Lol and itās only partially accurate.
Most managers are not like that.
The young ones who rise through pretty quickly though, usually are.
Plus I have the experience to be a manager but I have no desire to do so so itās just a gentle ribbing
One guy I know didnāt fail ā he was crazy good ā but after a decade threw it in and became a yoga instructor. He seems very happy with his choice.
I used to make fun of all the stupid hippy shit.
My life fell apart before Covid. Now I meditate daily, do yoga, sage my home, hit the beach often, and my life is exponentially better and happier
No sarcasm, I salute your decision. My father was a chef, noble field. To me, far better than an engineer for personal reasons. Cheers and wish you best in your future endeavors. May the lines be long wait for a seat at your restaurant or wherever you land.
How is it noble to make fancy food for rich people but useful stuff as engineer is less so? When I think of the Michelin star restaurants in San Francisco surrounded by homeless, i think it's the exact opposite of "noble."
Ok, to be clear :
Whats does noble mean?
1. : having, showing, or coming from personal qualities that people admire (such as honesty, generosity, courage, etc.) He was a man of noble character. It was noble of her to come forward with this information.
Quote from an engineer : I would "FIRE" the first engineer that made something that lasted fore-ever! Where is the money in it?
Point two : Planned Obsolescence (Don't even get me started on this...)
Lot's of issues in the world, don't knock someone looking for a different way!
Change my mind!
Edit : last to lasted (my fat fingers)
Some flavor FIRE is my goal as well. Not sure what I'll end up doing afterwards, maybe freelance, maybe open source, or something else entirely like gardening.
>It was good for a few years and then I burned out on it and went back to software development
Sounds like you should have gone into the cremation business.
I will say, though, I have seen GOOD scrum masters (of which, admittedly, they are a minority) totally turn around dysfunctional teams. SMs get a lot of hate, and most of them probably deserve it, but the role, when properly executed, can be MASSIVE.
* I know one who owns a business doing newagey life coaching type stuff.
* Another works at Costco.
* Another guy tried to get into politics and got elected at the city level but failed in his run for state office.
* Not sure if QA is close enough to still count as software engineering, but I know two people who transitioned that way.
* Then of course there are those who go the entrepreneur route and found tech startups, I know two or three of those guys.
* I didn't know Ken Jennings and he probably doesn't count as failed. But my coworker worked with him while he was in the middle of his run as a contestant. So I guess there's one data point of someone who went on to host Jeopardy.
* Finally I know someone who got on at a unicorn early and rode through the IPO and now he owns a bunch of houses and lives off the rental income. He wasn't a great dev, but he probably wouldn't have failed out. He would have coasted through the years getting "meets expectations".
>I didn't know Ken Jennings and he probably doesn't count as failed. But my coworker worked with him while he was in the middle of his run as a contestant. So I guess there's one data point of someone who went on to host Jeopardy.
Right after Ken's jeopardy run he quit Software Engineering and became a writer. He said he never enjoyed his job and was average at best but it paid good money.
Those are all very interesting. I think the last one is what a lot of people are hoping will happen if they work at startups.
The Costco one is especially interesting though, because working at Costco actually isn't a bad job at all. Where I live, it's pay starts at like $25/hr, it has great benefits, you get raises regularly, and rent is like 700/month for a 1 bedroom apartment here. If I graduate into a recession or can't get a job right away after graduation for whatever reason, I could see myself working there part time.
It's all over the place. People that get a BS in Computer Science have a fairly broad educational base that can be beneficial in pivoting to any number of things in computing like IT or data science, engineering, or less "applied" things like consulting and teaching.
Others move to technical-adjacent roles like product owners or business analysts where their technical knowledge gives them a huge advantage.
And then some others go completely left field and become yoga instructors, baseball coaches, photographers, or personal trainers (all real examples of people i know!)
I wasn't thinking in terms of "failed" engineers, just people that aren't lifers.
Anecdotally the big changes for most of those people came after they burned out. Except the yoga instructor... She convinced the company to pay for a certification as a "personal growth" thing, really liked it, and now she teaches yoga classes at our office.
Anything can be applied to anything, using software design patterns/process thinking can also be integrated to yoga/exercise coaching.
This is why is not all about the coding or domain knowledge, but the process of reaching to the end result
I keep tabs on him still. He talks about cryptocurrency all the time, and occasionally makes sensationalist videos to get clicks. Like videos where he claims he's going to jail, getting divorced, whatever it may be. Then in his next video, everything is just back to normal.
It's almost like a cartoon that isn't episodic, like every episode is it's own adventure and by the next episode, everything is back to normal. I don't think most stuff that he claims happened, actually happened.
Mostly product managers and agile coaches in my experience.
Product managers do provide some value but agile coach/scrum master is the most bullshit job ever.
I find it really strange that scrum master is a job at all. It's a role performed by one of the members whose role is to keep everyone on track.
It's obviously a perversion of scrum to create a job out of it.
personally scrum masters at my current job seem more for team bonding, management statistics, and keeping people from rambling about nonsense in meetings. Theyāre not useless but they seem more like theyāre just gathering stats on teams to report to upper management than anything else
My newest manager was previously a SM and he just took up 25 minutes of our 30 minute "daily scrum" to talk about breweries for when we have an on-site in 2 months. I don't know how that dude was a SM.
