According to Tik-Tok, the life of a software engineer is big bags, chill schedules and centering divs.

So many divs need centering!

Reality is a bit different.

Before you decide to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to learn to code and switch careers, there are a few things you should know about what you’re really getting into.

I’ve been writing code for money for the last decade and have helped hundreds of others become barely hire-able over the years.

Here are 3 things that surprise most people about coding for a living.

Learning to code is step -1:

Step 0 is getting hired.

There is no magical technology stack which will make getting that first job easy. There are certainly technology choices I would avoid and others I would make sure to learn.

Here they are:

ReactJS, TypeScript, SQL, Python, AWS, Node/Express and NextJS.

Just saved you 10k!

If becoming a software developer was as easy as learning the “right” technology then most people wouldn’t pay tens of thousands learning computer science or for mentorship. YouTube wouldn’t be rotten with videos of boot camp grads talking about how hard it is to get hired for click bait, either.

Honestly, it will take you around 1 year to learn the basics to be barely hire-able. It will take another 1–3 years writing code professionally to be slightly above junior.

Remember, your career will span decades even if you start in your 40s.

There is no “easy” path to the big bag.

Which leads me to…

Your bag may vary

I met a developer who earned 800k in a year.

I’ve met 10x more who are under 100k after years into this profession.

60k was my salary for my first developer job. I live in California. In the Bay Area.

😐

I also had 2 kids at the time.

Outside of Big Tech and tech-centric cities, no one is paying junior developers large sums of money. They’re risky, they will probably leave in a year and need a lot of hand-holding.

When you move away from the coasts that starting salary is even lower.

From a series of strategic job hops I nearly 5x’ed my salary in 7 years. I would have barely broke 100k if I had stayed put.

If you’re not in this for the long haul, you’re not going to see those gains or reap the rewards.

I should also mention my first 3 jobs were 5 days a week in an office. I even had to wear slacks at the first role! Oddly enough, I’ve been dressing progressively more casual as I’ve climbed the ranks.

Once I’m CTO — I’m not even wearing pants anymore!

Don’t tell HR.

Fake flexible schedules

“I want to work remote!”

Here’s the good news: you will.

Heres the bad news: you won’t at first.

Getting that first job is tough. It’s 300% tougher if you apply for remote-only roles.

At this stage in my career, I’m not wiling to work more than 2 days in an office. I can get away with that and so can most senior level developers.

You, on the other hand, will likely need to park it in a chair for 3–5 days a week at an office.

Working in an office has massive benefits when you are starting out:

• Easier to ask questions in person that over messages
•  
• You learn the office dynamics and who is in charge of what
•  
• Work has a clear stop and start time
•  
• There is less competition
•  

At some point remote work became the norm for developers even though most people aren’t very good at working from home.

WFH requires the ability to work independently, have above average communication skills and the discipline to know when to stop the day.

I have a strong suspicion that more developers burn out due working from home than chill all day.

You still there?

Learning to build software is the slowest get-rich-quick scheme I know of.

It’s still worth it.

Personally, I enjoy writing code for a living. I code outside of work hours because it’s also my hobby. I’ve started multiple businesses with this skill and met tons of amazing people.

Learning to code gives you options and leverage if you’re good at it.

At the end of the day, it’s also a job.

It can be stressful, tedious, deflating and a chore.

I don’t have any intention of stopping either.

If you’re still interested in learning to build software for a living, consider joining me at Parsity.