I'm glad to be a 33 years old (ancient) software engineer

A letter to my 22 years old stupid self. Nothing prompted this!

Dear 22-Year-Old stupid self,

Congratulations on starting your first software engineering job! Keep in mind that $60k a year is really low even for an entry level engineer. Give it a couple of years, and you can easily earn a 6-figure salary. Also, take pride in the time you spent in school grinding away on difficult problems instead of partying.

Trust me when I say that you will enjoy coding more in 10 years than you do now. I know that right now, you count down the hours till the work day is done so that you can go home and do things that you think you want to do. In 10 years, you’ll enjoy your work so much that at the end of the day, you’ll wonder where all the time went.

I probably shouldn’t say this, but a $500k salary is possible for you. Yes, I know your career goal is $100k. That’s fine for now. But you’ll find out that there are certain companies that pay far more than the legacy company you work at now. Will you get to $500k by 33? That’s a secret you’ll have to find out, but you won’t get there without some hard work.

Eventually you’ll consider getting a masters degree by working on it part time while working full time. This will help you a little bit, but not as much as mastering AWS will. Get those certifications. Get that experience. You’ll eventually leave this certifications behind, but that is OK. They played an important role in your growth.

At some point, you’ll get into management. Try not to hate yourself too much. You’ll have the opportunity to lead some incredible people during this time. You probably won’t be their best mentor, but do your best.

Your big break won’t come until you have about 8-9 years of experience. A horrible virus will kill millions of people and cause companies (including Big Tech companies) to begin hiring remote employees. You’ll join a team at AWS. It will be the best opportunity of your life up until that time. It won’t end well, but that’s OK!

Don’t listen to anyone who insists you’ll burn out of the industry. Yes, this happens to a lot of people, but there’s no reason it should happen to you. As a remote software engineer, you don’t have to commute, get to spend more time with your wife and kids, and get to live in a nice home that you couldn’t afford in more expensive parts of the country. So what if you hit a salary ceiling? If you do, it will be high enough to continue living how you want for your whole life.

One thing you’ll discover at AWS and other big tech companies is that you’re not as smart as you think you are. But that's OK! Intelligence is just one variable in your success and not the most important one. You’ll find that many very intelligent people job hop too much to become truly effective at any other companies. Some are very intelligent, but leverage their intelligence to coast and don’t actually work very much.

One of the people at AWS you look up to the most was promoted to Senior Principal engineer. That’s not quite a distinguished engineer, but it’s pretty close! You won’t know all the details, but you suspect a big part of their promotion had to do with solving organizational problems that their leaders (management) were ill equipped to deal with.

Maybe you’ll go out on your own someday. If you do, find other people to run most of the business while you focus on the software.

I’ve been in the industry for over a decade now. I use AI every day, and it hasn’t robbed me of my joy when coding. In fact, it makes the frustrating parts of coding much less frustrating!

Have a nice day.