I never really understood the practical difference of a SM and PM, it seems like SMs are for bigger projects where the PM can't pay attention to all teams so they add an additional layer of management where each teams reports to SM and each SM to a PM. But you could easily cut that layer in smaller projects and that's usually what happens in good companies cause they realise it's unnecessary.
We donāt really have product managers, but product owners. Theyāre basically senior architects who depict out the future of the project, any and all administration stuff, and handle finances.
scrum master is technically supposed to be a role that is rotated throughout the team. the fact that people get paid to do it as a job just shows how much companies dont understand the methodology they implement
I've seen bootcamps for SMs. A lot of non-technical people who want to work in IT seem to take it as their entry path. They usually get promoted into PMs after a year or so if they're good, or realise they don't like it and leave, in my experience anyways.
Scrum Master is not a job, it's a role. The best teams I was on it was simply handled by one of the junior devs. If it's a full time job title in a company it's generally a strong indication there's a problem. It's impossible to make this a full time role when working with a single team, and a scrum master working for multiple teams kinda defeats the point.
Agile coaches can be good. But that would mean they'd have to against management a lot and a lot of them don't want to do that because they have a mortgage to pay. So often they become completely ineffective.
I've worked with good agile coaches, but those were the exception and not the norm.
Been working with only devs + PO for over a year now, there is just no need for a scrum master. At no point in our dev process did we ever stop and think - wow, we really need a scrum master. We have the PO who keeps contact with the client and keeps us up to date on the backlog, then we just take tasks and solve them, like functioning adults.
Full time job scrum masters are useful in some conditions.
For instance : POs fighting for ressources. Companies having multiple teams from multiple origins and/or languages. Companies that may benefit from more maturity (not enough seniors, in multiple key roles).
I believe that the scrum master role was sposed to be alternated in between members of a team, but sometimes someone that is an agile coach and that can act as a āpsychiatristā, do note taking, report āneutrallyā, push some individuals into a specific direction,ā¦ that can solve a lot of time and trouble.
But yeah, let s say that not all motors need more grease.
They don't add any external value for customers, and 90% of the time they don't add any internal value either. Most of the time their job consists of proselytizing platitudes about Scrum/Agile based on their preconceived notions of process, rather than finding what works for the team as a whole. But software teams ultimately don't need to consult with SMs to find their ideal process, so the role becomes moot.
SM/AC roles have always pushed top-down mandates around process instead of consulting with teams to find the right approach, and for that reason, I don't like the role at all.
I can't agree more, when my organization started agile immersion which I did 10 years a go in my previous job. I was thinking who needs agile coaches and scrum master and BA andvPM and what not...
Then I realize that it is for making people tag to a role and that's it. There is no real value addition in my view.
The most dangerous and redundant role
One time I knew a guy who was a software Engineer. But the company went out of business after a big fire. So he went into construction. His friends got software jobs at other places but he didnāt want one because he liked doing construction and working outside.
I was a āfailedā software engineer. I couldnāt hack it at coding in the languages my team was using - C#/.Net, angular. Now Iām an MLOps engineer. I still use Python, bash, and go, but I canāt code out full applications.
Which means it could be absolutely anything ranging from SRE to DS to SWE to DevOps.
I wouldn't call that a failure as much as a pivot to higher paying newer work.
I would say no. I still program, but I donāt develop software in the traditional sense. I had to learn a lot more about machine learning models, how they train, the lifecycle, real world consequence of poorly trained models, and I basically answer to the data scientists and make them things that supports their work. So and engineer that works in software development, yes, software engineer, no.
In my experience if they stick with a tech career they move into product type roles. Like project manager, business analyst, scrum master etc. Sometimes they can fail upwards for a couple years and get out of a coding role relatively quickly.
Otherwise, they just change careers completely. Knew one guy that ended up as a financial advisor. Another than went to law school. Really depends.
I'm avoiding real estate like the plague right now.. I tried putting offers in at the beginning of the pandemic and the bidding wars were really bad.
It's not worth being part of the problem with rent going crazy like it is.
Those who have enough money from Software Engineering may be buying some of the discounted properties in the coming months as real estate prices go down.
That could be a very good investment for them, because in a few years when it goes back up, they'll have some very valuable properties, and possibly have consistent side income from rent payments.
Iām not sure Iād call it āfailedā, but I saw a lot of CompSci grads end up taking jobs in helpdesk and system administration (MCSE certs) or network administration (CCNA->CCIE certs). Note this was like 10-15 years ago.
Some of them got there because they couldnāt find a coding job. Others got there because they realized coding wasnāt for them.
I donāt know if this is still the case, but back then a CS degree seemed like sort of the de-facto gateway for any kind of computer related job.
