Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 311 posts

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#141

Post by gonzo41 »

d-d wrote: post #91

Unpopular opinion: it's not a good career unless you are the best of the best. IMO blue collar work is a better option because it's easier work and more stable, and lets you have a life outside work. In software the hours are increasing to no real benefit, and free time is burnt just keeping with the times. The evolution of tools, best practices and high availability of quality knowledge has made it trivial to spin u…

IMO blue collar work is a better option because it's easier work and more stable.

Untill you turn 50 and your body and joints turn to dust.

I had a few blue collar job before tech, offices are terrible places but industry environments have their big downsides.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#142

Post by christiansakai »

I graduated from a programming bootcamp about 6 years ago. I decided to go into full CS degree but my bootcamp instructors said to me "it is a waste of time and will cost you a lot of opportunity cost".

A lot of my friends from that bootcamp without CS degree already have good careers as engineering managers, senior staff software engineers at startups, or regular engineers (around junior and mid level) at Facebook/Google, some of them are content enough and stop improving, some of them are still improving. Meanwhile I still failed the interviews. (For some reason I have a history with many rejections. I got rejections 9 times from programming bootcamps and admitted into one, that changed my life. I also got rejected twice from a programming bootcamp that was known for "anyone can get in").

I didn't regret a thing. I'm glad I studied CS. (Disclaimer: I had 2 other unrelated degrees: Industrial Engineering and Biblical Theology, this is my 3rd career change). For now, even though I already graduated and worked at a decent paying job, I just started to revisit compiler and want to study all in about it.

In my opinion, tech field moves really fast, even a hardcore techies will have hard time and regularly experienced burnouts due to the fast nature of the field (cough cough, frontend dev and devops). But as long as you have passion, you can still be the last persons standing. It will last you a long time. I think people with passions will go above and beyond of what is expected from the regular job to practice his/her craft, and the world can't get enough of people like that.

As long as it is fun, would you mind? I don't mind. If CS pay only half of what it pays right now, I would still do it.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#143

Post by leetrout »

JimboOmega wrote: post #131
jmccorm wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always nice to find a reply on HN that captures so much of what you wanted to say. I came to that same perspective from a non-financial Fortune 50. After Y2K was when a very good chunk of those who got CS degrees for all the wrong reasons (didn't have the raw talent or personal interest) got weeded out. I've seen the same thing happen in other industries with a bust/boom, such as petroleum. Anyhow, OP doesn't so…

I was basically born into CS; there was no question even from Kindergarten that I would ever go into another field. Got my first real full time job at 25, and it was mediocre, it was definitely not a FAANG paradise, and I remember we worried a lot about getting off-shored in those days. I'm really glad the thing I was naturally interested in turned out to pay so well. Though I do wonder what do I (as an SF dev) offer…

I look at my skills compared to the earning potential of some other trades. This is certainly not 100% accurate because it’s based on what I pay in more rural America but I like it:

Barber - 3 cuts per hour @ $20 ea = $60 / hour

Mechanic - $60-80 per hour

Lawn Care - $40 / yard up to 3-4 yards per hour = $40-$120 per hour

Steam cleaning = $150 for a couch = $150 per hour (carpets are less)

Plumbers in East Tennessee = $60 - $80 per hour

Roofers = $40-60 per hour

So when I freelance I charge $75-$125 per hour without a second thought. If my employer pays every developer on a 10 person team $120k that’s still paying less than most mechanics would charge at $60/hour and a much better return than $25/hr off shore with all the communication lag and issues and quality issues. I never worry about competing with offshore. There’s a time and a place for cheap “just get it done” help and it usually costs more in the long run in delays and rework.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#144

Post by bananocurrency »

enraged_camel wrote: post #79
mike128 wrote: post #77

Do what you love - as cliche as that. The best career is the one that gives you joy and fulfillment. If CS is what floats your boat then it’s the right choice for you. Go for career that pays much more but you must drag yourself from bed to go to the office every morning and you are set up for a life of misery - no matter how much money you make.

>> Do what you love - as cliche as that. >> The best career is the one that gives you joy and fulfillment. What? No. This is actively harmful advice.

Calling something harmful advice and casting doubt without anything backing it up is actively harmful communication.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#146

Post by ken »

0xffff2 wrote: post #101
omarhaneef wrote: post #10

CS isn't a career. CS is part of all careers. I imagine when cuneiform was first invented, there was a group of people who were the first writers and they probably worried that it would get saturated. How can we all be writers? There are only so many things to write down: recipes, shopping lists, the kings desires, and heroic tales. What are the rest of us going to do? But of course writing is just a way of expressin…

Whether this is true or not, it's distinctly unhelpful for a high school student trying to pick a college major.

