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irarelypostanything · 4 years ago

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Software engineers make a lot of money, but…

The average annual salary for an American software engineer is $86,000; the average annual salary for an American is $48,000. The above figure may be seriously skewed by Techlead, who makes a million dollars every time he comments on YouTube, and Silicon Valley, where it costs $3000 a week to live in a broom closet...but those are the statistics. So, compared to the average, software engineers make a lot of money.

Is that a lot, when you account for the amount of money it costs to become a software engineer? This is where things get interesting. Coding bootcamps are springing up, and some are good and some are borderline scams. Colleges themselves tend to be incredibly expensive, so the argument becomes more of a “computer science pays better than most majors” than a “computer science is worth it,” in my opinion...though actually, if you work out the math, student loans might be worth it if you major in computer science, MAYBE. Another interesting thing is comparing it to other majors, in a cost-benefit sort of way. Do doctors make more than software engineers? On average, definitely. Do you have to pay more for school to be a doctor? Probably...maybe…

This post wasn’t supposed to be strictly economic, but I still think about this from time to time. College for me is over - the question isn’t “Should I have majored in computer science?”, but “should we keep encouraging anyone and everyone to major in computer science?” There’s been a massive push to get more people into computer science. Anyone who’s watched “What most schools don’t teach” knows exactly what I’m talking about.

And it’s probably good, but what I take issue with is when money becomes the opening statement. I saw some people burn out of computer science in college - not that many, I’ll be honest (some of our classes weren’t tough, but we were Davis...not Berkeley), but some. One commenter on Piazza/Facebook complained that people come into computer science thinking it’s an easy route to money, when in reality it’s as rigorous as other fields of engineering and math. I think Cal Newport said it best: If you know in your heart that you’re in this major because YOU CHOSE IT, yourself, you’ll find the motivation to keep going. If someone chose it for you, then you might burn out.

Actually, I don’t even remember if he was talking about computer science. Maybe it was a general statement, or something crazy like astrophysics.

I knew a math major in my dorm. She loved math as both a hobby and a career - that alone should give you pause, and I don’t know why she never saw the campus therapist, but let me continue - and she decided to take on a little coding for a possible minor. I wrote out a study guide (admittedly irrelevant because the class changed) for her and tried to make sure she stayed motivated. For her, as it turned out, this was all a non-issue. She told me she loved it. It was her first time coding, coding was hard, and frustrating, and took forever, and she absolutely loved it.

In the actual field, we had an intern whom I shall leave unnamed. To be honest, working with him was pretty frustrating in some respects, or at least stressful. We planned out his task and vision. We knew his experience level, or his supposed experience level, and so we plotted out exactly when we expected each milestone to be completed. I was prepared to give him a better experience than what I had - just empathy, and motivation, and making sure he had the resources he needed.

Then he started, he came up to speed in a day, and he blew each task out of the water within days. Half-way through his internship and he was done with everything we thought he would complete, and then some. He apparently hadn’t worked with any of our various technologies before, but he picked up on each one, excelled, asked tons of questions, and then dominated. After learning our system through some walkthroughs on day one, he barely needed any sort of help at all. I think the best parting gift I gave him was leetcode frequencies, because God forbid a software engineer of that potential ever pay $14 a month for Leetcode premium.

So...for some people...there’s no need to motivate. They’d probably be engineers even if engineers were paid average salaries, and they’d probably do this even if it were just a hobby. Is software engineering for everyone, though? What about people like me, who have brains that were probably better suited to major in something like English, or history?

Well...they can be, I believe. I think we get wrapped up in this idea that software engineers, like my insane dorm mate, have to love coding so much that they relish the opportunity to sort names in C. But there’s a lot more in coding than just sorting names in C. There’s also C++, and then there’s this thing called Java, and then there’s that one language everyone swears will be the future.

We start people with C, and a lot of normal people like myself look at it and think, “Wow, this is confusing and boring as hell.” Then it kind of grows on them when they realize how far they’ve come, but for some people it doesn’t. They stick around for C++, maybe for the intellectual challenge, and they learn data structures. Then comes all the extraordinarily useful theory, and algorithms that will definitely come up in extremely relevant interviews, and if you get to the very end of your college career without failing (since it’s a ladder) you might just get to take the boring stuff like hacking, graphics, AI, bioinformatics, and that one class where you actually build an app for a real company or campus client.

