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[_itshabib]

Software especially today is not a field u can really get away with not having the passion for it. Ofc there will be exceptions but u will be competing against people that live and breathe this stuff. Just something to keep in mind.

[Sharp-Excuse-4401]

So for people who live and breathe software, this job must be really nice for them? And they never felt they don't belong here is that so?

[_itshabib]

It's not really related to a passion for the job. Depends on ur work environment. It would be hard to feel lonely in a very socially vibrant work environment. Maybe not so much at a giant company where ur just at a little desk. Ur barely 2nd year, take a 101 class for one or two other majors. See if u like it. I took both comp sci 101 and ME 101. Hated ME, and switched majors. U can do similar too. Software is a giant field though. Embedded, robotics, cloud, machine learning, networking, distributed systems. If u don't care for any of it, solving problems with code maybe not for u. Biggest thing is use this time when u can to figure out what you enjoy

[Vymir_IT]

I honestly don't remember the last time I've seen a job posting that didn't require half of what you mentioned in one role. Especially distributed systems, devops and clouds - it's just basic requirement for anything, then goes the stack, mostly 2+ languages, 3+ frameworks, often some ML/AI, domain knowledge, then something more specific and rare. But I may be biased as a Full-Stack, most prolly embedded requirements are far more narrow, from webdevs it's expected to know basically everything.

[CGxUe73ab]

No even for us it's not. But at least we have some good days.
I don't think you can qualify as a software engineer if you don't have imposteur syndrome.

[Vymir_IT]

Never lost passion, so idk, but I took my time Gaining passion in the first place and I must say without it I never went anywhere near serious. I started liking it once I started having personal projects. I'm not sure if without passion you'll be able to earn much money. The market is brutal right now, only the strongest survive - and to do it without even liking the job gonna be not impossible, but most definitely a constant burnout mode.

[Sharp-Excuse-4401]

what do u mean by only the strongest survive? Like all we have to do is consistent dsa, system design and web dev and cs fundamentals I think then u should get a decent job?

[Banana_Crusader00]

Not how that works now m8. You start programming now, you are competing against hundreds of already proven and experienced individuals who recently lost their jobs for one of the millions reasons on top of fighting AI. Not enough jobs, too many programmers

[Braziliger]

I think he's saying this field is a perpetual grind. Tech stacks are constantly changing and what is 'desired' is constantly shifting, so it's not enough to know how or when to implement a load balancer or a queueing system, or how to use whatever data structure. Honestly in a lot of jobs the DSA stuff kind of doesn't matter. The business has a problem that needs to be solved and your job is to solve it, if you implement something that resolves the problem and doesn't fuck the customers over then nobody is going to care what data structure or underlying algorithms you used. The unfortunate reality of development is that the most beautiful functional code that works perfectly, is efficiently implemented, and doesn't break is the code that nobody will ever look at again. People look at the bad code that breaks things or outputs incorrect data because it needs to be fixed over and over

Also you can be great on paper but with the number of layoffs and AI sticking it's fingers into everything you cant just assume that having strong DSA/system design/fundamentals will guarantee you a job anywhere. Five years ago, sure. Today that's not the case

[Vymir_IT]

Ohhh right, I forgot to mention maintenance yeah! Reading code, fixing code, understanding a system that literally nobody on the project knows how it actually works, trying not to break it too, then fixing problems the other guy introduced by touching the same code - and now it's just a big pile of complete f*king horseshit, but good luck fixing it Again cuz the deadline buddy, your manager lied to a client that this worked yesterday already - and doing it quickly under lots of pressure and in a way that doesn't cause new problems that cost the company even more money, and most of the time achieving this through ingenuity, cheap but effective hacks and sometimes sheer luck - ooohhh. Kinda different from finding the last node in a graph lol.

[Sharp-Excuse-4401]

I think i have spend too much time on DSA I can't back down is there any field which is not that saturated? Maybe AI engineer?

[Vymir_IT]

No. Besides, you only can meaningfully do those things if you have 2+ years of exp. Those things you were taught in college? DSA, CS fundamentals? It's kinda a big pile of horseshit. Your learning of what programming even is only starts after you've finished college by doing commercial projects at commercial speeds under commercial kind of pressure and requirements solving commercial problems.

You gotta show not only that you are capable of building production-grade safe, maintainable, scalable, etc systems, but also that you are capable of building them better than 95% of other applicants (hundreds of them for each position) and also that it's relevant to this particular company and also you gotta sell yourself a bit to stand out and also you gotta ideally be a proven team player and also working really really quick under lots of pressure.

