Advice I should have heeded, advice to graduating seniors re: Data Engineering

From the article: “Okay, Okay Quit Reminiscing… What’s the Point

My point was to James (and in sharing this with him I realized it myself) that I think he should – if he wanted to, and only he could make this choice for himself – he should try to make it as a junior software engineer first to give himself the best chance at the highest income, the most exposure to all things in the space, and the best flexibility for what to do next. Starting out general and then focusing / specializing is not something I did.

I mean it’s what they do at Google. One applies as a generic software engineer (I know there are specialized roles and jobs of course) and then depending on the team one joins the gaps are filled in and one might end up an expert in distributed systems, databases, ads and marketplaces, etc.”