And we sure as hell don’t start people off with frontend, where they can reap the benefits of their efforts in days instead of weeks. I actually see why this part makes more sense, but...there’s a lot of coding out there. Even if you realize you despise most coding, there’s a whole world of UI/UX that...I admittedly have not seen in a while because we’re back in middleware.

But then in middleware, there’s that whole world of stock trading, where every nanosecond matters, and books explaining why every nanosecond matters, and infrastructure with applications that...that…

...there’s a lot to coding, and there’s also money. But you can make money doing anything.

#software engineering

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momentumgo · 6 years ago

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Caitlin Cadieux

Motion Designer/Animator/Illustrator caitcadieux.com Troy, NY Age 28 She/Her

How did you get your start in motion design, animation, or whatever it is that you do?

I always wanted to be an animator. Seeing The Lion King in theaters when I was a little kid blew my mind. I was always getting in trouble in school for drawing in class, and I had class credit requirements waived in high school so I could take more art classes.

I wanted to go to SCAD for 3D character animation. My mom drove me two hours to Tulsa to a portfolio review event they were holding, and there I found out that I would never be able to afford the tuition, even with scholarships, without taking out massive loans. I decided to go to a state school instead, for graphic design. It felt like I was giving up on my dream, but I was hopeful that I’d be able to make it work if I was lucky and driven enough.

In my junior year at OU, we were assigned one After Effects project, making a title sequence for a film (I chose Cronenberg’s Videodrome), and I was hooked. I stopped doing the regular design assignments and started working independently on animation and motion graphics projects instead. None of my professors knew motion graphics, but I was lucky enough to land an internship with an alumnus who freelanced in LA. That summer in LA taught me all the basics and was completely invaluable, as I was otherwise entirely self taught.

After graduation, I picked up little low budget freelance jobs and managed to turn one into a full time job at my alma mater. It wasn’t a glamorous job and I was still the only animator around, but it afforded me time to continue learning and freelancing, and let me stay in Oklahoma while my partner finished his undergraduate degree. I lived at home with my parents for a year.

When he graduated, we moved to upstate NY, where he got into grad school. I kept up freelancing and got a job at a local news station. My day job was extremely unfulfilling, so I spent most of the day working on personal projects and most nights freelancing. I was working such long hours that I ended up injuring my right arm, which is still plaguing me today and for which, years later, I’ve had to get physical therapy. I wish I’d taken on fewer freelance projects at this time – it was NOT worth it.

Being from Oklahoma, where there’s still very little in the way of a motion graphics community, I did everything I could to get involved online. I started actively participating in #mochat, a motion graphics twitter chat that I eventually would help moderate. I went to every conference I could afford to, including NAB, F5, AIGA conferences, anything. I relished every opportunity to talk with other animators and share work and techniques.

Because of connections I made this way, The Atlantic reached out to me when they were searching for a new animator. I moved to Brooklyn in January 2016, leaving my partner in upstate NY, to work out of the NYC office. The move was extremely difficult for me; leaving your live-in partner to move in with roommates in a new city is not remotely fun, but it was a choice I was willing to make at that time to further my career, and I’m glad that I did it. I’m also glad that after nine months, when the long distance was getting overwhelming, I asked to transition to full-time remote.

I’ve been working remotely from Troy, NY ever since. I’m still learning new things all the time, and trying to push the envelope at work as well as balance my personal projects and development, and even working remotely, it’s STILL hard. I did have to put my relationship on the backburner for a time, but I made that decision with full awareness, and have been fortunate enough to keep work and life in a general balance. Sometimes you do need to focus on one or the other, but you don’t need to throw either one away.

There are so many avenues to explore with animation that I really don’t know what my future holds. I’m getting more interested in UI/UX and game animation, excited by the work mograph studios are doing all over the world, wondering what it would be like to work in TV. My biggest dreams and aspirations are still on the horizon–I want to work in feature animation, and I’m not sure yet how I’ll make that happen. But for today, I’m extremely proud of the career I’ve been able to build.

