Thursday 30 September 2010

My Top Ten reasons to be a software developer.

  1. It’s now cool to be a geek. Don’t believe me? Well, ask Mark Zuckerburg, Steve jobs and the Google guys.
  2. You get to work with the latest and best tech out there. Well most of the time, if you are unfortunate enough to get stuck maintaining legacy software (been there), then this point does not apply to you.
  3. You can work anywhere. Because these days pretty much every company uses the internet and computers, and where there’s internet and computers, there’s software, and where there’s software there are.....? Yep, you guessed it, software developers.
  4. The pay is not bad, could actually be really really good depending on your experience and smarts, don’t believe me? Well, ask Mark Zuckerburg, Ste.....
  5. Low entry barrier.  Anybody can do it, though the more qualifications you get, the more your pay is likely to increase
  6. ts fun and challenging. Or should I say, it CAN be fun and challenging, can get pretty dull and unchallenging at times (testing and debugging)
  7. All the resources you need are easy to get and cheap as dirt (it rhymes). You don’t need an expensive stethoscope or defibrillator to work (what’s a defibrillator you say? those things doctors use in movies to bring people that just died back to life, you know the electric voltage things..no? just Google the word) , all you need is a computer, an internet connection and you are in business.
  8. People will think you are clever. For real think about it, what (apart from women) is more complicated than computers, if you can understand computers you can understand anything.
  9. Potentially relaxed hours. In most software development houses, it’s not how many hours you put it, but how much you get done that really matters, so it’s quite normal to work on something late into the night, send it to the office in the morning via email and come into work later.
  10. Not physically tasking.  You get paid to sit down in front of a computer on comfortable chair typing on the keyboard, now isn’t that just paradise on earth



    5 comments:

    1. Yes o!

      Geeks are well represented amongst the world's billionaires now- MS, Apple, Google, Oracle, Amazon, Myself, etc.

      And really, our work has changed the way people LIVE... ask Zuckerburg.

      But really, its fun when its new & (seemingly) pioneering. But when it comes to maintenance (especially when its someone else's code), the hours just drag. LoL!

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    2. ah...working on someone else's code, the bane of a developer's life especially when its poorly (if at all) documented, a real nightmare!

      And you are right, it does feel good to be a (seeming... ;-)) pioneer.

      All in all, Its a great way of life.

      ReplyDelete
    3. The top ten is right on the money.

      #7 I'll have to add social networking sites like http://c.ittoolbox.com or http://www.stackoverflow.com just makes life easier compare to early 2000's.

      ReplyDelete
    4. yep, I completely agree, many a problem have been solved simply by going to stack overflow, you know what they say "there is nothing new under the sun", so what ever nightmare bug is plaguing you has likely been solved by someone else.
      Thanks for the comment NU.. can call you NU? :-)

      ReplyDelete
    5. Just received a payment for $500.

      Sometimes people don't believe me when I tell them about how much money you can make taking paid surveys online...

      So I show them a video of myself actually getting paid $500 for participating in paid surveys to set the record straight once and for all.

      ReplyDelete