Last Updated on March 3, 2021 by Filip Poutintsev
Fascination depicts your future to quite a large extent. If you are fascinated by the good things, good people or positive energy around you, chances are your future is going to be fairly good. 
Similarly, if you are fascinated by the fancy lifestyle of celebrities and elite group of people, you are likely to cultivate a need to be able to spend your life like them which obviously is very expensive and comes with a lot of cost (hard work, dedication, patience etc) that most of the people find very difficult to incur. The problem is that the cost is hidden to you and you can only observe the result which is apparently again fascinating.
This blog might make better sense to the parents who have kids in their teens. Here are some points that describes or discusses the career of someone as a software engineer in particular.
If you simply do a quick and dirty research on how well they get paid, you might consider this as a better option to build your career on.
Table of Contents
What is Sofware Engineering?
Sofware Engineering is a comprehensive study of the technology, design and processes to build, run and maintain a software. Every industry needs good software to back their operations and almost everything they do from conceptualizing, researching, developing and delivering their product to their customers.
Who should go for Sofware Engineering?
No subject of the field of study is tough, it is just the amount of time you need to spend studying and understanding the processes and its implications.
If you are fascinated by different software and the way they help perform processes that would otherwise take months to work, you are likely to be attracted towards this field of study. If you are the kind of student who is very inquisitive about technology and computers, it a good sign that you’ll be one of the engineers who will probably build software on your own.
Software engineers are amongst the professionals who are very well paid around the world. However, as mentioned earlier this “Good Pay” and luxurious lifestyle comes with quite some cost.
Pros of Software Engineering
1. High on Demand
It’s almost certain that good engineers never go jobless. Most of them are in fact approached even before finishing their degree by big or small companies. Unfortunate are those who end up working only after finishing their studies.
This is also because software engineers are not limited to specific industries or certain domains. Every company irrespective of their customer niche require the expertise of engineers.
2. Growth Opportunity
There is not any level for software engineers that is ultimate. The technology is always evolving so there is always a lot to learn and grow. Being on the field helps you quickly adapt to the upgrades and advancements in the current technology.
3. Good Pay
Engineers in almost all industries are among the people who enjoy good pay. Software engineers, in particular, are not an exception. The fact that there is always a new thing to learn also adds up to the pay scale of software engineers.
There are always new updates coming and getting certified in new updates and courses is always a major factor for extra pay. Besides the salary, other perks are more luring like vacation time, free meals, regular retreats, good gratuity etc.
Here is a comparison of the average salary of different countries (2019)
4. Possibility of Freelancing
Although there are engineering jobs that require a full-time commitment, but all software engineers and programmers are not necessarily required to do a 10 to 5 job. Moreover, the trend of working for your client remotely is also a thing nowadays.
The engineers get all the requirements through email or conference calls and they work and report the progress through the internet. Doing so they can parallelly be working for multiple clients at a time.
5. Global Recognition and Business Opportunities
Like many other careers, this has no geographical boundaries, rather software engineers are hired and called from all over the world. Countries like USA, Germany, the Netherlands, Canda, UK, France hire software engineers from all over the world. This is because the business opportunity is unreally huge and skilled manpower is limited.
Additionally, if you are into entrepreneurship and willing to run things on your own, the SaaS companies are amongst the ones who are mining money like anything these days. This is the best option if you are planning to start a company from your room and your laptop.
6. Job Satisfaction
I believe there is a huge job satisfaction because the consumers of your product will be probably in millions. Imagine the product you made being used by those many people and getting good feedback from them. Imagine yourself in the spot of Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates or Jef Bezos or Jack Ma. How satisfied would you be?
You’ll be earning an exceptionally huge amount of money and your expertise and learnings will be inherited by peoples from all over the world.
7. Respect
You are normally the people who are taken as a brain behind the whole good thing the company is credited for. Software engineering is a boon to modern technology so to most of the people this is as good as a divine miracle, something that is beyond possibility.
If you happen to work on a project that is innovative and something that really solves the problem of the people on a daily basis, you’ll receive the utmost respect and recognition.
8. Self Learned Knowledge Per Se is Enough
Companies might ask you to have a degree but practically if you hone yourself with extensive learning by yourself, a good kickstart is almost certain. No college degree guarantees a good job until you are passionate enough in building something that you can be proud of.
Furthermore, if you are willing to go a step further and start something by yourself, you have an even better chance. There are examples of college dropouts who made it to the list of industry pioneers. You might already know this but in case you have not, this will inspire you.
Founders of Dell(Michael Dell), Apple(Steve Jobs), and Wikileaks(Julian Assange) all dropped out of their colleges at the age of nineteen but hibernated themselves to build something that nobody else would have thought of.
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Evan Williams(Twitter), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Jan Koum (WhatsApp) are among the other early dropouts.
Cons of Software Engineering
These are some of the costs that you need to bear to enjoy all the benefits described above. For some people, however, this might be worthwhile.
1. No Social Activity
Working almost all day in computers in a single room all day long (or night as well) might stop you from having an active social life. It’s also a possibility that you’ll be labeled a nerd or a geek if you take it to the next level of spending most of your time with your computer.
2. Spend a lot of Time with Computers
Using too much of computer primarily hits the social life of an individual. You tend to miss a lot of social gatherings and in much worse conditions, the relationships tend to weaken. In the longer run, even rare and brief meetings seem to be irritating and unimportant.
Spending a lot of time in front of computer screens not only forbid you being social with your friends and family but also multiple health hazards. Continuous exposure to the computer screen is likely to affect the brain, spinal cord, and eye.
3. Unhealthy Lifestyle
The more you avoid social and physical activity, the more the body becomes stiff and clumsy. This not only affects your physical health but also impacts your metabolism and reproductive health.
The muscles and bones with a lack of regular movements tend to become more rigid because of the restricted movement of your body parts. Gradually the digestive and nervous system starts behaving the way it should not.
4. Never-Ending Learning Curve
This is something that can be positive as well. The never-ending learning curve is good in many ways. But the necessity to always be on the edge of your seat sometimes be overwhelming. There is always a new thing coming and you need to brush up your skills every time to keep up with the update.