What are some best practices you use today?

I try to take my time and be patient, especially when making major career decisions. The biggest thing you can focus on is craft. Spend as much time as you can learning how to make beautiful, compelling, well-designed and well-executed work. Beyond that, all you can really do is be open to opportunities and then make choices when presented with them. Being persistent is key – I’ve been rejected for so many opportunities, but there are many times where I just kept slamming my head against the wall until I broke through to the other side. Work hard, but more importantly, work smart. Share with others and participate in the greater animation community, because it absolutely will come back to you.

How do you balance your work with your personal life? How do the two influence each other?

It definitely helps if most of your hobbies and interests are related. I love to draw and paint and I love movies, all of which has the lucky byproduct of keeping me growing and learning in my career path. I try very hard to do things that don’t involve sitting on the computer, though. I took up martial arts, which gets me out of the house, is really engaging and keeping me fit, and incorporates a lot of stretching (which is critical for maintaining your precious joints!). Animation can also be really isolating, and remembering to go out and hang with your friends is crucial. It’s amazing how much better and refreshed you feel when you take a night off to play board games with your friends.

State your privilege – What circumstances may have helped or hindered you along the way?

My parents paid for every cent of my schooling. While they weren’t able to afford art school tuition, they made it possible for me to graduate from a four year graphic design program without taking out a single student loan. My grandma covered books and supplies in college. I also attended private school from 1st grade through high school. I’m so extremely fortunate in this regard and I don’t think I’d be able to take on some of the opportunities I’ve had without that help.

How have you learned to practice self-care? What do you do to take care of yourself?

Eating healthier and getting enough sleep have a trickle-down effect, I think – sleep especially. Your productivity and general wellbeing are significantly boosted if you’re rested. Eating better also makes you feel better, which helps you to focus and get work done. The more you’re taking care of your basic needs and mental health, the easier it is to be in the right mindset.

What advice do you have for those just starting out?

Make good habits now. Achieving greatness absolutely requires sacrifice, but you don’t have to burn up your life or your body in order to succeed. Find ways to save yourself time and money so that you can invest it where it counts and get a full night’s sleep as frequently as you can. Be a sponge for information, but take all advice with a grain of salt. Life is short, but we also have so much more time than we truly realize – if you feel like your only choice is to risk your life or your health to get where you want to be, remember that there is ALWAYS another way, even if it means slowing down and taking your time. Many people don’t get their ‘big break’ until much later in life.

Try not to be too dazzled by your heroes, and don’t try to follow anyone else’s journey to success. Nobody else’s path can be retrod. If you’re focused, you can make your own way.

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ronnykblair · 7 years ago

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From Finance to Product Management: How to Escape the Dungeon and Move into the Technology Industry

Can you quit finance and move into technology?

It seems to be the trendy thing to do.

After all, news articles repeatedly tell us that “the best and brightest” no longer go into finance, and that Google and Facebook are now more appealing than Goldman Sachs.

But if you want to make this switch, it’s not quite as simple as showing up at a technology company and saying, “Hire me!”

To succeed, you have to spin your experience into sounding relevant, and then network and interview successfully – the same things you must do to get into finance.

A reader – Bowen Li – recently went through this process at TaskRabbit (now acquired by IKEA) and volunteered to share his experiences:

Origin Stories and Finance to Tech

Q: Can you start by summarizing your story?

A: Sure. I studied math and finance in college and completed several co-ops in corporate finance, asset management, and hedge funds.

I had an asset management offer upon graduation, but I wanted to do something different, so I joined the data analytics team at a large insurance firm and worked in predictive analytics.

I stopped enjoying the corporate life after about a year, so I left to start my own company in the on-demand food delivery space (similar to the now-shut-down Sprig, SpoonRocket, and Maple).

We ran the company for a year, “pivoted” a few times, and raised outside funding, but we couldn’t make the business model work.

So, we shut down, and I moved to San Francisco and attended a 3-month design and growth training program to learn about product design and user acquisition/growth.

From there, I started networking and won an offer as a product manager at TaskRabbit, which had raised funding up through Series C when I joined (shortly after I joined, it was acquired by IKEA).

