His parents still want to send him to medical school, because he's Asian, so he needs to be a doctor. (I'm directly quoting him!)
That's ... something.
That's ... something.
Not every developer gets to work on Sora, Quantum AI chip, or CUDA source code.
For the very vast majority, it is facing stupid PMs, MBA bosses, daily standups, and getting fired with no fault of your own. There are good sides, too, of course. But you have to live through these.
Do you choose these or getting VIP treatment in society with tenured jobs and after MD + 10 YoE, you can say fu to any boss and open your own clinic, and economically be forever in the 0.1%?
And honestly, outside the US, many of the positive sides of being an SWE disappear completely (like crazy compensations, having too many options, etc.).
Programming is crazy cool, but the profession of Software Engineering is not always that cool.
> Not every developer gets to work on Sora, Quantum AI chip, or CUDA source code.
> For the very vast majority, it is facing stupid PMs, MBA bosses, daily standups, and getting fired with no fault of your own.
Those two are not mutually incompatible. I saw examples of all of that while working at outwardly glamorous companies. Thankfully I didn't experience any of that personally.
> Programming is crazy cool, but the profession of Software Engineering is not always that cool.
You could say the same about medicine. It is a tough stressful job for most.
I work for a factory maintaining it's existing custom ERP and building new software for it (basically imagine a programmer consultant for 1 costumer just with regular contract). Mix of maintaining legacy code, writing new one and servicing hardware is dynamic enough not to be bored and I have a lot of independence in the job. It's comfy af.
The point is to realize that almost every non-IT company of certain size (lets say 50-100 employees+) that started before SAP&similiar became popular in your country has large body of custom software and that the guy who built it is probably thinking about retiring.
Minus is of course that most custom software is pretty horrible from code quality standpoint, so you need to have a high tolerance for debuging and that you need to have a little knowledge of everything (specialisation is not possible).
[1] - https://www.cio.com/article/274138/enterprise-resource-plann...
[2] - https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/06/birmingham_erp_budget...
For the vast majority, it is facing the medical colleagues who don't care, and will bury you from envy if you do, and get any better than them for it. It's facing patients who don't take care of themselves, or who just take your time, want favors from you outside of your working hours, but most importantly, the burden of having many people die despite you trying your very best.
Do you choose these, or getting chill treatment in society with freedom, where after 10 YoE you can say fu to any boss and open your own consultancy, and economically be forever in the 0.1%?
And honestly, outside the US, many of the positive sides of being an MD disappear completely (like crazy compensations, having too many options, ease of opening your own business)
I understand the point that you're trying to make, but being an MD is hell of a job, and honestly, as a unit, I don't wish it on anyone who does not specifically want to be there. And even then, your good motivation to do it might be your undoing.
It's really not all that it's cracked up to be, and the only reason I wouldn't recommend to be a software engineer is that the future of it is fairly uncertain.
The hours, work expectations and imposition on daily life can be pretty grim for a medical doctor, presumably with a strong correlation on speciality and role. I’m very much not-a-doctor.
Not every developer wants to work on those. Many developers even find at least one of those to be unethical. It is possible to find rewarding challenging jobs as a developer without having to go work for the big names.
On top of this, school is long and expensive.
Getting a good dev job is better in comparison.
I suspect that any heavily technical field has a risk of causing flaws personality flaws, but maybe I'm projecting.
FWIW all the doctors I know socially seem pretty well balanced other than maybe a tendency to crowbar the word Doctor into the conversation. MBAs are still worse though.
- it's hard to have a complete career only coding (assuming that you'll still enjoy it at 40-50-60). Ageism is a thing.
- you're extremely dependent on economy. Sure, you can earn $500K+ at FAANG, but you can also get laid off and earn much less. You probably won't earn such high salary for your whole life (see above point)
- SWE not a respected profession. What do you do for a living? I'm a coder VS I'm a doctor.
I'm not saying being a doctor is perfect, it certainly varies. But I feel it's more future proof than SWE. Also it's easy to code as a hobby. Perhaps even more fun than doing it professionally. Another point, in some developed countries, having access to healthcare can be increasingly difficult. If you're in the system, you make it easier for you and your family to get care when you need it.
I hope this guy can do whatever he wants, but I can understand his parents.
In turns of future proofing it's not even comparable. SWEs have negative protection. Mostly not unionized. You don't even need a license to write code.
If the government says we're going to launch 100 programming schools and flood the market with 100,000 coders in next 4 years, no one bats an eye. If it's for doctors you can see what happened in Korea[1].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_South_Korean_medical_cris...
Apparently what he/she shows him/herself to be is something akin to avatar level concentration and intelligence level similar to that of Audrey Tang perhaps...