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Ask HN: What is the smartest career path to take?

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Ask HN: What is the smartest career path to take?

#1

Post by bigJavaLava »

I'm mid-twenties working as a Software Engineer. I'm still working at my first job out of college and making just about $80k. Not FAANG salary but supports my cost of living as of right now.

Currently, my job is very easy (mostly spikes and research) and extremely flexible. We basically spend time just researching the latest hypes in the tech industry and seeing if the company can offer products in the space.

As I said, it's easy, but also pointless and kinda boring at times. But I deal with it, nonetheless.

My question is what would the smart thing for me to do next? I'm still in the stage in life where I'm searching for "happiness and fulfillment" and want to try new things but I am also afraid of making dumb career decisions. Just for context, outside of work I mainly focus on my other interests (politics and government, filmmaking and socializing).

Should I:

1. Try to find a higher paying job? Bite the bullet and challenge myself to get a $100k salary job? I guess that if I'm going to be bored at work, I might as well be bored but making more. But I also know this will probably mean I will have to put in more work than I'm accosumted to. Also, I have a great work life balance that I would hate to lose. (I'm stricly 40 hours). But I'm also cautiously thinking how your earning potential lowers as you age.

2. Stay where I'm at and spend that extra time developing in the non-career areas I care about. I.E, getting more involved in my government and filmmaking stuff.

3. Start a business? Something I've spent the last two years researching and wanting to do, but I just don't have any ideas/problems to solve.

4. Something else?

Sorry if this is a dumb question. I wish someone would make a guide for young people titled, "how to suceed at your life."

Re: Ask HN: What is the smartest career path to take?

#2

Post by framebit »

How do you define success for you life? Put differently, what do you define as The Good Life?

You have to define that metric for yourself. Nobody else can do that for you. That said, I can offer a personal illustration.

I was in an art-oriented career previously. I defined The Good Life back then as achieving prestige in my field of art. Several years in, I came to realize that, for myself, my definition of The Good Life had changed. It now included time to spend hanging out with and helping friends; getting to know my nieces and nephews; having time to pursue art that's meaningful to me without attaching my paycheck to it.

I've been able to make progress towards my personal definition of The Good Life by changing careers into tech where job security is more guaranteed than in the freelance art world, and where the jobs are interesting enough and pretty cushy. That's given me the financial freedom to have that balance in my life with time for friends, family, religious life, art, my spouse, and other things.

What is success to you?

Re: Ask HN: What is the smartest career path to take?

#3

Post by AnimalMuppet »

People want different things. Worse, people want different things at different times. That makes it very hard to write "how to succeed at your life".

You're bored. I think that means that you're ready for a job that demands more of you than the one you're in. (Plus, that usually means more money.) Looking for a job with more responsibility might be your first move. (That doesn't mean that you necessarily have to switch companies. You can just ask your boss for more or harder work.)

But as you move to harder work, one of the problems is maintaining balance. You want work that demands more of you - but not so much that work becomes your life. That way lies burnout and depression, which are not what you're looking for.

Re: Ask HN: What is the smartest career path to take?

#5

Post by bigJavaLava »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #3

People want different things. Worse, people want different things at different times. That makes it very hard to write "how to succeed at your life". You're bored. I think that means that you're ready for a job that demands more of you than the one you're in. (Plus, that usually means more money.) Looking for a job with more responsibility might be your first move. (That doesn't mean that you necessarily have to swit…

> You want work that demands more of you - but not so much that work becomes your life. That way lies burnout and depression, which are not what you're looking for.

Yes, balance is key. I guess you can't have the best of both worlds?

Re: Ask HN: What is the smartest career path to take?

#6

Post by h2odragon »

OK, you've got 'personal" happiness, and found it lacking, perhaps you need to expand your goals... Have you considered public service? Forgo the work you enjoy and the money you can make and go into politics, see if you can do something to make your town a better place. It need not become a career but you might well be able to do some good in a few years, and you'd certainly learn new things even in a few months.

Re: Ask HN: What is the smartest career path to take?

#7

Post by organicfigs »

Having gone through my twenties and seen many bright cs grads fail at starting a business, I think the best option is to find a role where upward movement is attainable every couple of years and attrition is relatively low. I cannot tell you how envious I am of people who did worse than me in college but are DevOps managers or app sec managers.

Re: Ask HN: What is the smartest career path to take?

#8

Post by S_A_P »

As others have said here the answer is “it depends”. There is no best career path for the most part. There are certainly ways you can make more money and have greater job security. Most of the time job security and salary are at odds with each other.

Next you need to decide what you want out of life. Do you LOVE development and building software? Or is it something that you do because it pays pretty well? Do you want to travel and see the world? Do you want to work only enough to do the things you love? Do you want to build a company? Do you like managing people? Do you want to still be a developer in 20-30 years?

I don’t think this is a dumb question and I actually think that it’s smart to ask these kinds of questions. Unfortunately I can’t tell you what is best for you with out know more about you. (Even then I can just give advice based on my life experience which may or may not help you) I suggest finding a trusted senior person at your company and see if they will mentor you. If may help to see aspects of the business not related to development as well.

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