Q: OK. Why did you focus on product manager roles instead of sales, business development, or finance jobs?

A: A product manager is “a jack of all trades, but master of none,” which fit my personality best: I knew about finance, data analytics, and sales, and I had learned about UI/UX and user acquisition in my classes.

The other roles you mentioned have more in common with the finance skill set, but they also involve doing the same tasks over and over – and I wanted variety.

Also, the average product manager role often pays more than the average sales or business development job, at least at venture-backed startups.

Successful and more senior salespeople can earn a lot more than product managers, but I’m talking about the average entry-level compensation.

Finally, not all startups necessarily need large finance teams; the one I joined had last raised funding years ago, so they weren’t looking for new finance staff.

Q: I see. And what do you do as a “product manager”? The term is quite broad.

A: In this role, I have three main responsibilities:

Driving Business Metrics – If we want to boost the “free user to paid user” conversion rate in one month, I’ll come up with ideas for how to do that.

Prioritizing Different Requests – For example, the engineers might want to optimize the code, but the sales team might want a new feature that a top customer has been requesting. I make decisions about which requests to pursue first.

Coordinating with Engineers and Designers – When we’ve decided on a feature or product, I coordinate with the technical team to roll it out and make sure there’s no downtime.

There are different types of product managers as well; some focus on growth, others focus on the product, others focus on technology, and others do a mix of everything.

The biggest misconception about product management is that you “manage people.”

But you don’t – you manage the product.

The Job Search

Q: Thanks for clarifying that. Once you had decided on product management, how did you search for jobs?

A: I started by applying for “growth” (user acquisition) roles, and I won one in less than a month. I had a finance background, I was analytical, and there’s high demand for growth PMs.

But I turned it down because I was more interested in generalist product management. I started recruiting for those roles by reaching out to PMs at different companies and conducting informational interviews to find out more.

Then, I rewrote my resume to emphasize my business, engineering/technical, and design experience, as well as my ability to work with people in all those departments, which are the most important qualities for these roles.

I used keywords and phrases like “collaborated with designer to produce UI sketches” and “adapted agile development process with engineers to shorten the release cycle.”

Next, I reached out to over 250 people via LinkedIn, email, cold applications, warm introductions, and referrals.

The percentage of first contacts that turned into interviews ranged from 10% to 80% depending on the company and method.

I won interviews at a few companies, went through multiple rounds, and finally won my product manager offer.

Q: An 80% conversion rate sounds incredible. How did you do that?

A: Before explaining that, I want to note that most of the “normal” methods – cold applications, cold emails, and even warm introductions – resulted in far lower conversion rates.

The method that produced an 80% conversion rate only worked under specific conditions.

I sent an email like this to the person:

“Hi [XX], I found you on LinkedIn.

It’s really interesting that you [made comment YY in a presentation or talk that I saw.]

From my own startup, I also learned [ZZ – related to their presentation or talk]. And I completely agree with your opinion.

Incidentally, I noticed your company is looking to hire a PM. I would love to chat and learn more.

Looking forward to hearing back from you. I would love to hear about your experiences with the company. Speak soon.”

I signed it with my name and didn’t attach my resume.

This tactic only worked if I had something real in common with the person.

Referencing a university class from 5-10 years ago or a friend-of-a-friend-of-an-acquaintance never worked.

I won my current job by using this tactic to contact the Hiring Manager and commenting on a specific talk he gave at a design school.

Hardly anyone puts this much time and effort into the process, so this strategy can yield great results.

Q: Thanks for sharing that. What was the interview process like?

A: There were usually three rounds. The first round was the “screening,” where they look at your resume and decide whether or not you’ll advance to interviews.

They conducted the second round via the phone, and I spoke with HR or the Hiring Manager. The questions were very standard: “How do you think of Product X?” “Tell me what you associate with this product.” “How do you prioritize your work?” “How do you work with engineers and designers?”

And then the third round consisted of on-site interviews with all the team members.

The questions became more in-depth, but the main difference was that I needed to emphasize different aspects to different people: Senior team members cared about business metrics and growth, while the junior team members cared more about my process.

Some tech companies also ask you to analyze data or come up with product ideas that fit a specific need. They might even ask you to write an entire product specification!

