So I just finished my masters in CS and got a job as a junior software engineer. When I first chose CS for my bachelors, I did so because it was somewhat intuitive for me. But I wasn’t crazy about it. Thought the interest would grow over time. I’ve had undiagnosed ADHD throughout my life and thought the difficulties with CS during my bachelor’s (which took almost 7 years) was due to the ADHD and not due to lack of interest in the subject. Learned coping strategies and did my master’s. Graduated with a 4.0 GPA so I’m not bad at it for sure.
Now I’m medicated and I finally feel like I’m able to be 100% of myself. But despite that, I still just do the tasks at work for the sake of doing it. I like the problem solving aspect but it isn’t something I dream about every day. I see my mentor working in the same company live and breathe this stuff and I can tell there is a clear difference in the thought process between both of us. It’s easy for him to produce great quality work as he’s naturally curious about this stuff. Me, I just try to get it done. It’s not lead by curiosity for me. What grabs my interest is stuff like literature, history, linguistics, philosophy, sociology, movies etc. I don’t need any incentive for those things. I’m naturally curious about those fields.
Now I’m wondering if I should still stick with software engineering where I’m decently okay but not that curious about it . Or should I consider a career more aligned with the social sciences/humanities? I don’t even know what careers are in those fields that would be comparable in terms of pay/growth to software engineering. Is the choice between money and passion or can I have both to some degree in the non-SWE fields?
Congratulations! You have a career.
I recommend focusing your passions into hobbies. If you want to change careers, give yourself a time span to do so, and do NOT abandon the old career prematurely.
Consider spending a couple years passionately pursuing your interests outside of work or in your downtime. Consider this a training period.
Then, spend a third year where you take on some freelance clients applying your passion to small projects as a side hustle. This will make you some chump change.
Do this for three years, learning how to expand it as a business.
Eventually you can transition from full time career A to part time career A, part time career B, and then finally full time career B if you can sustain it and prefer it.
Geospatial Information Science & Tech, outside of marketing/real estate/defense contracting, veers toward the humanities in numerous ways. Having a CS degree with development experience is a big advantage.
It’s called “work,” not “play.”
You just do what you gotta do for the money.
Agree with the sentiment expressed by everyone here. You could always take humanities courses at your local community college just to scratch that itch of learning something that you aren’t paid to do, or explore non-professional clubs and hobbyist groups about linguistics and sociology and such. It’s what I intend to do once I get my computer science and linguistics degree in 4-5 years.
Here are some linguistic websites I browse + some that were recommended to me throughout my linguistic classes.
- Glottolog and Omniglot are both language databases with articles that are nice to read about.
- UCL Web Tutorials on learning Phonetics
- These two websites provide a nice database of native languages.
Maybe you can try computational linguistics? That is mostly AI development though, and I’m not sure what the market for that looks like right now. :V
Honestly, having a combination of competency and indifference is perfect for a wage labor job.
If you’re competent, software engineering is the best wage labor in terms of dollars per amount of effort (though I’m very biased).
Most folks come in with a ton of passion, then burn out in a few years because they overwork themselves.
Something I’ve noticed is that it takes a bit of time to get your feet under you at a new job, but if you’re able to make a good impression and develop trust, you’ll generally be given a lot of liberty in your day to day.
Ideally, you’ll find an aspect of the work that you enjoy, and can devote your time to it. e.g. I’m a big fan of good data and monitoring, but needed to try a bunch of stuff to learn that.
Also hard agree with woodenghost’s reply - I think the market is starting to shift for SWEs to one where unions will be beneficial, and if you’re able to engage with that I’d recommend it.
And from experience… there’s a lot to be said for not making your passion into your job. All jobs will be tedious and frustrating at times, and they can suck the enjoyment out of something you enjoy.
This essay has stuck in my head regarding types of folks at a company (and looking at it now it maps pretty well onto Marxist class theory). If you’re working at any job at any company, you should have an idea of which camp you want to be in, and then play that role.
I think instead of asking: “how can I best position myself in the labor market individually” we should ask: “how can I best position myself to contribute to collective labor power”. Actualize your individuality by joining the collective struggle of the 99% instead of generating profits for the 1%.
It’s great, that you have an interest in social sciences and you could certainly try to turn that into a job. The fact, that you’re willing to let go of the privilege, that comes with the software field honors you. It means you’re not just after the money.