The question was about a career, not a major. It's not like "pre-med" or "pre-law". You don't need to decide this in high school.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#147

Post by echelon »

gord1anknot wrote: post #133

It depends on how you see your career evolving. If you pick computing you will have to shift gears, eventually - which isn't to say you will switch OUT of computing, but rather you will eventually need to ADD to it. Right now, computing behaves both like a trade and like a profession depending on the lens you use. You just so happen to be able to get a job based on tech stack at the moment (like a trade), I believe t…

> I suspect as tooling matures, the industry will decompose into larger numbers of smaller firms, in which a smaller number of people will be needed to create and maintain more and more specialized applications. The differentiating factor in comp and career growth will be business domain knowledge, as opposed to deep knowledge of particular technologies. It's already the case, for example, that firms don't have to field an ops team of 5+ just to get a good deploy process going.

Why do you assume this?

There will always be more work to automate and more products to build. As processes become more complicated, you need engineers to support the systems they run on. Nothing manages itself.

We're limited in what we can do right now due to the (relatively) small number of software engineers available to throw at problems.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#148

Post by opportune »

uwuhn wrote: post #103
thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #41

If you're from an elite university, then you'll have a good chance of getting into a FANG. A SE at a FANG will make triple as much as a SE for most other companies, so do try your best to get into a FANG. If you're smart, You might be able to earn 400K or more in just 5 to 8 years. However, if you don't get into a FANG, it's not the end of the world. You might still be able to find another job at another software com…

>However, if you don't get into a FANG, it's not the end of the world. You might still be able to find another job at another software company if you're lucky. As the years go on, it'll be harder to get job due to the rapidly increasing supply of engineers. And the great thing about FAANG is that it's only easier to get in as you gain more experience. You're not screwed if you don't get in as a new grad or junior.

Kind of, but if you want to have the highest comp at a certain time after graduating, the sooner you join FAANG (or similar places like Airbnb) the better. Because if you join at 10 YOE you will probably be downleveled compared to most people who started out there. Not that it’s a huge deal, but just something to think about.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#149

Post by leetcrew »

leetrout wrote: post #143
JimboOmega wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was basically born into CS; there was no question even from Kindergarten that I would ever go into another field. Got my first real full time job at 25, and it was mediocre, it was definitely not a FAANG paradise, and I remember we worried a lot about getting off-shored in those days. I'm really glad the thing I was naturally interested in turned out to pay so well. Though I do wonder what do I (as an SF dev) offer…

I look at my skills compared to the earning potential of some other trades. This is certainly not 100% accurate because it’s based on what I pay in more rural America but I like it: Barber - 3 cuts per hour @ $20 ea = $60 / hour Mechanic - $60-80 per hour Lawn Care - $40 / yard up to 3-4 yards per hour = $40-$120 per hour Steam cleaning = $150 for a couch = $150 per hour (carpets are less) Plumbers in East Tennessee…

I think your conclusion is correct, but some of your examples are not (typically) freelancers. the auto shop might bill you $60-80 an hour for the mechanic's time, but they're paying the person a lot less. same for the barber.

I don't worry too much about competition offshore. the timezone issue alone poses a significant barrier to highly collaborative work. I don't think the concern about domestic competition can be so easily dismissed though. starting salary for someone with a BS in computer science is considerably higher than pretty much any other undergrad degree. when you think about it, the barrier to entry is really not that high. I don't doubt that specialists and experienced engineers will continue to command high salaries, but I do wonder how long people will keep getting $80k+ straight out of college to develop CRUD apps. over time, I feel like salaries for non-interdisciplinary CS majors will have to converge to that of the other STEM majors.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#150

Post by TrackerFF »

devinplatt wrote: post #127

> I am currently in an undergraduate university considered "elite" in US. As someone who went to community college and public university, and has worked at FAANG companies, I think your perspective is heavily influenced by your current environment. In elite schools there is a heavy selection bias for the type of classmates you describe.

Absolutely.

I went to a small no-name school for my engineering degree, where people didn't give two sh!ts about prestige or band names. Most of my class-mates ended up with above-normal paying jobs in small companies, and the rest at big multinational companies.

Then I got my MBA at a top school, and the culture was completely different. The majority seemed to be driven go-getters, viewing the job market / their careers as go big or go home.

They usually follow the safe bets, and flavor of the decade - which right now happens to be tech.

Post reply on HN