A core career in the technology industry is software engineering. They are responsible for building products that end customers use and drive the business forward.
We live in the 21st century, and “software is eating the world.” Due to the relevance of software to all industries and people’s daily lives, becoming a software engineer is financially rewarding in this day and age.
That’s not even mentioning the business leverage that comes from the fact that the marginal cost of copying and distributing software is zero.
All of this results in 6- to 7-figure annual compensation.
At the same time, technological culture is actually “execution”. Generally speaking, no one cares about your school, certificates, diplomas, etc. complete – Track and manage workflows to completion, deliver new products, and fix major bottlenecks in company systems. So as long as you gain the necessary skills and experience in any way, you can become a member of the club.
What does a software engineer do?
Software engineers are technical individual contributors in a company. They execute technology workflows by building new systems or extending the company’s existing systems, with the goal of driving positive business results—revenue, engagement, daily activity, and more.
Main responsibilities:
- Complete projects end-to-end.
- Release, review and deliver code to production.
- High standards of coding excellence.
- Handle launch + deployment.
- Project impact.
- Debugging and fixing errors.
- Effective collaboration and communication.
This is the foundation of software engineering responsibilities, however, your day-to-day expectations will continue to evolve and expand throughout your software career path. want to learn everything software engineering role Do you have any requirements with them? I wrote an article specifically for this. Click here.
Need a computer science degree? How to become a software engineer without a degree
The job description for a software engineer says “bachelor’s degree or relevant experience.” So, no, it’s not a hard and fast rule. However, you have to have something else to prove it. This will give the company a strong signal that you can excel at your job and make an impact.
In fact, degree requirements are one way employers measure personal qualities—your willingness to take responsibility, your commitment, and how well you show up every day. You can also show this in other ways – using your past work experience.
While I always saw and heard from job descriptions and chats with others in the industry that a degree was not required, I never really believed it. Until it actually happened to me.
That being said, the bar is high. Higher than I expected. “Relevant experience” should be actual experience in a software engineering role and working as a software engineer. It’s also important that this experience comes from a real business with a trustworthy brand. The more this happens, the better it is for you.
Let’s be honest, by jumping straight into software engineering and abandoning the popular path, you’re on your own. Getting that first experience is a tough process and it takes time and effort to get that first chance. Even so, you have to be flexible on issues like ownership or compensation.
All of this, I speak from experience. Since no colleges accepted me, I ended up working as an engineer without a degree after high school. Read my story here.
How to break into the industry (entry level)
Interested in an entry-level software engineer position with no experience? There is no single way to do this. But, generally speaking, the most important thing in the beginning is getting your foot in the door. This way you can start building experience and let it snowball into more exciting opportunities. This is what happened to me.
As for getting your first role, it’s really about hustling – leveraging your network as much as possible, attending meetups and bootcamps, and contributing to open source projects. In my opinion, the best way to find a job is through a recommendation from another engineer who is already there. Build your network. And don’t be picky about what you get. Your goal is to start and you can keep going at any time.
I started my career when a guy offered me an informal paid internship, even though I was ready to do everything for free. But that starting role ended up changing everything.
Skills required for software engineers
I have listed the most basic skills a software engineer needs to have.
1. Master programming language
We all know that to do software engineering work, you need to know programming languages. It is the engineer’s primary tool. You need to pick a language and delve into it. Learn all the ins and outs from syntactic sugar accompany Standard library.
This basic experience with a single programming language will eventually help you read and understand code in many other languages as well, since things tend to follow the same patterns.
2. Domain experts – front-end or back-end?
Engineering and software is a broad field. Software requires many different components to operate. Multiple technologies usually need to be combined end-to-end, such as front-end, server, and data storage.
Initially, you start by working in a single area (e.g. front end or rear end. You should understand all the appropriate programming languages, frameworks, the process of how code is delivered, how build/compile works, and anything else required to make this area of the product work in production.
3. Debugging skills
Many times when you build software systems, things go wrong. Therefore, you end up with errors, server downtime, crashes, out of memory, regressions, etc. It is a combination of interpreting the behavior of the code. Use internal tools, analyzers and loggers. And check various system components until you find the problem.
4. Workflow execution
It all depends on your mindset to deliver the workflow you own and sign up for. That way everything ends up working end-to-end as designed. It’s a mentality of taking full responsibility and being accountable for your commitment to the team and the steak holders.
Problems always pop up from the unknown. It’s important to embrace flexibility and proactively figure out how to overcome obstacles. Whether it’s bringing in additional resources or doing PM work.
There are many more skills you need to learn and master throughout your career. All of them are listed in this article if you are interested. Read it here.
Software Engineer Program No Experience
Interested in learning the specific steps to becoming a mature software engineer? The great thing is that this skill can be taught on your own, and you can make amazing progress through online learning. If I were to start over, I would do this:
When I was in school, I was very active in competitive programming competitions. It’s so much fun! I don’t know if this will help me in future interviews and engineering jobs. So for anyone who is new to software engineering, in my biased opinion, I would recommend getting into software engineering.
- Choose a popular language like Python, Javascript, Java, Ruby, C++, C#, etc.
- Learn the basics of the language – There are tons of programming language tutorials online.
- Start solving programming problems Likou, The power of code, compound, Hacker rankingWait from easy to difficult. Try a ratio of 10 easy/3 medium/1 hard. Just go easy and medium to start.
- You’ll develop the fundamentals of computer science, coding, and algorithms.
- Become familiar with the programming language of your choice.
- Automated interview preparation.
- After solving at least more than 100 problems, start working on some side projects. Try building a desktop application, or a mobile application, or a website, or a distributed server system. You can start by choosing popular programs that already have online guides, so the learning curve won’t be too steep. Most importantly, you should learn by overcoming the obstacles you encounter on your project.
- Continue to build, learn, and play a role in new startups/companies where you can bring value using your engineering skills.
- Be prepared for behavioral interviews. I have a guide for this here.
Be part of the community
Support from others in the industry is crucial. Great roles are often filled by people who are brought in through referrals. In addition to having the skills to practice what you preach, it’s equally important to understand people. So take the time to meet and get to know the people in your technical circle.
Additionally, I remember learning a lot about the recruiting process from spending time with people in the industry. This includes hidden messages that most of the time can only be conveyed through osmosis. Some stuff I posted here@ ship.
Cheers! ☕