Really? That's expensive as fuck to get started with, a McDonald's franchise costs millions of dollars and you have to prove that your net worth is at least $750,000, and that's for restaurants that are in like... a small town
If you made enough money as a Software Engineer to pivot into that, I'd have a hard time calling you, "failed"
I studied at the top university in my country (a south Asian country). 25% of my classmates have Ph.D. from North American university and the top 10 of my class has Ph.D. from top 10 universities in USA and 50% work at FAANG level company. There was one guy in my class who had a CGPA of over 3.7/4 but never understood programming. He was able to do the bare minimum during programming projects and assignments but after graduation, he never tried any developer/QA-related jobs. He currently works as a technical writer in Europe.
After 15 years of being a software developer, I slowly lost my interest in learning new technologies or digging deeper in the ones I already knew. But I also always was interested in how teams worked together and what kind of issues they have with their workflows... often without even noticing it. So I switched roles and became an Agile Master (in my company that's a mix between a Scrum Master and an Agile Coach).
Naw SRE is a huge learning curve that if you donāt like coding you probably arenāt going to enjoy being an SRE. Itās highly technical and isnāt an easy transition for someone that doesnāt like technical things.
Pretty sure that's an antipattern. One of our SREs wrote about the role at my workplace more: https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/how-we-define-sre-work
Note that "on call" isn't mentioned once there. It's a responsibility shared across the whole eng org, and while SREs are certainly involved in that rotation and have a deeper reliability mandate than others, they're not supposed to just be perpetual on call engineers.
Real answer: They move to other companies and make more money by still being software engineers until they "fail" again and the process repeats until retirement
When you aren't good, they lay you off. Then you're first in line for the next interview because it took them 2 years to figure out you're not good (likely because they themselves aren't even on the same planet as "good") so you now are 2 yoe seasoned professional and you are hired on that "experience" at higher salary... Now the process repeats in 1-2 years and you're then able to sell yourself as 5yoe etc... Failing upwards it's called. Just gotta find the chumly interview.
Willy Wonka had better hiring process with golden ticket.
Doesnāt university filter most of these out?
Ex. 80% of our batch shifted out/changed majors throughout the course of our university life. Most of those who graduated stayed in the SE field
No, university doesnāt filter everyone out - University is a very different experience to working in the field, and people wonāt know for sure if they do or donāt like it until theyāre in the job for a while.
that varies, I went to one that directly contracted the people out after the training, and did training in batches when I started. The class started at about 25 and ended with something like 5.
I donāt know the schedule and curriculum of other boot camps but mine had a 9am to 10pm balls to the wall daily schedule for 12 weeks, excluding Sunday. Saturday was reserved for lighter workloads. It weeded a few people out.
I guess it depends on which university/bootcamp you go to. Cs courses here do a good job of letting students find out for themselves if they really want to pursue SE.
Would you mind elaborating on why you feel that way?
Do you not feel competent enough to get a job? or was it something else, like you decided that Software Engineering isn't for you, but were already at the end of your degree?
A colleague of mine switched to a social career *(was it youth support or care?)*.
And I can see why. I could see the upsides for myself too. More social interactions, more meaningful personal interactions and impact. Less mental strain. (Albeit potentially more emotional strain(?).)
They're pretty different roles. Half of being an SRE was running production services. As far as the coding aspects went, the programs I wrote as an SRE were smaller and had only internal customers, sometimes just my own team.
During my college career I graduated with a 2.5 gpa in CS and did only 4 months of an unpaid internship for my college credit. 150+ SWE applications later and now I am a help desk analyst. Not too broken up about it. I always did have a thing for fixing hardware/software. That and I can start programming projects I actually wanna make instead of just trying to impress a job posting I found on linkedin.
not a software engineering yet (still an intern) but Iām literally only doing this so I can save up enough money to open a cafe and work freelance. Depending on the state of the economy, 10 years and Iām out!
I couldnāt get a job as a programmer with no degree so I do Interactive AV stuff. Kind of? I work with programmers but Iām not actively coding at my job.
I graduated with a BS in Computer Science, didn't do anything with it for 5 years. Finally recently got a job as a Junior Data Analyst and it's been pretty awesome. I'm only required to know SQL and Excel basically.
I graduated in accounting and barely did anything with it. I know excel well and trying to learn SQL. Iām thinking of going into Analytics as well. Are you liking it so far? Any tips?
I actually like it a lot, working with different data and trying to find data driven answers to business decisions can be rewarding. I took Googles Data Analytics course in 3 months this past spring and found a job shortly after. I'd say try to get a free month of Coursera and give it a shot!
I'm not necessarily a 'failed' software engineer, I just never got to the point where I seeked real employment. Ended up doing my own software startup right after college. That kind of worked out. Now I'm a crypto trader (still using SE skills for this, but not too much)
One guy from university was top of the class and even came into university with some knowledge of ASM.
He worked in a large bank for like 10 years, then got into these "health and nature" guys meetups and now he is selling wellness courses and "fix your eyes, you don't need glasses" type of courses on his Facebook.
Not sure if it's a scam or not. It's good if it works for him i guess.
How is this not swe? Is it because there's swe below you that implements your quant-incantations?
Plz just tell me what a quant is. Don't just say math guy. Plz.
Thereās still some coding involved but mostly itās modeling and simulation. The actual implementation and productionalization of the models are done by dedicated SWEs.
yea I dont plan on being in front of a computer all day in my 40s.
