• Coding

  • Software Engineer Career Path

Hello, I would like to have your opinion about the career path of a Software Engineer.

I have been a Software Engineer for 5 years, I started by coding day to day tasks, then I became the Team Leader, I started assigning tasks to other engineers.

Since then I've been dealing also in Business, I attend meetings with business analysts, and I have basically architected some small systems (not sure if I can be called a Solution Architect).

I am wondering what is my next step, what position should I aim for? Is it a Solution Architect? what if I wanna deal more into the business, what will I call myself? I don't wanna end up coding all my life.

Thanks.
ali.ba wroteI don't wanna end up coding all my life.
I don't think anyone can do that. However I believe that coding makes you a better boss.

For example, when you have spent years coding you are (hopefully) less vulnerable to the hype and bullshit, you know that software innovations often look great when you visit the "Getting started" page on their website, but when you start using them they will slow you down with additional complexity, bugs, etc. So you are less likely to burden your team with unnecessary complexities, and you are more likely to see who is really skilled and who is just pretending. However conveying that message to management is another story.

Coding helps you stay on top of things and be a better software architect, lead developer (which fits your description of you're doing now), CTO, whatever.

Anyway my advice is to take a moment and think about something you like other than software engineering (art, sociology, environment, travel, psychology, HR, economics, marketing, whatever), see if it overlaps with software engineering, think long term about going in that direction. It is possible that a while down the road you will get tired of software engineering altogether and start wondering about other things.

So anyway I know Lebanon is a small countries and the options are sparse however this is my opinion and I think it's worth considering.

Good luck.