In this video I look at Jarvis Johnson video on why not become a software developer. I give you my honest advice and whether you should become a developer or not. Jarvis Video - https://youtu.be/A4dXZkjWTg0
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Links https://youtu.be/A4dXZkjWTg0
0:00 Introduction 0:46 Tech Support For Friends 02:18 Elite Club 04:38 Flashy Perks 06:49 Trendy Field 08:06 Lot of time up front
Hey developers, today we're gonna look at some reasons why you should not become a software engineer. And to help me do that, I'm going to watch a video by Jarvis Johnson. It's why you shouldn't become a software engineer that has over one 6 million views. So I hear over and over again there's definitely lots of videos encouraging people to become software developers, but there's not a lot out there that talks about reasons why you should not become a developer. And since you guys loved my last video where I reacted to Fire Ships video, I thought it'd be fun to react to this video and give you my honest opinion. If I agree or disagree with Jarvis's advice. And I want you to guys to leave a comment below and let me know if you agree or disagree. And also let me know if you guys like these type of videos. Seems like you do from the last one. So yeah, let's just jump into it. Here are some reasons you maybe don't want to become a software engineer first. And this one's kind of done just by being associated with computers at all. Everyone's going to ask you text support questions. You're good with computers, right? I was wondering if you could fix my printer. Look, man, all I know how to do is store a list of numbers in Python, and I'm not sure how that's going to help. That went over my head anyway. I think it's something with the ink cartridges and suddenly everybody, you know, as an entrepreneur with a million dollar app idea and trust them, it's going to be a success. All they need is for somebody to do literally all of the work. Joe, I've got an idea for the next Facebook, but it's going to be ten times more popular. I just need somebody to build it. You win. You know, a third of the Earth's population is on Facebook, right? At the very least, Earth would need like three times more people for that to even be possible. I mean, that definitely happens. As a software developer, you'll have friends coming to you asking you for advice on software, on how to get into the industry. But you also get people wanting to kind of take your skills and create a new start up. You also have your friends and family wanting you to fix any computer problems. I'll say as older as I'm getting, unless you put yourself in a situation like if you're in San Francisco and you go to start up, meet up or just a local meet up, and then you meet some people, somebody will probably ask you to create their startup, but it is pretty rare. I've only have it happen maybe a handful of times in the last ten plus years I've been a software developer, definitely. Yes. That happens very often with family members asking you for questions and answers, especially if you live near them. This is a big one. People define themselves by being a member of this elite club of programmers. Pro tip. Whenever you see people defining themselves by one thing, that culture is going to be toxic. Sadly, this happens with video games. You play games on your mobile device. You're not a true gamer. True gamers like me play games on PC. These birds are angry. Oh, gamer. I have no desire to be a gamer. I just want to pass time on the train. Poster in tech. Prepare to have your validity checked for every little aspect of your technical identity, like your programming language of choice. Wow. You code in Python. True programmers. Code in C Plus Plus. C Plus Plus is for melons. Really? Real programmers. Code in C. That's cute. The realist programmers. Code in machine code. Ha. Real machines. Program humans. What? Oh, nothing. This is kind of an interesting concept that you define yourself by a group and then they are gatekeeping people out. Those are all true in the software development field. Once you jump into it, people do take sides. Vim versus Emacs, Windows versus OSX. It definitely happens. Maybe not to the level obviously that Jarvis went through. I will have to say, though, in my day to day, if this is something that's really concerning you, it doesn't happen often. I will say that after you join your first software development job, a lot of those debates are actually already settled, so you're not going to have to worry about should I use C, Sharp, Python, JavaScript, React, View? What you're probably going to have to do is adapt to what that job is doing. So if they're a React shop, you're going to have to learn React. You're going to have to get good at it. If you're using TypeScript, you're going to have to do that. If everybody in your team is using Emacs and you're using Vim, maybe it's time you learn Emacs. It's really not to the point in your day to day that you're going to have a lot of these debates and people aren't going to exclude you. Now, if you go into Tech, Twitter, or you go into Rddprogramming or WebDev, yes, you're going to have those debates. But if you ignore kind of that stuff there in your day to day in your career, it's probably not going to be that big of a deal. Like it's not going to wear you down. And I've never seen communities professionally in person that are like that. It's usually just online communities that have these silly arguments and these debates. Okay, so this one is going to be hard to empathize with, and I feel dumb even saying it. But all of the flashy perks that you see in the tech industry, like the free food and the Ping pong tables and all that stuff, have business value for the company. Often perks like that are designed to keep you in the office longer or to make you dependent on your workplace. Also, due to something I've talked about in the past called the Hedonic treadmill, it's cool for like 5 seconds and then it becomes the norm. For Mazda's hierarchy of needs is met. Even the flashiest job or perks are going to eventually lose their luster. Over the ten plus years I've been as a software developer, I've seen a lot of different perks that companies have given me from smaller companies that allow me to leave early on Fridays or Thursdays, or some companies that give free food, free lunches. We had a Ping pong table and one company I've worked at, we had a TV, we had like a Lego set that you could anytime you can stop and play Legos. Definitely different companies have different ideas of what they're trying to accomplish with this. I think some companies may be in San Francisco, Silicon Valley. You go to the job, they really want you to stay there. But I find that the companies I've worked at it was never like that. A lot of these perks were not intended for us to stay over. Almost every job I've ever had. I usually clock out about. 