6 Realities of Software Engineering

1. Your perspective is insignificant if senior engineers disregard it. Your years of experience are what define you. Gaining their trust is crucial to obtaining challenging projects. However, trust must be earned.

2. Software engineers are the most vulnerable when a company fails to generate revenue or over-hires. In a capitalist society, hard work does not always guarantee success. Therefore, it’s critical to be prudent and push back on tasks that aren’t necessary.

3. Focusing on minor details can be counterproductive, delaying decision-making and progress. You cannot please everyone, so it’s best to avoid unnecessary conflicts.

4. Software engineers are often tasked with mundane tasks such as CRUD operations and pipeline maintenance, leaving little room for innovation. Therefore, they often work on side projects to keep their passion alive.

5. Businesses generally don’t care about low-level software engineering details; they just want results. Quality is often overlooked in favour of quantity, with developers being measured by how much they deliver.

6. Operational work is tedious, and no one enjoys it. It exists only because of compromises made during the launch and disregard for cross-cutting concerns.