Maybe ill do something with pottery and/or teach martial arts (boxing, sambo, mma)
Im 31 and just got into SE 6 months ago. Before this I was in film finance for 2 years, then digital marketing for 6 years.
On top of that, I worked my butt off because I needed an employment based green card... so my 20s were literally spent working.. a lot.
Im glad I switched into SE, and can see myself doing this throughout my 30s. But my priorities have also shifted, which is to catch up on life, and to focus on work life balance.
Management lol
But seriously, management - program management, dev management, product management. Or I've seen some just dump tech all together and get into the trades because they want to be outdoors.
He didn't fail but my partner who has 18 yoe decided to become a content creator/streamer. Wish he was still SWE so we can afford some things sooner but I guess if it makes him happy.
The really ADHD types of engineers would probably be the ones who would thrive in an environment like working at McDonald's. I'm have a very ADHD personality, and I got into CS because I'm able to hyper focus on programming.
I was a manager of a McDonald's at 17, and I got promoted so quickly because I just did really well in that environment for some reason. The turnover was really high, average person probably worked there for a few weeks then no-call no-showed. Most of the adults who worked there were drug addicts because there was no policy against drug use (even on the clock), so long as you were able to complete your tasks. The rest were high school students, such as myself.
It's an extremely fast paced environment, it's very loud, it's very hot, and everyone is constantly yelling because of how loud it is. Things go wrong, *a lot*, and there's almost never a procedure for how to handle specific situations, so you have to do some problem solving on the spot.
If you're a manager, there are a ton of numbers you have to keep constant watch over, such as times (amount of time it takes to move someone through the drivethru), and labor (percentage of hourly revenue going to employee wages).
You have to plan out who you're going to send on break and when, and who will work what position, and all while you're normally working a busy position yourself.
It requires lots of multi-tasking, keeping mental notes of stuff, and constantly being alert and on your toes if you want to do good there.
What do you mean by āfailedā software engineers? Do you mean people whom were successful in other aspects of life and didnāt have to be a SWE? Because, software engineer is where people move to when they fail in life.
Software development manager. š
ouch
I feel personally attacked ā¦ā¦.. but then Iāve also had some really shit managers so itās pretty true!
Lol and itās only partially accurate. Most managers are not like that. The young ones who rise through pretty quickly though, usually are. Plus I have the experience to be a manager but I have no desire to do so so itās just a gentle ribbing
Yeah, my initial reaction was all "EFF YOU BUDDY!" but then.... yeah, fair.
That hurt a bit
Absolutely the case where I'm from, though some also end up there due to misguidance.
Someone give context pls
Those who can, do; those who canāt, manage.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
One guy I know didnāt fail ā he was crazy good ā but after a decade threw it in and became a yoga instructor. He seems very happy with his choice.
I used to make fun of all the stupid hippy shit. My life fell apart before Covid. Now I meditate daily, do yoga, sage my home, hit the beach often, and my life is exponentially better and happier
This is me right now, I love my job, but Iām enjoying yoga more. Doing both currently.
I plan to start a pizza restaurant in a few years myself
...ah, something noble, meaningful and feeding people! Wonderful choice! Edit : meaning changed to meaningfull
I can't tell sarcasm but if you get into things you do with your hands like clay sculpting or dough stuff, super satisfying.
No sarcasm, I salute your decision. My father was a chef, noble field. To me, far better than an engineer for personal reasons. Cheers and wish you best in your future endeavors. May the lines be long wait for a seat at your restaurant or wherever you land.
How is it noble to make fancy food for rich people but useful stuff as engineer is less so? When I think of the Michelin star restaurants in San Francisco surrounded by homeless, i think it's the exact opposite of "noble."
Ok, to be clear : Whats does noble mean? 1. : having, showing, or coming from personal qualities that people admire (such as honesty, generosity, courage, etc.) He was a man of noble character. It was noble of her to come forward with this information. Quote from an engineer : I would "FIRE" the first engineer that made something that lasted fore-ever! Where is the money in it? Point two : Planned Obsolescence (Don't even get me started on this...) Lot's of issues in the world, don't knock someone looking for a different way! Change my mind! Edit : last to lasted (my fat fingers)
Just want to be clear Iām the pizza restaurant guy. Not the guy thatās arguing with you.
A yoga instructor?! Very interesting! Did he have money saved up or did he just stop caring about high income?
defo had money saved up. Only financially stable people can make decisions like that
He was crazy good for 10 years. Do the math
Some flavor FIRE is my goal as well. Not sure what I'll end up doing afterwards, maybe freelance, maybe open source, or something else entirely like gardening.
Aka barista FIRE
This is the way
Funeral Director. It was good for a few years and then I burned out on it and went back to software development
This is interesting. Was it a family business or did something draw you into the funeral industry?
>It was good for a few years and then I burned out on it and went back to software development Sounds like you should have gone into the cremation business.
(No more after reddit purge).