These “product specs” go far beyond 2- or 3-hour financial modeling tests; some could take days to finish.

Personally, I never continued the process with any company that asked for that much work because I thought it was unreasonable for full-time candidates.

Q: Which specific questions were the most common in these interviews?

A: The #1 question was “How would you prioritize the features of this product?”

They’ll give you scenarios where different teams request different features and ask you to walk through your thought process.

With those questions, I usually said that I prioritized features based on 1) Revenue, 2) User Experience, and 3) Development Effort. The best features are ones that improve both revenue and the user experience and require little effort to implement.

If two features required the same development effort, but one feature improved the user experience only a bit while boosting revenue significantly, and the other one did the opposite, I would prioritize the first one.

Other common questions relate to your style of working with the developers and designers.

For example, they might ask how you would speak with the developer if he/she were falling behind, or what you might do if the developers were not working well with the designers.

Finally, the “Tell me about yourself” question is still common.

Your templates and examples are good starting points, but you should be even more specific about how your plans fit into this company’s products and services since each tech company is very different (whereas banks, despite some differences, have similar work styles and cultures).

Q: Going back a bit, can you give us examples of shorter case studies you received in interviews?

A: In one case study, they gave me a 3-page product spec for an online education platform and asked me to expand on it and identify the top usability and development challenges.

In another, a food delivery startup gave me order data in Excel format and asked me to analyze it and make 2-3 product feature recommendations based on my findings.

And then in a third case study, a mobile gaming company asked general questions about entertainment platforms and narrative experiences I liked, and they asked me to break down the elements that made platforms compelling or not compelling.

On the Job, Moving Up, and Moving Out

Q: Thanks for that. Now that you’ve started, what has your average day been like?

A: I work from 9 AM to 6 PM in the office each day, and then another ~2 hours from home.

During the day, I have around 4-5 hours of meetings, so I have little time to write documents such as new product specs.

The meetings during the day are with the business team, designers, and developers, and I spend a lot of time making sure that everyone is aligned with each other and senior management.

When I work from home, I spend my time writing documents such as product specs, outlines for rollouts and launches, and development plans.

Q: How easy or difficult is it to advance?

A: It depends on what you want to do. Product management roles rarely lead to C-level executive positions, so if you want to become CEO, CFO, or CMO, you should work in a different group.

But you can definitely advance within product management, and the rough hierarchy is PM –> Senior PM –> Director of PM –> VP of PM –> Head of PM –> Head of Product.

The ease of advancement depends not only on your performance, but also on on the company’s growth – if the company is growing quickly, you can also advance quickly, even if you’re just average.

But if the company isn’t doing so well, advancement will be incredibly tough.

The process is very different from advancement at a large bank, where you move up every X years if you’ve done well enough.

Q: Do you think product management is a good option for finance professionals who want to switch into technology?

A: Potentially, yes, but it depends on your background and goals.

You will not have an advantage coming from a finance background because PM teams mostly recruit people with design, engineering, or industry experience.

That said, finance skills can be useful in growth-oriented PM roles when you need to understand the financial impact of new marketing campaigns and promotions.

If you have a finance background, you might want to focus on PM roles at fintech companies since you’ll understand the market far better than engineers and designers.

To do well in this role, you must be good at multitasking, keeping your composure, and communicating with different parties.

If you’re the highly analytical type who likes to scrutinize company’s filings for hours or build complex models and focus 100% on a single task, this is not the role for you.

But if you enjoy the “teamwork and communication” parts of IB, it might be a better fit.

Also, you have to accept a not-so-clear advancement path. As with other non-finance companies, you won’t see big jumps in compensation or equity unless you start a company or join a startup as an early employee.

Q: And is that in your future as well?

A: Yes, eventually I want to take another shot at starting my own company.

I picked a poor market the first time around and didn’t have much experience, but I’ve learned a lot about product development here, and I feel more confident now.

I still enjoy what I do every day, so this plan is at least a few years away.

Q: Great. Thanks for your time!

A: My pleasure.

The post From Finance to Product Management: How to Escape the Dungeon and Move into the Technology Industry appeared first on Mergers & Inquisitions.

from ronnykblair digest https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/finance-product-management/

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