Exploratory Interview: FINDING YOUR WAY

1. Why were you initially interested in this career field?
I got my first computer when I was 5. It was a Commodore 64. I loved to play games with it but it was not like a gaming console. It required you to know command syntax to load the games into memory and then launch them. This part intrigued me because my friends who had Atari’s and Nintendo’s did not have to think about any of that when they just put the cartridge in and hit power. It made me feel like I knew something that none of them understood so I started learning what else the Commodore would let me do. When I found out that I could actually make software development a career and that it paid really well, I knew I had to see if it was right for me.

2. If this career was not your initial interest what path led you to it?
It was not initially my first career path! In high school, I only thought about what paid well. I heard that dental hygienists were paid really well and they only worked a few days a week and did not have to go to school for 8 years like a doctor. So I initially started down that path. But the college that I was looking at also had one of the best Software Engineering degrees in the country and early in my senior year of high school, I decided that I could not possibly stick my fingers into people’s mouths since it actually grossed me out, so started looking into their software program.

3. What education and experience was required for you to thrive in this field of work?
I earned a Software Engineering degree from Oregon Institute of Technology but I think that just gave me the confidence to be able to understand the lingo, for when I went to apply my craft in the industry. I would have to say that I learned more about writing software in the first 6 months of working at Comprehensive Software Systems than I learned in the 4 years it took to earn my degree. Now don’t get me wrong, I think the degree was necessary because it did help me build a foundation of understanding which was absolutely necessary to stack everything I have learned since then. It certainly would have been much more difficult to come up with alternative ideas of how to implement various solutions without that initial foundation.

4. Is there any additional education or experience that you wish you would have gained before entering your career?
I wish I had more personal drive to learn more on my own. I wish that I would get more excited about new concepts before I actually need to know it for my career, but I just don’t have that in me. When I go home, the only kind of computer I like to use is my Xbox.

5. Do you have opportunities for advancement concerning your position or pay rate? What do those include?
Absolutely not! There are no salary caps on any of the positions in my current company so I don’t have to be promoted to get the pay rate that I am worth. I have never actively pursued advancement in career but I have been promoted into lead development positions. I currently manage a team of 5 developers and am constantly encouraged to go even higher. I find that I am often trying actively to pull back so that I do not advance too far into management because the more you manage, the less you code. And I love to code. That is where my passion is and that is what I want to do for many years to come.

6. How long did it take for you to get to your current position?
I have been in this career path since 2003. Where I worked in client services (bug and release management) for about a year and then moved into development. I’ve been in development and team leadership ever since.

7. What are the keys to career advancement in this career?
Dedication and people skills have been vital to my success. This often incurs the cost of occasional nights and weekends which usually takes away from your personal life. But I absolutely love to put on some headphones and focus on creating a solution that I am proud of. People skills become more required to move into management and are essential to get team members to care about the success of the team and the projects.

8. What entry-level jobs offer the best opportunities and greatest amount of learning?
Unfortunately, this was the most difficult part of this career. It is very difficult to find a company willing to hire for entry-level positions. Once you get your foot in the door then you can expect less than a 2% unemployment rate. I had to get a job working in the client services area of a software company; where I learned the processes of software development. I had to prove myself before I was given the opportunity to start fixing the bugs that our clients were reporting. I did this by writing tools and add-ons to facilitate and improve on our processes and when a position opened up in development, they moved me into the support staff. I have also seen several people who go into the profession as Quality Assurance (QA) resources. This path does not require the kind of development experience required for software developers but QA people are moving into writing automated testing solutions which is light coding. I have known several QA resources who have moved into actual development or move from one company as a technical QA resource into other companies as developers.

9. What do you like and dislike about your job?
Like: I love to code! It is incredibly exhilarating and fulfilling to see a problem and put your head down with a good Pandora station and just code like a mad man. It is very rewarding to finish up a solution before going home.
Dislike: Wasteful meetings. There are a lot of meetings that each resource will only benefit from about 5% of the meeting’s content. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit around doing nothing but when you are thinking about a problem and a solution to that problem, it gets pretty excruciating sitting around listing to people talk about stuff that is totally irrelevant to your highest priorities.

10. What hours do you work? What does a typical day look like for you?
I have always been a workaholic. I have only just recently determined that it is truly self-imposed. Typically through my career, I have always worked a minimum of 8 hour days with an average of about 10 and during crunch time (a few days or a week before a deadline) I average around 12 hour days. I have only worked three all-nighters in my 10 year career. But when you are working on a solution and the different components are slipping into place, it’s almost like playing a game so the time feels irreverent. A typical day often includes a lot of small talk and long lunches so even if I work 10 hours, which might have included a 1.5 to 2 hour lunch.
I have observed that employees that do the minimum (exactly 8 hour days, no more and sometimes less). Do not get the fun projects. They do not get the good raises and promotions and they do not get recognized by their peers.