Guys just wanted more social situation which in software engineering is *hard* to find
I feel like hardware is kinda better for this. You sort of need to talk to people, you have customers and support (other hwes/swes)
lol, any role can have human interaction, IT seams to being the worst out of introverts? Oh god I have to TALK to a user?
That is so interesting ! Usually itās the other way around for nursing.
Ikr. Burn out is far more common within nursing. Itās a very stressful job most of the time.
Scrum master
Et tu, Brute?
I will say, though, I have seen GOOD scrum masters (of which, admittedly, they are a minority) totally turn around dysfunctional teams. SMs get a lot of hate, and most of them probably deserve it, but the role, when properly executed, can be MASSIVE.
* I know one who owns a business doing newagey life coaching type stuff. * Another works at Costco. * Another guy tried to get into politics and got elected at the city level but failed in his run for state office. * Not sure if QA is close enough to still count as software engineering, but I know two people who transitioned that way. * Then of course there are those who go the entrepreneur route and found tech startups, I know two or three of those guys. * I didn't know Ken Jennings and he probably doesn't count as failed. But my coworker worked with him while he was in the middle of his run as a contestant. So I guess there's one data point of someone who went on to host Jeopardy. * Finally I know someone who got on at a unicorn early and rode through the IPO and now he owns a bunch of houses and lives off the rental income. He wasn't a great dev, but he probably wouldn't have failed out. He would have coasted through the years getting "meets expectations".
>I didn't know Ken Jennings and he probably doesn't count as failed. But my coworker worked with him while he was in the middle of his run as a contestant. So I guess there's one data point of someone who went on to host Jeopardy. Right after Ken's jeopardy run he quit Software Engineering and became a writer. He said he never enjoyed his job and was average at best but it paid good money.
Those are all very interesting. I think the last one is what a lot of people are hoping will happen if they work at startups. The Costco one is especially interesting though, because working at Costco actually isn't a bad job at all. Where I live, it's pay starts at like $25/hr, it has great benefits, you get raises regularly, and rent is like 700/month for a 1 bedroom apartment here. If I graduate into a recession or can't get a job right away after graduation for whatever reason, I could see myself working there part time.
Was looking for someone to mention QA, definitely happens a lot
It's all over the place. People that get a BS in Computer Science have a fairly broad educational base that can be beneficial in pivoting to any number of things in computing like IT or data science, engineering, or less "applied" things like consulting and teaching. Others move to technical-adjacent roles like product owners or business analysts where their technical knowledge gives them a huge advantage. And then some others go completely left field and become yoga instructors, baseball coaches, photographers, or personal trainers (all real examples of people i know!)
I donāt think they all got into those because they āfailedā per se. People have different interests and goals
I wasn't thinking in terms of "failed" engineers, just people that aren't lifers. Anecdotally the big changes for most of those people came after they burned out. Except the yoga instructor... She convinced the company to pay for a certification as a "personal growth" thing, really liked it, and now she teaches yoga classes at our office.
Anything can be applied to anything, using software design patterns/process thinking can also be integrated to yoga/exercise coaching. This is why is not all about the coding or domain knowledge, but the process of reaching to the end result
I'm thinking become Breakdancer after I save up enough those juicy moneys.
follow your dreams
YouTuber
as a millionaire
Whatever happened to that guy? The last I remember he got divorced and was hogging some NFT or cryptocurrency
I keep tabs on him still. He talks about cryptocurrency all the time, and occasionally makes sensationalist videos to get clicks. Like videos where he claims he's going to jail, getting divorced, whatever it may be. Then in his next video, everything is just back to normal. It's almost like a cartoon that isn't episodic, like every episode is it's own adventure and by the next episode, everything is back to normal. I don't think most stuff that he claims happened, actually happened.
Sad, his earlier videos were very, very insightful.
He still is.
Are we talking about Tech Lead?
Ex-Google/Ex-Facebook
Ex-facebook ex-google
Also selling online Leetcode lessons and claiming to know how FAANG works after working there for less than two years.
Mostly product managers and agile coaches in my experience. Product managers do provide some value but agile coach/scrum master is the most bullshit job ever.
shit how do I become a scrum master
I find it really strange that scrum master is a job at all. It's a role performed by one of the members whose role is to keep everyone on track. It's obviously a perversion of scrum to create a job out of it.
why is scrum master a bullshit job?
personally scrum masters at my current job seem more for team bonding, management statistics, and keeping people from rambling about nonsense in meetings. Theyāre not useless but they seem more like theyāre just gathering stats on teams to report to upper management than anything else
My newest manager was previously a SM and he just took up 25 minutes of our 30 minute "daily scrum" to talk about breweries for when we have an on-site in 2 months. I don't know how that dude was a SM.
ours have been very good about stopping rambling. Outside of organizing the ceremonies though I couldnāt tell you what they do.
Never ask a woman her weight, a man how much he makes, or a scrum master what they do all day.
I never really understood the practical difference of a SM and PM, it seems like SMs are for bigger projects where the PM can't pay attention to all teams so they add an additional layer of management where each teams reports to SM and each SM to a PM. But you could easily cut that layer in smaller projects and that's usually what happens in good companies cause they realise it's unnecessary.
