The one thing I stay cognizant of is that both the opportunities, challenges and strategies to get ahead are different today in technology than when I graduated in 1996. It helps that I was in enterprise/corporate dev until I was in my mid 40s and then fell into BigTech and started talking to and becoming friends with new grads.
I’m not in BigTech now and would rather get an anal probe with a cactus than ever go back. But I’m also not one of these old boomers at 50 who don’t understand why people “grind leetcode” to get into the top paying companies and I recommend they do so.
On that same note, even as late as 2016, I got my house built in the burbs of Atlanta in the good school system for $335K.
That wouldn’t be possible now. I sold it 8 years later for twice the price and moved. But I couldn’t comfortably afford it on what senior enterprise devs still make in Atlanta theses days (I no longer live there and I pivoted slightly from enterprise dev)
It doesn’t help you get a software engineering job at BigTech, I would have had to grind leetCode like everyone else.
It did help me get a job as a mid level “cloud consultant specializing in application development” in AWS Professional Services department. It paid around 10% less than a software engineering (SDE) job (cash + RSUs) and was a “field by design” fully remote job. It was the last category of jobs that were forced to be in an office when not on a client site this year.
There are all sorts of jobs at AWS and GCP like that - solution architects, engagement managers (it helps), pre-sales architects, program managers, etc. Heck you can make more in recruiting or HR at BigTech than you could make as a software developer doing enterprise dev.
I had been gone for a year and half by then. Now I’m doing the same thing, making the same amount (all cash) as a “staff consultant” working full time, remotely at a third party consulting company.
I most likely could work at GCP doing the same thing as a “senior consultant”. But I don’t do BigTech and I definitely don’t do in office jobs.
I’m not in BigTech now and would rather get an anal probe with a cactus than ever go back. But I’m also not one of these old boomers at 50 who don’t understand why people “grind leetcode” to get into the top paying companies and I recommend they do so.
On that same note, even as late as 2016, I got my house built in the burbs of Atlanta in the good school system for $335K.
That wouldn’t be possible now. I sold it 8 years later for twice the price and moved. But I couldn’t comfortably afford it on what senior enterprise devs still make in Atlanta theses days (I no longer live there and I pivoted slightly from enterprise dev)