11. What activities are included in a typical day?
The day starts with catching up on any emails that were sent from the night before and looking into any high visible issues that might have come up during the night. Then there is a little bit of a lull where you can identify where you are at in your projects. This is followed by stand-up meetings throughout all of the teams. These stand-up meetings let everyone get a grasp on what was accomplished the day before and what should be expected for today. Additional meetings often come from these stand-up meetings to delve deeper into specific topics. This is done so that irrelevant topics do not waste the time of people who don’t need to rummage through the details. Lunch comes after all of the meetings which lasts about an hour or more and after lunch, you get to start coding. And coding is hopefully what I get to do for the rest of the day.

12. What is your work environment like?
My work environment is very collaborative. We all sit in desks where we can quickly bounce questions and ideas off of each other. Some developers just research the ideas and solutions online and in books but I find that collaborating with other developers gets others involved and gets everything thinking about alternative solutions. It also makes people feel like their ideas are important and makes people feel like they have a stake in the solution that they are not even writing.

13. What is most rewarding aspect of this career?
Feeling needed and important are the first aspects that pop into mind. There are not a lot of software developers out there and we are in extreme demand right now. This gives developers a sense of security and importance. The monetary compensation is really nice too.

14. What benefits do you enjoy from your career? (Compensation, time off, other benefits)
Software developers are paid pretty well in this market. A developer working in this market for about 5 years can expect somewhere between 80k-100k. If you are really good then you can easily break 100k after 5 years. All of the companies that I have worked for have about 20ish days of paid time off and sick days. Most companies do not have too many issues with developers working from home or working remotely. I can usually get a lot more done when I work from home because I don’t have all the meetings or other office distractions.

15. What are personal qualities, skills or experiences that are needed for success in this career?
Keeping an open mind to learning that there are always other available solutions is essential. Some developers think there is only one way to do something or they make comments like it “must” be done this way. This only causes drama and pigeon-holes the team into a solution. You can give a specific task to 5 different people and all 5 people will implement the solution differently. It’s fun to review the code of others because we are constantly learning in our field. Technology is always changing and there are always newer, better and cooler ways to do things.

16. What are some potential reasons these personal qualities, skills or experiences would be helpful?
See answer to question 15.

17. How does your career impact your lifestyle, both negative and positive?
Negative: I allow work priorities to trump many aspects of my personal life. This gets me in trouble with my friends and family. They often understand when I need to cancel events or I don’t get to play some multiplayer game. Another negative is that the responsibility increases the more they promote you. The more responsibility the higher the stress and I don’t too well under certain kinds of stress.
Positive: Working long hours is self-imposed. I can work the minimum and still get paid and still get a bonus but it’s harder to get the kudos that really drive me to want to give it my best.

18. Could you see yourself retiring from this career? Why and When?
Possibly. I love to teach people new concepts and I always pondered moving into teaching software development at some point. This is my first career out of college and I have been doing it for 10 years. I’m only 33 so I still have many more years to go before retirement so anything is possible.

19. Do you have any further long-term career aspirations? What are they?
My current passion is writing code. The higher I get in the ladder, the less the coding. At some point, if I lose this passion then I might consider moving higher, but at the moment. I like the current stress levels. I don’t have a need to be an architect at the moment, but that might change at some point. I think it is important to be happy with what you are doing right now. I personally think that people who are always wanting more never reach their goal. They reach the immediate goal, but then they just want more and they are never happy with what they have and where they are right now.

20. What are the various jobs available in this field?
The market is shifting drastically into mobile devices. This is ballooning into an endless need for rewriting and porting features and functionality onto all of the devices that consumers use. The software industry tried to shift to outsourcing but that shift made it less cost effective and it frustrated local companies because they realized how difficult it was to get what they wanted when dealing with entire staff’s overseas. This caused a whiplash that brought the jobs back to our own country and increased the demand. Currently, a developer can specialize in a very specific type of development and can find a job with that specialization without too much trouble. And since the demand is so high and the market is so sparse with developer resources, we can get our demands.

21. How long do you plan on staying in your career? Changing career? To what?
At the moment, I have no plans to change careers. At some point, I hope to move back home to Oregon and working in this career allows me to work remotely so this career path currently supports my long term goals. There are several colleges back in Oregon that I could probably get a job teaching if I ever do move in that direction.

22. Are you met with new challenges on a regular basis that prompt you to seek out additional knowledge?
If you work for a good company then they are always trying to take advantage of newer technologies because the market demands it. This demand encourages companies to up-train its resources to meet these needs. My company has sent me to conferences and other events to network (usually trying to recruit new talent) and assess new technologies that my company should consider integrating.

23. What is the most important piece of advice for someone who is interested in pursuing this career?
This is a career for people who love computers and love to use creative thought to devise solutions for businesses. I know several people who went into this career because it paid well; they don’t last because it demands continuous development. If you have the aptitude for computers and technology and want to learn every day of your life then this is the career for you.

24. Can you think of any personal contacts that may be willing to visit with me about this career field or related career fields?
I would not mind visiting with you to discuss your options.

25. Can you provide any information or recommendations about locations that I could volunteer at in order for me to directly experience different avenues of this career?
My current company does not have any programs for volunteering or internships but most colleges that offer bachelorette degrees in software engineering have relationships with companies looking for inexpensive entry level talent.