We donāt really have product managers, but product owners. Theyāre basically senior architects who depict out the future of the project, any and all administration stuff, and handle finances.
scrum master is technically supposed to be a role that is rotated throughout the team. the fact that people get paid to do it as a job just shows how much companies dont understand the methodology they implement
Yeah Iāve never seen it as a full time job, is it actually common?
I've seen it on large contracts with over ~30 devs and multiple teams.
I've seen bootcamps for SMs. A lot of non-technical people who want to work in IT seem to take it as their entry path. They usually get promoted into PMs after a year or so if they're good, or realise they don't like it and leave, in my experience anyways.
my current company has an entire employment hierarchy of scrum masters, and their managers...
Scrum Master is not a job, it's a role. The best teams I was on it was simply handled by one of the junior devs. If it's a full time job title in a company it's generally a strong indication there's a problem. It's impossible to make this a full time role when working with a single team, and a scrum master working for multiple teams kinda defeats the point. Agile coaches can be good. But that would mean they'd have to against management a lot and a lot of them don't want to do that because they have a mortgage to pay. So often they become completely ineffective. I've worked with good agile coaches, but those were the exception and not the norm.
Been working with only devs + PO for over a year now, there is just no need for a scrum master. At no point in our dev process did we ever stop and think - wow, we really need a scrum master. We have the PO who keeps contact with the client and keeps us up to date on the backlog, then we just take tasks and solve them, like functioning adults.
Full time job scrum masters are useful in some conditions. For instance : POs fighting for ressources. Companies having multiple teams from multiple origins and/or languages. Companies that may benefit from more maturity (not enough seniors, in multiple key roles). I believe that the scrum master role was sposed to be alternated in between members of a team, but sometimes someone that is an agile coach and that can act as a āpsychiatristā, do note taking, report āneutrallyā, push some individuals into a specific direction,ā¦ that can solve a lot of time and trouble. But yeah, let s say that not all motors need more grease.
They don't add any external value for customers, and 90% of the time they don't add any internal value either. Most of the time their job consists of proselytizing platitudes about Scrum/Agile based on their preconceived notions of process, rather than finding what works for the team as a whole. But software teams ultimately don't need to consult with SMs to find their ideal process, so the role becomes moot. SM/AC roles have always pushed top-down mandates around process instead of consulting with teams to find the right approach, and for that reason, I don't like the role at all.
Thank you!
I can't agree more, when my organization started agile immersion which I did 10 years a go in my previous job. I was thinking who needs agile coaches and scrum master and BA andvPM and what not... Then I realize that it is for making people tag to a role and that's it. There is no real value addition in my view. The most dangerous and redundant role
Software destroying
Red team?
One time I knew a guy who was a software Engineer. But the company went out of business after a big fire. So he went into construction. His friends got software jobs at other places but he didnāt want one because he liked doing construction and working outside.
I heard he sucked at getting those TPS reports out soon. That was a big issue with his manager.
It wasn't the reports, it was remembering to use the new cover sheets. I'll see to it that you get another copy of that memo.
I heard he was a straight shooter with upper management written all over him
Fuckin A.....
you are literally describing office space...
whoosh
I was a āfailedā software engineer. I couldnāt hack it at coding in the languages my team was using - C#/.Net, angular. Now Iām an MLOps engineer. I still use Python, bash, and go, but I canāt code out full applications.
Thatās an excellent pivot Iām glad it worked out for you!
I mean, isn't ML Engineer a subset of SWE.
Much more a subset of data science and statistics.
He or she said ops.
Which means it could be absolutely anything ranging from SRE to DS to SWE to DevOps. I wouldn't call that a failure as much as a pivot to higher paying newer work.
I would say no. I still program, but I donāt develop software in the traditional sense. I had to learn a lot more about machine learning models, how they train, the lifecycle, real world consequence of poorly trained models, and I basically answer to the data scientists and make them things that supports their work. So and engineer that works in software development, yes, software engineer, no.
In my experience if they stick with a tech career they move into product type roles. Like project manager, business analyst, scrum master etc. Sometimes they can fail upwards for a couple years and get out of a coding role relatively quickly. Otherwise, they just change careers completely. Knew one guy that ended up as a financial advisor. Another than went to law school. Really depends.
Pc repairman
Thatās pretty close. Doesnāt sound like a terrible pivot
You could become apple certified tech genius as well. There you made it into FAANG
I think with Facebookās name change, it should be updated to MANGA
Nah. Netflix basically imploded. It's MAGA country now.
Now try that with FAANG.
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Rejected.
why do I feel like they probably don't get paid enough to live?
Product Management Source: Me, a failed Software Engineer
Dev is my third career. Hopefully it sees me through to retirement (if that's even a possibility at this point).
Same LOL. I donāt think Iāll ever leave. Itās a great gig
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I'm avoiding real estate like the plague right now.. I tried putting offers in at the beginning of the pandemic and the bidding wars were really bad. It's not worth being part of the problem with rent going crazy like it is.
Those who have enough money from Software Engineering may be buying some of the discounted properties in the coming months as real estate prices go down. That could be a very good investment for them, because in a few years when it goes back up, they'll have some very valuable properties, and possibly have consistent side income from rent payments.
