Views on career
I wish I could have been born earlier, in time to experience what I've come to see as the golden days of computer science: When it was an uncool, mathy field of scientific study. Today, the deeper I go, the more disillusioned I become with the public expectations surrounding this subject.
Software engineering. What a name! An engineering job for something that can't be touched, walked upon, or lived in. Popular culture basically made a synonymous tie between it and computer science. In grade school I told myself I'd become a software engineer, following the footsteps of my father. But it turned into something of a label I put on myself. Now this label is losing its glamor to me. I'm trying to peel it off.
What does a software engineer really do? Well, I had my dad to ask for that. An entry level engineer starts by code-monkeying around in accordance to whatever orders they get. Then as they move up, they begin working on larger projects. At a certain point, there's a split. Some engineers begin shifting towards people management, while others stay on the software track and work on even larger projects. My father stayed on the software track. At this point, he rarely writes code himself and instead architects projects, delegating specific work to others.
The day he told me that only confirmed much of the conclusions I had drawn while watching him work at home during the pandemic. I didn't think much of it then, but reflecting on it now, it really is an unglamorous job. As an entry level programmer, you work on tiny increments to some huge project, where what you do is largely out of your control. Moving up, the workplace bureaucracy creeps into your day, and eventually fills it. Meetings, meetings, meetings. My dad was practically mic'd up the entire day. Project management. Agile Scrum whatever. How ironic is it that, to me, the career becomes less appealing the more senior one rises.
And that's just software engineering like it is in general. To me, the trends are even worse.
Startup culture. How is it possible for people to be so obnoxious? Everything is an AI this and that. And of course, you'll have to pay a monthly subscription for it. Was there ever a time when startups were made to solve actual societal problems? Every startup influencer and podcast guest I see today is like another clone of the money-eyes emoji, talking in their equally obnoxious Silicon Valley jargon. It feels like, rather than solving problems, they imagine problems and use them to pitch solutions nobody asked for.
There was this one guy making headlines everywhere. A certain person whose claim to fame was an interview cheating app. Most people already understand that software engineering teaches a completely new skillset apart from what a computer science degree might give you. But data structures and algorithms? Actual problem solving? If there's one thing a CS degree might teach you, it's that. How can you hate interview problems (and be so unwilling to improve at them) so much that you need an AI on your shoulder to make it through? How can people claiming to be passionate about computer science have such disdain for something that is almost purely computer sciency? Maybe the worst thing (for me) is that I'll get passively lumped in with these kinds of people as well.
Anyways, peoples' perception of software engineering have dampened as of now. So it's no longer that six figures golden job. From what I see and hear, it seems the next trendy job is quantitative trading. It's a very adjacent job, and in fact quant firms hire for software engineering roles as well.
Of course, with that comes all of the gripes I have with software engineering right now. But for quant firms specifically, I have another concern. Would I be happy with the work I do? Even in the biggest, most soulless tech corporations, the end goal is to build some product that is used by some people, to fulfill some need in the world. I don't think quant firms do any of that. At their core, it seems they are just huge, money-making operations. And instead of making things to receive value in exchange, they make nothing at all and try to dig up value itself. And they are really good at that. But I would really hope my career do something actually useful for society, rather than shuffle money around.
It's particularly sad to see the amount of talent that works for these firms. If you took any math and computer science competitions in the past decade, you'd probably see the primary sponsors are quant firms. Since they hound after the analytical skills of people who do well on such competitions. Recently I was watching the ICPC North America Finals (programming competition), and mid-livestream there was even an advertisement by a prominent quant firm. There, they showed how so many alumni of this prestigious programming competition were working in their ranks. How depressing is that? The top CS and mathematical talents of the world routinely get snagged by these companies with compensations unmatchable by any organization that still has its soul. These are people who have the talent to seriously impact the world, but instead are made to dig out money for a company that cares nothing about the surrounding world. I strongly despise it, morally. Interestingly, among students at my university, which is actually very well known for producing quants, this opinion isn't that unpopular.
With the popular avenues exhausted, that leaves the question: What do I want to do?
I still have a lot of hope. Right now, my first choice is to go into academia. I love computer science for the problem solving. On afternoons I like to toy with competition programming problems. I wouldn't be doing that if I didn't think it was fun. Academia appears to be a tough path, but it looks like even outside of it, I can still stay on the research side of things, as many tech corporations have research divisions of their own.
My opinion on quant was largely based on my idea of societal benefit. A natural question I asked myself was: What societal benefit would research have? Would working on some very obscure topic really benefit society? To that, I have a rudimentary answer. Math, and more recently, computer science, have both advanced to a point where the work of an individual, or even an entire lab, will rarely have a truly groundbreaking impact. But still, there is benefit to be found in any sort of incremental gain in human knowledge. That's kind of the beauty of research. No matter how little help you provide in your lifetime, it's always nonzero and positive.
But I'll also keep my doors open. I was probably more vitriolic here than I actually meant. As a freshman, there's a lot I can do. So I'll try out the internships. In fact, I'm applying for some of them now. Some summer internship applications open up an entire year prior. Isn't that crazy? I thought I was done once I finished my college applications. Anyways, I'll play the software engineering game. Just this one time, or two times, or... maybe I'll come to like it, and play it for the rest of my career.