psst hey kid do you want to get into the software industry?
here's how I did it.
https://pauls-techno-blog.blogspot.com/2017/09/journey-of-new-swe.html
please don't make my mistakes.
say, @shekkiesqueaks@computerfairi.es
you expressed interest in me writing that up about 2 months ago. it's been on my mind, so I wanted to clear it out.
@qonnyr internship, no questions about it.
@pnathan Even if I'd like to go to grad school?
@qonnyr absolutely. TT work is rare, industry almost completely discounts ALL academic work at a rate of 10% or less. When you go look for jobs in industry: "what's your experience doing Real Work(tm)".
Get the internship. Two, if you can.
@qonnyr *note, above may not apply for members of certain classes, such as "child of rich parents with a wealth of networks", or "good friends with a lot of startup people", etc etc.
@pnathan good writeup. any advice on getting _out_?
@brennen out of what, to what?
@pnathan out of the software industry, but i'm pretty fuzzy on the "to" part. which is of course the actual problem, unless i want to drop back to minimum wage in my late 30s, which is proooobably a bad idea.
@brennen No idea. My personal exit route is probably to academia as a lecturer in CS. I *like* my field, I like teaching, and I like academia.
But every other option than software engineering, for an experienced software engineer, in the USA now either pays much worse or takes a lot of work to achieve parity of compensation. So, the tldr is that your financial standing, retirement fund, standard of living is going to implode, possibly permanently, if you change careers.
@pnathan yep; my assessment as well.
@brennen my general plan right now is to exit the Anglo zone. Its dysfunction is way high
@pnathan was a time i expected to bail on the US for NZ or eastern / central europe. these days, family and friends here are my overriding concerns, i guess.
(well, and at least one of my potential escape hatches flipped fascist a bit ago, so that's also kind of a disincentive.)
think i'm probably stuck looking for a quietly affordable but not too nazi'd up backwater (prospect of still having water in a few decades also a real bonus) somewhere in the central-ish continental US.
@brennen mmm. I'd guess Minneapolis is your best bet then. Possibly Boulder, CO.
@pnathan unfortunately, i currently have a front-row seat for boulder's transition into a desert of culture-free permanent wealth a la aspen / lower manhattan / that part of london heathrow with all the shops selling £20000 watches. i'm also not especially sanguine about the climate change future around here, what with the entire front range getting about 5% closer to being LA-congested every time i blink and water already precarious.
@pnathan ...but minneapolis and points north definitely have some points in their favor.
@brennen not to mention the fact that you just can't *live* in boulder because of the housing costs.
@pnathan If you had to choose between getting an industry internship and working in a grad lab for a summer in undergrad, which do you think would be more helpful for a career?