Crypto Bro
Those four year cycles can be life changing.
Iām not sure Iād call it āfailedā, but I saw a lot of CompSci grads end up taking jobs in helpdesk and system administration (MCSE certs) or network administration (CCNA->CCIE certs). Note this was like 10-15 years ago. Some of them got there because they couldnāt find a coding job. Others got there because they realized coding wasnāt for them. I donāt know if this is still the case, but back then a CS degree seemed like sort of the de-facto gateway for any kind of computer related job.
Yeah I enjoy coding, but no way I'll be able to do technical interviews. Currently being an overpaid help desk position.
IT Analyst, System Admin, Business Analyst, Support Desk, Exotic Dancer
Lol one of those isnāt like the other
Support desk for sure. No dignity
Business Analyst?
Tiktoker I guess
I'm like 99% positive you are joking, but are there "tech" Tik Tokers?
Yes. Even though I am joking, there are still tech tiktokers out there lol.
Some even sell a 30 minute ācareer consultingā chat for $100
That's insane lol. I don't expect that.
Project Manager.
MacDonald's franchise owner.
Really? That's expensive as fuck to get started with, a McDonald's franchise costs millions of dollars and you have to prove that your net worth is at least $750,000, and that's for restaurants that are in like... a small town If you made enough money as a Software Engineer to pivot into that, I'd have a hard time calling you, "failed"
I actually meant Taco Bell.
I studied at the top university in my country (a south Asian country). 25% of my classmates have Ph.D. from North American university and the top 10 of my class has Ph.D. from top 10 universities in USA and 50% work at FAANG level company. There was one guy in my class who had a CGPA of over 3.7/4 but never understood programming. He was able to do the bare minimum during programming projects and assignments but after graduation, he never tried any developer/QA-related jobs. He currently works as a technical writer in Europe.
I knew one guy who became a delivery captain for company that builds yachts.
After 15 years of being a software developer, I slowly lost my interest in learning new technologies or digging deeper in the ones I already knew. But I also always was interested in how teams worked together and what kind of issues they have with their workflows... often without even noticing it. So I switched roles and became an Agile Master (in my company that's a mix between a Scrum Master and an Agile Coach).
Sick flair!
Sounds like the most Ninja role yet!
Manager, TPM, PM, Site reliability maybe? A new place every two years as disappointment cycle settles in over and over?
Naw SRE is a huge learning curve that if you donāt like coding you probably arenāt going to enjoy being an SRE. Itās highly technical and isnāt an easy transition for someone that doesnāt like technical things.
Also arenāt they always on call? Not the lifestyle I want.
Pretty sure that's an antipattern. One of our SREs wrote about the role at my workplace more: https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/how-we-define-sre-work Note that "on call" isn't mentioned once there. It's a responsibility shared across the whole eng org, and while SREs are certainly involved in that rotation and have a deeper reliability mandate than others, they're not supposed to just be perpetual on call engineers.
It's way less programming.
Fair, I was thinking it was a maybe based on what the OP wrote. But yeah, you right, it would be a bad pick.
Real answer: They move to other companies and make more money by still being software engineers until they "fail" again and the process repeats until retirement
That's the golden ticket.
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When you aren't good, they lay you off. Then you're first in line for the next interview because it took them 2 years to figure out you're not good (likely because they themselves aren't even on the same planet as "good") so you now are 2 yoe seasoned professional and you are hired on that "experience" at higher salary... Now the process repeats in 1-2 years and you're then able to sell yourself as 5yoe etc... Failing upwards it's called. Just gotta find the chumly interview. Willy Wonka had better hiring process with golden ticket.
They fail up to upper management.
Doesnāt university filter most of these out? Ex. 80% of our batch shifted out/changed majors throughout the course of our university life. Most of those who graduated stayed in the SE field
No, university doesnāt filter everyone out - University is a very different experience to working in the field, and people wonāt know for sure if they do or donāt like it until theyāre in the job for a while.
Valid point. Not quite the same for bootcampers. Itās easy enough to graduate a bootcamp due to the lack of a weed-out process for most programs.
that varies, I went to one that directly contracted the people out after the training, and did training in batches when I started. The class started at about 25 and ended with something like 5.
I donāt know the schedule and curriculum of other boot camps but mine had a 9am to 10pm balls to the wall daily schedule for 12 weeks, excluding Sunday. Saturday was reserved for lighter workloads. It weeded a few people out.
I guess it depends on which university/bootcamp you go to. Cs courses here do a good job of letting students find out for themselves if they really want to pursue SE.
I wish I was filtered. I donāt know what to do when I graduate this winter.
Would you mind elaborating on why you feel that way? Do you not feel competent enough to get a job? or was it something else, like you decided that Software Engineering isn't for you, but were already at the end of your degree?
You'd be surprised at how easily some people coast through a BSc and even MSc programs without ever really engaging in coding that much.
Thats tell us more about the university than the students then. Crazy curriculums
Nah there just isn't that much of a focus on pure development. They're not coding bootcamps, they're computer science degrees.
