What would a typical career path look like for a software engineer?
I'm wondering what my career path would look like if I became a software engineer. What exactly does an entry level job look like? How long would it be before I'd be able to get a better job? What is the most senior position you can have as a software engineer? #engineering #technology #software-engineering
4 answers
Iliya’s Answer
A large portion of this depends on the company you work at. Some of the larger companies you end up having to spend multiple years proving yourself and slowly move up in the ranks. This is due to the mass amount of engineers working at these companies and the fact that you tend to be promoted based on merit rather than just time spent at working there. Typically the work you do at a lower rank will be more isolated to small tasks that can be done in a day or two and as you move up in the ranks you get to work on larger tasks or whole systems that may require planning architecture and development and may span weeks worth of work. At that point you yourself usually have to make a decision, do you want to continue on the development path or do you go the management route both these paths are similar in progression and pay but one requires high level design and architecture that will be used for core systems while the other requires meeting and working with people.
On the other hand if you end up in a small start up the career path can be drastically different starting with the fact that most startups have a pretty flat hierarchy so no real growth as you would traditionally expect it. A startup atmosphere requires everyone to pull their weight and then some, you might end up doing work which would otherwise be way above your pay-grade and are expected to pick thing up on the fly. If the startup succeeds you are going to have a great bullet point on your resume which you can use to get hired on at a higher position in established companies (if you ever need to). If it fails then you might end up having to bite the bullet and take a drop in status to get hired on somewhere as you don't really have much on paper to prove your worth. Having said that if you're a great engineer and you can prove yourself your growth rate will most likely be faster than someone who came in with no experience at all so it's not a complete wash.
Frank’s Answer
I don't think there is really a typical pathway. I went through software engineering, through V&V, and into quality and writing international standards. Some folks stay in dev, others go straight to test.
I think maybe you might want to consider what interests you? Our profession is one of much breadth and depth.
John’s Answer
Bigger companies tend to offer career paths that are aligned to management and a separate career path aligned to individual contributor career paths. The "individual contributor" path in your case would be Software Engineer. There are two common career paths I have seen for technical people:
1) Remain technical and progress through the ranks as your technical achievements gain recognition. Patents are a great way to have your technical achievements recognized across the whole industry, not just within your chosen company. The company I work for allows for technical growth through Senior Technician, Distinguished Engineer, Technical Fellow. Technical Fellow is equivalent to Senior Vice President - so a very senior and respected position.
2) As your experience grows, often there is opportunity to take on a "Technical Team Leader" role - sometimes that is a path to transition from technical work into management. Often, people that have come from a technical background retain a lot of their technical knowledge and use that to inform their decision making process - especially if they continue to manage engineering teams.
For my own experience, I grew through the technical track for about 20 years before transitioning fully into engineering management. To help me to gain the necessary skills to succeed with the transition, I completed a Master's degree in engineering management.
Based on my experience, it is ok to start out technical and then transition into a different career path!