05:00 every day. I don't put in overtime unless there's a big emergency or a big problem. And all these perks just made it a little bit nicer to work there. So I've had times where I've gotten free lunch and I don't work during my lunch. I just turn on YouTube because I've eaten my food and I'm just watching a video and no one cares. I've also taken my lunches or breaks and taking walks. I've played the foosball tables, but I don't feel like I was dependent on my work. I will say with the hierarchy of needs that Jarvis mentioned that that is true, that it does become more common and you just kind of accept it after a while. I will say if they take it away, people do get mad. I've seen places where they got free lunch, they got free snacks to the snack room, and then because some executive thought it was too much money, they took it away. Then the employees were absolutely upset about that. You do get used to it, but if someone takes away, that really bothers people. Taking care of yourself and your future is obviously super important. But don't go on the field because it's trendy or you're expecting to get rich. Most startups fail and at big companies, extremely talented people can end up working on stuff that they're not excited about because of the sheer concentration of talent and the limited opportunities available that they might be interested in. I think over the last ten years the idea of becoming a software developer has definitely become way more trendy. It's been a huge cultural shift. In movies, TV shows. There's always the story of the College dropout that creates the next Facebook. I think we have a lot more people coming into this field. And I think that's actually kind of a good thing because last week we had to get more people in the field. We're going to get more diversity, we're going to get more ideas, and that's awesome. But there is another side to that where unfortunately, as we get more people in the field, there's going to be a lot of people joining the field for different reasons and maybe the wrong reason. So I agree with Jarvis and the idea that if you're just joining to make a ton of money and because it's trendy, you do have to realize that there is a ton of work involved in this career and that it's going to be difficult to jump in. But if you were coming into this career because you want to help out your family, I think that's a Noble cause. And even if you're not super into software development, it's fine to jump into that bandwagon. It requires a lot of time and effort upfront that's unavoidable four year University programs can often be difficult in draining. You can also not be exposed to the resources for making yourself appealing to companies, which can make the job search a pain. And boot camps are great for career changes and getting your foot in the door quickly. But there's still a very long tail of learning that's going to have to either be supported by your employer or done on your own in order to further your career. The reason a lot of hobbyists programmers end up successful is because they spend so much time outside of work or school doing this stuff, and their hobby happens to have economic value, so they should be considered lucky. Yeah, this career is definitely difficult. It's not for everyone. There's a lot of long hours. You're competing against people that literally have been programming since the age of ten or even younger. And you'll be a College kid, and you'll be trying to figure this all out, and people will be breezing through classes and you'll be like, gosh, I can't even understand how to do these four loops. And there will be people that will be way better than you. So you'll have to work really hard. You're going to have to work harder than probably anything you've done in your life. You're going to have to put in that extra time on the weekends. You're going to have to really get good at interviewing. It's going to be kind of a difficult journey for most people. And if you're trying to change careers, you're trying to join that boot camp, you're trying to self teach yourself. I think it's even harder. There are so many people that are flooding into this field and so many people who want to become software developers that you're going to have to compete against hundreds or thousands of other people for just a single job. Don't let that discourage you, though, because there are so many people out there that have gone through that and have succeeded. I've heard so many inspirational stories of people who didn't know how to program, who became a software developer and really changed their lives. And me, personally, I've been able to get so much out of software development. It's done so much for my life and I've learned so much from it. All right. So I went back through the video that is pretty much all of Jarvis points. Overall, I think this is a very funny video. If you haven't watched it, make sure you watch it. Outside of this video, I did cut some parts from it. Overall, I think we need more people in the software development industry and if you watch the last part of Jarvis video, he kind of says the same thing. He says he takes everything he said with a grain of salt. Take everything I just said with a grain of salt too. Everybody's situation is different. You need to decide if you are ready to get into being a software developer or if you are not ready do what's best for you and I think you'll be happy. Okay, guys, if you guys like these type of videos, let me know. Leave a comment below. Smash that, like button share with your friends and family and I'll see you guys next time.