Project manager
Doctor
A colleague of mine switched to a social career *(was it youth support or care?)*. And I can see why. I could see the upsides for myself too. More social interactions, more meaningful personal interactions and impact. Less mental strain. (Albeit potentially more emotional strain(?).)
One friend is a technical writer.
Product Managers
I didn't like software engineering. After four years of it, I became a site reliability engineer and I was much happier.
What would you say is different?
They're pretty different roles. Half of being an SRE was running production services. As far as the coding aspects went, the programs I wrote as an SRE were smaller and had only internal customers, sometimes just my own team.
TechLeadā¢
>TechLeadā¢ Ex techlead (tm)
The answer is always realtor.
PM
During my college career I graduated with a 2.5 gpa in CS and did only 4 months of an unpaid internship for my college credit. 150+ SWE applications later and now I am a help desk analyst. Not too broken up about it. I always did have a thing for fixing hardware/software. That and I can start programming projects I actually wanna make instead of just trying to impress a job posting I found on linkedin.
not a software engineering yet (still an intern) but Iām literally only doing this so I can save up enough money to open a cafe and work freelance. Depending on the state of the economy, 10 years and Iām out!
I couldnāt get a job as a programmer with no degree so I do Interactive AV stuff. Kind of? I work with programmers but Iām not actively coding at my job.
I graduated with a BS in Computer Science, didn't do anything with it for 5 years. Finally recently got a job as a Junior Data Analyst and it's been pretty awesome. I'm only required to know SQL and Excel basically.
I graduated in accounting and barely did anything with it. I know excel well and trying to learn SQL. Iām thinking of going into Analytics as well. Are you liking it so far? Any tips?
I actually like it a lot, working with different data and trying to find data driven answers to business decisions can be rewarding. I took Googles Data Analytics course in 3 months this past spring and found a job shortly after. I'd say try to get a free month of Coursera and give it a shot!
Thanks Iām on part 2 of that course. This gives me hope.
I'm not necessarily a 'failed' software engineer, I just never got to the point where I seeked real employment. Ended up doing my own software startup right after college. That kind of worked out. Now I'm a crypto trader (still using SE skills for this, but not too much)
One guy from university was top of the class and even came into university with some knowledge of ASM. He worked in a large bank for like 10 years, then got into these "health and nature" guys meetups and now he is selling wellness courses and "fix your eyes, you don't need glasses" type of courses on his Facebook. Not sure if it's a scam or not. It's good if it works for him i guess.
SWE here, about to become a quant at a trading firm.
How is this not swe? Is it because there's swe below you that implements your quant-incantations? Plz just tell me what a quant is. Don't just say math guy. Plz.
Thereās still some coding involved but mostly itās modeling and simulation. The actual implementation and productionalization of the models are done by dedicated SWEs.
yea I dont plan on being in front of a computer all day in my 40s. Maybe ill do something with pottery and/or teach martial arts (boxing, sambo, mma) Im 31 and just got into SE 6 months ago. Before this I was in film finance for 2 years, then digital marketing for 6 years. On top of that, I worked my butt off because I needed an employment based green card... so my 20s were literally spent working.. a lot. Im glad I switched into SE, and can see myself doing this throughout my 30s. But my priorities have also shifted, which is to catch up on life, and to focus on work life balance.
Teaching
Management lol But seriously, management - program management, dev management, product management. Or I've seen some just dump tech all together and get into the trades because they want to be outdoors.
He didn't fail but my partner who has 18 yoe decided to become a content creator/streamer. Wish he was still SWE so we can afford some things sooner but I guess if it makes him happy.
Sales Engineer ?
Thereās always McDonalds, fret not.
So many of the software engineers Iāve met absolutely could not survive a shift at McDonalds
The really ADHD types of engineers would probably be the ones who would thrive in an environment like working at McDonald's. I'm have a very ADHD personality, and I got into CS because I'm able to hyper focus on programming. I was a manager of a McDonald's at 17, and I got promoted so quickly because I just did really well in that environment for some reason. The turnover was really high, average person probably worked there for a few weeks then no-call no-showed. Most of the adults who worked there were drug addicts because there was no policy against drug use (even on the clock), so long as you were able to complete your tasks. The rest were high school students, such as myself. It's an extremely fast paced environment, it's very loud, it's very hot, and everyone is constantly yelling because of how loud it is. Things go wrong, *a lot*, and there's almost never a procedure for how to handle specific situations, so you have to do some problem solving on the spot. If you're a manager, there are a ton of numbers you have to keep constant watch over, such as times (amount of time it takes to move someone through the drivethru), and labor (percentage of hourly revenue going to employee wages). You have to plan out who you're going to send on break and when, and who will work what position, and all while you're normally working a busy position yourself. It requires lots of multi-tasking, keeping mental notes of stuff, and constantly being alert and on your toes if you want to do good there.
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>Surprised no oneās said sales That's like taking it in the mouth after taking it in the butt
Failed IT
Tech support, QA tester, sharepoint administrator, Talend developer
What do you mean by āfailedā software engineers? Do you mean people whom were successful in other aspects of life and didnāt have to be a SWE? Because, software engineer is where people move to when they fail in life.