But what if, instead of comodifying your passion to turn it into tiny cog in a profit machine for some capitalist, you find a way to use it to help some worthy cause? Maybe write articles about social issues to agitate fellow workers or use your interest in social science to figure out how an effort to unionize workers in your field could be successful. Or join an org, that could use your talents in some way.
And there might be a worthy cause soon: As a software developer, you’re in a field with unusually high wages despite almost no unionization. That’s because it’s organic composition of capital leans towards variable capital. The tools of the trade are cheap. Like a skilled artesian, a software developer can just take their laptop and walk, if their wage is too low. An engineer in a car factory might be just as skilled, but can’t take the robots and assembly lines and walk out, their field has much more fixed capital. So labor in your field has high individual bargaining power, even without collective bargaining.
But like almost every technical innovation ever, AI will shift the organic composition of capital towards fixed capital. This could lower the bargaining power of workers. That’s why they push it. For example, if huge server farms to drive closed source, centralized AI models become the norm, software engineers won’t be able to just take those with them and walk out as easily as before. On the other hand, small, cheap, specialized, easy to train, open source models (like China develops) might actually benefit labor power. It will be necessary to fight for democratic control over AI to decide whether it’s a blessing or a curse.
So if you’re asking about how to position yourself in the labor market, I’d say, wether in the software field or in the humanities, try to find a place where collective labor power is strong and try to find the way you can best contribute to that power in your own unique way.
Wow, thank you so much for this. You’ve given me a lot to think about. It’s something I hadn’t given much thought but now see how important it is. Collective labor power with respect to SWEs seems like a challenge but one I’m not averse to exploring. Appreciate your words truly.
I would really recommend checking out CODE-CWA, they’ve been spearheading a lot of the unionization efforts in the tech field.
i was trying to find the words for this, but i think you hit it out of the park.
If you’re able to do the work, go home, and just completely forget about it and do something else, that’s a very cushy job. The people who get completely invested in CS projects get chewed up and discarded by the industry.
100%, just milk it as long as you can and give zero shits when you get home. Don’t respond to emails or messages either after 5
It’s a little hard to do that in CS because the technology is always changing but no one wants to pay to train employees during work hours.
My boss/who is also my mentor expects me to upskill and upskill fast. As such I can’t forget about it when I get home. I need to put some extra time to handle the learning curve. I don’t mind it too much just that I feel if this field resonated with me more, I wouldn’t think of this as extra work but something I inherently enjoy doing. Which makes me feel that I’m missing out on having a fulfilling career/life in someway.
I wouldn’t think of this as extra work but something I inherently enjoy doing.
Hmm, but that is extra work after hours whichever way you look at it. It sounds to me like maybe you’ve been gaslighted into thinking something is wrong with you for needing time for yourself.
Do you really believe, that “if you enjoy doing it, it’s not work”? I feel like, work is work and deserves to be paid. If you learn to increase productivity for your company, that sounds like work to me. And work also requires rest. Wage labor is always exploitation and while some workers are more privileged than others, anyone who buys into the propaganda is deluding themselves. There is no magical job out there that makes being exploited feel enjoyable unless you live in false consciousness.
It sounds to me like maybe you’ve been gaslighted into thinking something is wrong with you for needing time for yourself.
Yeap, I don’t buy into the gaslighting though. It’s just that I have no better option right now, so doing this work is the only way for me. I thought if I actually was interested in the stuff I’m working on, maybe I’d be more efficient at it and save more time or even if I did have to work extra it wouldn’t burn me out. That’s why I asked about the social sciences in my post as I had more inclination towards that, but the way I see this going currently, I’m concerned.
Yes, I understand. I think maybe people with experience in social sciences are underrepresented in the answers to your question.
When I started my CS career, I didn’t care for it at all for almost an entire year until I found my niche language, then I started to really quite enjoy it. Just learn as much as you can now, expose yourself to a wide breadth of stuff if possible. And yes, you need to upskill on your own. Get super good at what you’re doing, work on side projects etc. while you’re young, then you can take your foot off the gas after a couple years when you break into mid level.
I like the problem solving aspect
i think this is already pretty good, there’s a portion of your job you actually enjoy. anyway, any job you get will involve large amounts of what we call woodcutting. just boring shit that has to be done. if it were fun, they wouldnt have to pay someone to do it.
Give me the job.
careers are in those fields that would be comparable in terms of pay/growth to software engineering
Yeah there are none. Especially if you compare entry level jobs. Maybe look into software engineering in places that are more socially aligned? Lots of NGOs and stuff like that always need IT people
Seconding this. I found work with a conservation group. There’s always something.
