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Xray down here just isn't lucrative enough for my "hobbies" so... I have a favor to ask of you tech savvy peeps, and feel free to keep numbers rounded

1. I am looking at software engineer good,bad or indifferent? please explain
2. I hear pay is roughly 80K alot more than the 40+K i make here
3. what do you do? how much school? avg pay?
4. enjoy doing what you do? long hours?
5. Free time? more than just long hours kinda like do you pull call?


that is all i ask, please help me out here, i consider myself somewhat tech savvy, but not Sabre... I mean Uber nerd... sorry Julian you are the only one i know well enough that won't get offernded by my sarcasm

being in the graphic design field i cant personally offer sage advice..however being someone who has very briefly studied in the field and someone who has spent time talking to people in this field... this much i can tell you...


this is definetly a 4 year degree minimum field..something along the lines of computer science or some programming degree... extra certifications would be a plus... while you probably arent really expected to do much coding yourself you will most likely be required to have to know everything the programmers know so you can both work on the same page....

expect lots and lots of overtime since your work will consist of projects with deadlines....that includes working weekends...

i think you pretty much were right about the pay but im not 100% sure...


anyways... hope this can shed some light until the "uber-nerds" can make their posts

not worried about school, although I am not sure I want to deal with all these certfications

1) I've only been in the feild 6 months so this is MHO. I like the work, although some times it gets really boring (like any job). However, i do enjoy trying to engineer X to do Y that no one has done before (well at least not publicly). There is nothing better than having that mountian of work done with and having the end user happy.... however, there is nothing worse than having that mountian dumped in your lap just before the demo
2) 80K? I wish! well granded i just started fresh out of school with a BS. So I'm making south of 60... which is ok for now. We'll see in a few years after i get some things squared away.
3a)Software Engineer 1 baby! (read that as Jr Code monkey / Bitch)
3b) 4 years spent in hell for a flimsy piece of paper that says BS on it...
3c) not enough to live on really, but enough to sink into hobbies
4a) Yes
4b) can be, depending on the work load.
5a) Enough to work on two cars, have a part time gig and post here
5b) SE's are hardly ever "on call"


SE's can be a WIDE veriaty (sp? remember i was not an englich major) of people. Lately I've been thinking about continuing an SE track into requirements engineering. I would have to write stuff and talk to nerds and clients a like... but we'll see.

Right now I'm just a Jr code monkey

Hmm... maybe I should get in to coding. Nah!

WANGAN_X wrote: 1. I am looking at software engineer good,bad or indifferent? please explain
2. I hear pay is roughly 80K alot more than the 40+K i make here
3. what do you do? how much school? avg pay?
4. enjoy doing what you do? long hours?
5. Free time? more than just long hours kinda like do you pull call?

i consider myself somewhat tech savvy, but not Sabre... I mean Uber nerd... sorry Julian you are the only one i know well enough that won't get offernded by my sarcasm

lol, no worries, I actually consider that a complement

I actually just got back into the Software Engineering side of things. before this, I was a System Administrator (Unix and Windows) that dabbled in writting shell scripts and such to make my life easier.

1.) SE is probably where you want to be. There are two tracks that people usually follow in college if they want to be a coder moneky: Computer Science and Computer Engineering. The first is strictly coding, while the second gives you some hardware experience too.

2.) Pay is based on your education and experience. There is no way that anyone breaking into the field will make 80k in the first few years. It does have the possibility to go that high and higher though depending on your skills and where you are located.

3.) Right now I'm a software engineer. I have my undergrad and Masters in Electrical Engineering. When I got out of my Masters program (back in 2002), I made in the 60's IIRC.

4.) I enjoy it The hours are not too bad. As Ross said, the hours can be long, but that is a function of where and who you work for more than anything. If they are organized, then usually things flow pretty well.

5.) Since you're on a computer, you definitely have a decent amount of free time. The nicest thing is you can multi-task all day to keep your wits about you

You can work for my company to get a teste of it. If you can pick up things fast in .Net and DB access, we could put you to work.

At your own risk.

I'll stick to my batch files and cron jobs. I never really hang of "while loops" and giant scripts that look like I just converted a picture in to text still freak me out.

thanks for the feedback... there are just too many liscenses and new ones coming out everyday, I am going with BA BS instead... more $$$... which is #1 on my list of importance

although SE is something I am not going to rule out... just for now it won't be my first BS

WANGAN_X wrote:thanks for the feedback... there are just too many liscenses and new ones coming out everyday, I am going with BA BS instead... more $$$... which is #1 on my list of importance

although SE is something I am not going to rule out... just for now it won't be my first BS

education is the best bet to make more money

Be careful with one thing thou: Software Engineer does not always equal Coder/Programmer. The question is do you want to be an architect, make it pretty and do the big picture stuff, or do you want to be a construction worker and actually get down into the details. Different people think different ways. I have some guys we consider SEs that have computer science degrees, and some guys we consider coders that have SE degrees. I'd focus on what you want to do, and then find the right degree for it.

spazegun2213 wrote:

WANGAN_X wrote:thanks for the feedback... there are just too many liscenses and new ones coming out everyday, I am going with BA BS instead... more $$$... which is #1 on my list of importance

although SE is something I am not going to rule out... just for now it won't be my first BS

education is the best bet to make more money

tru dat, quick degrees are even better...

If I could do it all over again, I would have gotten a BS in EE instead of CS...maybe minor in CS or double major in CS.

There are so many more jobs for EE than CS (even though there is a lot of CS jobs).

Electronic Engineering?

WANGAN_X wrote:Electronic Engineering?

EE = Electrical Engineering to be exact...but yeah, same thing.

lol, once I told someone that my major was EE.... they thought I meant Elementry Education!

i put that first, but since we are talking about comps, i changed it