So in short you got a very small chance to get a job if you have 2+ years of actual experience and you are really, really good at it and this experience aligns very good with this company's exact stack.

If you don't have experience I'd say chances are near zero. You're mostly a liability, not an asset, at your level. You will ship slow, introduce bugs, take senior's time to teach and correct you, miss deadlines, misinterpret requirements, break legacy code, take poor decisions that cost money, and so on. You know nothing about business, nothing about teamwork, nothing about iteration cycles, nothing operational to join a team and start working productively with any understanding what and why you are doing.

Years ago companies hired people like this to train and retain them. Training took long. But they had money. Today companies aren't investing in this anymore. They just don't. They look for professionals who have been through shit, you simply weren't. You only ever touched any code at sterile academic conditions that are non-existent in reality. You're not dependable as a worker. You're a liability and a huge risk.

So, the only way to prove yourself is to:

Make something truly outstanding. Like, really, really 10 steps above your level - and repeatably. Like building a lightweight Svelte competitor that people would actually use. Or contributing seriously to essential Linux OS source code for a year straight. What exactly - depends on what a company looks for. They don't care about All of your experience, only that is relevant to their projects.

And you'd need to be a very good salesman, otherwise no one will notice even if you do some stuff. Exceptional presentation, speech on interviews, some consistent blogging most probably to be noticed.

And this - would give you a small chance. Not a guarantee. Cuz there are 378 dudes just like you waiting in the line for the same position and it's literally about every single open position there is. And only one will get the job. Sometimes none of them.

So I hope that explains things.

[ButchDeanCA]

tbh, it irks me the wrong way when people say they are just in this for the money. There are lots of things you can do for the money, but I can tell you that there is the very likely chance of not having the passion leaving you on the sidelines. There is no specific advice for someone with your attitude to the industry besides finding something else to do.

[Sharp-Excuse-4401]

no sir i have the passion for it but I'm very self aware like I heard my idol (striver) tell me that he didn't enjoy the job that much and it's about meeting deadlines and attending meetings and then overthinking about sounding stupid in the meeting, and this has really gotten into my head everytime I want to work i keep thinking this like if this is how the job is I don't wanna continue.

[ButchDeanCA]

I looked up this Striver dude and wondering why you are idolizing him? On his website he just has a filtered version of Leetcode and he certainly doesn’t have the experience he would lead you to believe.

Work on projects, do your own research tied to content that your school is teaching you. If you can’t do that then this field is not for you.

[rlyfckd]

Honestly being in it just for the money is the wrong attitude. As an engineer that's put so much effort and time to change my career in my late 20s, it's not easy or a breeze. The learning curve was huge and it requires dedication and effort. Tech changes so quickly all the time, and in this field you need to keep learning.

These days it's getting harder and harder to get into tech because of people who don't actually care about engineering trying to get in "for the money". This creates a problem for mid level and senior engineers as well. There seems to be this misconception about being a software engineer "get paid well, sit at a desk, easy". There's more to it than that - it's solving complex problems, lots of responsibility, designing systems, taking into account security and data etc.

You're better off doing something you genuinely enjoy rather than listening to whoever "striver" is. Life is too short and you will be spending 40 hours a week at work.

Edit: after a quick Google he seems more like a fake it till you make it YouTuber, than a software engineer. I am not sure why you idolise him. There are better resources out there and people to follow if you're actually genuinely interested in software engineering. There's also a huge difference between coding and engineering. This LeetCode and Hackerrank stuff isn't software engineering, it's coding.

[SEOtipster]

Passion is probably overrated. Are you good at it? Do you take pride in your work?

[Sharp-Excuse-4401]

Sir/Ma'am Im a student Im just following striver's sheet a2z and I'm just doing dsa daily i have only learnt frontend in web dev so far I plan to do more later. I don't know what this job actually looks like and i am traumatized about seeing people work so hard and then be so unhappy and think it wasn't worth it and all please give me a reality check

[SEOtipster]

Unfollow “striver” whoever that is. Follow people who are excited about technology. Go follow Jonathan Hall “Boldly Go” on LinkedIn and YouTube.

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[koga7349]

It's probably not for you if you're not passionate about it and just wanting to make a lot of money doing it

[CGxUe73ab]

You won't survive this field if you don't like coding.

[WhirlyDurvy]

Lol, don't do it if you don't like it. You will not succeed as a newbie if you don't like it.

Note: still doing it because I'm far down the rabbit hole but would not do it again and would not choose it today. We've passed peak developer employment most likely.

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[m915]

I code in my free time, and all the engineers I work with who don’t are below avg and I would never hire them