My current workplace is somewhat socially aligned and they do good work. Problem is me not finding the work itself that exciting.
My current workplace is somewhat socially aligned and they do good work. Problem is me not finding the work itself that exciting.
I’m okay with a paycut early in my career if it means I actually enjoy doing what I do. My concern is long term if I’ll be able to have good growth opportunities or not. What do you think?
the most ‘career’ type jobs for humanities are in academia, which is its own type of hell. a lot of people also go into libraries or social work, but that doesnt really compare to CS in terms of pay
What about social sciences? Are they also constrained to only being viable in academia?
Some people find work in HR
How long have you been at this job?
It may turn out that after switching to a different field, you encounter the same problem again where the work is not engaging or fulfilling (ubiquitous ADHD struggle), plus it pays less.
So instead of jumping the gun, hang around to get a glimpse what all the career path might extend to. If you’re going to switch careers, it’s better to do this after several years and lots of accumulated savings than to preemptively call yourself burned out and close the CS career after less than 2 years.
There are lots of people who long to be in the position that you’re in. If I were to estimate it, I would say that maybe 5% of jobs across the entire economy are personally gratifying jobs; the rest are all bullshit jobs or shitty jobs. It convincingly seems that the only good jobs are the ones that we carve out for ourselves.
encounter the same problem again where the work is not engaging or fulfilling (ubiquitous ADHD struggle)
Is this a well-known feature of ADHD? I’m not clued up about it at all.
It is very easy to end up thinking about alternatives that are more desirable than the current one. Everybody has the novelty-seeking inclination but people with ADHD have it worse.
When I switched majors to something I was interested in and that didn’t involve writing papers, for a while it worked but then I ran into the same motivation problems. To this day I know I can’t work a job that involves being at a computer, and I’ve only had one job (out of 8+) that I’ve held for more than 2 years- and even then, it was part-time and I put at most 1.5 years of full-time equivalent into it. YMMV though.
Have you been diagnosed with ADHD? Hope you don’t mind me asking
Yes, in fact before everything I mentioned in that last comment.
You have two, or three, options: (1) keep the areas separate, work your 8 hours, then go home and read and do humanities stuff. (2) find a job that combines CS and Humanities. Go find a research group that is doing semantic analysis, linguistics, or other deep research. (3) maybe make an app that combines your ability and your interest?
If you are not just interested in humanities but you are also good at them, use those skills become the main communicator of your work’s projects, tasks, and tools. Learn to communicate the material in a way your customers appreciate and can understand.
consider that many fields, including the humanities, have a need for people with your skills. and you could find out more about those specialized needs by furthering your formal education in the humanities and how they interact with digital archives/preservation, or some other point of convergence.
I, too, started in “computers” but after a few years I figured out that it’s more of a skillset and knowledge base than a mature discipline, so it’s kinda boring unless you’re doing something interdisciplinary and novel with it. and most shit just isn’t. it’s monetizing fart apps.
so I went back to school for something I was really interested in (and completely unrelated), having “computers” in my back pocket. it helped me immensely in school/grad school and then again later in getting to work on novel projects with organizations I wanted to be a part of, because usually people aren’t combining “computers” and another discipline in a single head.
anyway, all that to say, you’re allowed to keep learning. as it turns out, solving the problems of tomorrow will require interdisciplinarity.
silos are for the academy. specialization is for insects. chase the knowledge you want and your mind will connect the dots later.
people will think you’re a warlock when you do.
you can do as my parents said “well you can become an engineer and continue humanities on the side”
joking aside i know it’s a recipe for burnout but stick to your software engineering career. junior positions absolutely suck and maybe if you ride it out you’ll start to like it better, or develop strategies to at least deal with it in a healthy way.
unfortunately there is no comparable pay in humanities and although job security is meaningless these days, your position will be extra precarious in humanities as half of your time will be spent justifying your existence to some shithead and you have to absolutely suck off people to keep your job whereas in SWE it’s at least desirable for the company to keep you around if they are not doing layoffs.
and what if you risk it and as it turns out you don’t like a job in humanities after all? or that the field is interesting but all the things surrounding it is a total shit show? this happens a lot and academia is full of passionate people chewed out and checked out by the suffocating admin surrounding it.
all im saying that it’s a huge gamble and personally i wouldn’t (and didn’t) take the risk. sometimes life is not about what’s rational but about what you are feeling so ultimately it’s your call.
I would stick it out for 2 years and then start trying to find something else so that you have a good resume and some money saved up
