as fuck thread

 

[sytyl]

make that jump from mediocrity

you're selling yourself short, I did too and had imposter syndrome for the longest time tbh

 

[Slayer]

All throughout my life I've barely scraped by, putting in the least amount of work required to get to the next step. Average grades from elementary school up until and including college. And yet I've managed to make that jump from mediocrity to top paying software engineering job, simply because I grinded leetcode for a few months, got a few referrals to top companies, and passed the interviews. I also went to school in Canada, which put me at a disadvantage to Americans since I required a visa. If I can do it, anyone can.

I would have never made it into medicine, nor would I want to spend all of those extra years in college just to make a similar amount of money.

I'd also guess that people frequenting these forums are leaning towards introverted, and more likely to be happier in software engineering than medicine.

How did you get those referrals? I ask because your experience is definitely not universal, but I'm in mechanical engineering so I can't exactly speak to the tech field.

While med school admissions are competitive, once you're in it's easy. The first two years are the only actual pure classroom portions and the last two are clinical rotations. Plus you get unparalleled job security anywhere in the world, whereas CS guys are pretty much sequestered to California or other high cost of living areas. $300k/year goes a lot further in a rural area than in Silicon Valley.

I do agree though that not everyone is built for medicine.

 

[qwertyasdfgh]

How did you get those referrals? I ask because your experience is definitely not universal, but I'm in mechanical engineering so I can't exactly speak to the tech field.

While med school admissions are competitive, once you're in it's easy. The first two years are the only actual pure classroom portions and the last two are clinical rotations. Plus you get unparalleled job security anywhere in the world, whereas CS guys are pretty much sequestered to California or other high cost of living areas. $300k/year goes a lot further in a rural area than in Silicon Valley.

I do agree though that not everyone is built for medicine.

Honestly, I just happened to know a couple of people who ended up at top companies. I was kind of lucky considering I didn't put much effort into it.

If I was smart about it, I would have befriended people in my network (who have gone to the same schools or interned/worked at the same companies as me in the past) and ask them for referrals. You can even try reaching out to recruiters directly instead of submitting your resume into the black hole, and that should also raise your chances.

One thing that's great about COVID is how it has advanced remote work opportunities in software engineering. Now all of the top companies are beginning to support permanently remote employees. So for example at my company, once I get to senior level, I'll have the option to do this (and for example) I could move to Austin for only a 10% paycut.

 

[Alexanderr]

It’s so god damned boring though. I am way more interested in biology, biochemistry, music or even filmmaking.
Too bad none of the jobs in fields I’m interested in seem to pay that well.

 

[qwertyasdfgh]

It’s so god damned boring though. I am way more interested in biology, biochemistry, music or even filmmaking.
Too bad none of the jobs in fields I’m interested in seem to pay that well.

TBH, I think there's quite a lot of variety in software engineering. I'm sure for everyone it can be boring at times, but the different types of problems that are waiting to be solved are endless. Even in the fields you've listed, there are many software companies that intersect with those and could be pretty interesting to work on.

 

[AlwaysHaveQuestions]

STEM, contrary to popular rhetoric, is very oversaturated and thus success mostly depends on luck/circumstances outside one's immediate control.

Tech especially is almost as cutthroat as business in terms of undergraduate prestige predicting income. The flashy FAANG companies you listed will only recruit from certain highly-selective target schools, which anyone who is old enough to read this forum will likely never get into provided they don't already have the insane requisite high school stats. (It's actually like this in every engineering discipline.) Even then, the high cost of living in the cities associated with these companies kind of offsets the salary.

For anyone in high school or early college reading this, the single best career in terms of individual merit correlating with income is medicine (and even then there's some bs but it's the best).

Your undergraduate institution and major do not matter for getting into an MD school. All that matters is GPA, and to a lesser extent MCAT score, then extracurriculars like shadowing and volunteering. And if you're black or hispanic you can get in with comparatively mediocre stats.

Literally major in underwater basket weaving to get a high GPA, do really well in your science-based prereqs (gen chem, bio, physics, math), and take the 4 years of your joke major to study for the MCAT and you get an instant ticket to the middle class.

lol no getting into MD is a lot of work and you will end up making $300k a year if you want a 40 hour week job after over a decade of school studying 60 hours a week.

Extracurricular hours are very time consuming to get at least in CS if you are high iq you can wing everything or just copy. Just get a few friends to make a project and you all put it on your resume. ASU, NC state, UMich(not easy to get into but it's not hard either) and almost all the state schools tech companies still recruit there it's not impossible to get into FAANG from low ranking schools.

Getting into FAANG isn't that hard just work 2-3 years in a mid tier company and apply to FAANG. You will make like $200k with much less time and schooling and have a healthier lifestyle.

 

[freeone12]

Companies like Two Sigma pays 12k for internship, sic!

 

[Slayer]

lol no getting into MD is a lot of work and you will end up making $300k a year if you want a 40 hour week job after over a decade of school studying 60 hours a week.

Extracurricular hours are very time consuming to get at least in CS if you are high iq you can wing everything or just copy. Just get a few friends to make a project and you all put it on your resume. ASU, NC state, UMich(not easy to get into but it's not hard either) and almost all the state schools tech companies still recruit there it's not impossible to get into FAANG from low ranking schools.

Getting into FAANG isn't that hard just work 2-3 years in a mid tier company and apply to FAANG. You will make like $200k with much less time and schooling and have a healthier lifestyle.

Getting in is the hardest part, but I'd argue the academic workload is no worse than any non-joke STEM bachelors, and you don't really need to be high IQ to succeed in medicine. Add on all the intangible social benefits you get when you tell people you're a doctor vs saying you code for a living and to me there's no comparison. Maybe I'm just biased because I really hate coding, even when it's the easy MATLAB assignments I have to do occasionally.

 

[AlwaysHaveQuestions]

Getting in is the hardest part, but I'd argue the academic workload is no worse than any non-joke STEM bachelors, and you don't really need to be high IQ to succeed in medicine. Add on all the intangible social benefits you get when you tell people you're a doctor vs saying you code for a living and to me there's no comparison. Maybe I'm just biased because I really hate coding, even when it's the easy MATLAB assignments I have to do occasionally.

Medicine actually has a low iq barrier to entry considering the second chances they get and how easy classes are. To be good at it is a different thing. Just getting in is pretty easy.
I work 40 hours a week in the hospital and I take classes. I find it funny when my classmates who studies all day think they are on my level when I have hundreds of hours of experience beyond them.

 

[qwertyasdfgh]

Companies like Two Sigma pays 12k for internship, sic!

TBH for those types of companies you actually need a high IQ. With FAANG anyone can just fraud their way in.

 

[BigBoy]

I might actually make a separate, more detailed thread on this since this forum is filled with literal children and they really need to hear this advice.

Make it bro and tag me in it. Still undecided as to what I want to do in college.

 

[MKBHD]

Where tf do you get these $7k intern and $150k starting salary numbers? I've been struggling to even find a good job with a comp sci degree from a top 50 uni.

levels.fyi 180k starting isn’t unheard of for FAANG companies in the Bay Area.

 

[Deleted member 7725]

levels.fyi 180k starting isn’t unheard of for FAANG companies in the Bay Area.

“Not unheard of” doesn’t mean the average or even above average developers earn that.

 

[Posmo]

I might actually make a separate, more detailed thread on this since this forum is filled with literal children and they really need to hear this advice.

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