Software Engineering's Unpopular Realities | Generated by AI
QuestionQuestion:** What are some unpopular opinions about choosing software engineering as a career?
Answer:
Here are some genuinely unpopular (or at least contrarian) opinions about software engineering as a career choice in 2025–2026. These are the takes you’ll get down-voted for on Reddit/Hacker News but that a sizable minority of experienced engineers quietly believe:
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It’s already commoditized for most people. The “learn to code” boom + bootcamps + AI tools have flooded the junior/mid-level market. Unless you’re in the top ~10–15% of talent or specialize early (systems, ML infra, crypto, HFT, etc.), you’re competing with millions of replaceable leetcoders and cheap offshore teams. The golden days of “six figures straight out of a bootcamp” are largely over in the West.
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The pay is good but plateauing hard outside FAANG-tier or elite startups. Senior engineer total comp in most companies (even well-known ones) tops out around $300–450k in high-CoL cities once you’re 10–15 YOE, and that’s before taxes and layoffs. Many other professions (medicine, law partners, finance, plumbing/HVAC business owners, sales in enterprise SaaS) have higher upside or more stability at that experience level.
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Burnout is the default, not the exception. The industry glorifies 50–60-hour weeks, constant context-switching, and “move fast and break things” culture. Most people who stay 20+ years either go into management (a completely different job) or coast in low-stress government/contractor gigs that pay half of Big Tech.
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AI coding assistants are making mid-level engineering boring. Copilot and successors are removing a lot of the “fun” problem-solving that attracted people in the 2000s–2010s. A lot of the job is now gluing together libraries, reviewing PRs, and writing tests — intellectually closer to high-end IT than the “creative inventor” image people still have.
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Layoffs have destroyed the illusion of stability. Entire seniority levels get wiped out every downturn (2022–2023, 2025 waves). You can be a high performer with 8 YOE making $600k+ and still get RIF’d with two weeks’ severance. That risk is priced in nowhere near enough when people say “just get into tech, it’s safe money.”
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The skills age terribly if you don’t keep learning 10–20 hours/week outside work. Compare that to many trades, medicine, or even accounting — once you’re licensed or a journeyman, your knowledge doesn’t become obsolete every 18–36 months.
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Remote work is a trap for career growth. Fully distributed teams promote based on visibility and narrative, not just output. If you’re fully remote and not already well-known, you’re almost always passed over for staff+ roles compared to people who occasionally show up in person and glad-hand.
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Most people would be happier (and still make solid money) in adjacent roles — DevOps/SRE at a stable company, solutions architect, technical program manager, or even just “regular” IT at a big corporation with a pension. Pure software engineering has become a young person’s game with a short half-life.
In short: software engineering is still a top-5 career choice if you’re naturally brilliant at it and love the craft, but for the average smart person it’s oversold, overhyped, and increasingly a treadmill with golden handcuffs.
References:
- The 2025 Software Engineering Job Market – A Sobering Thread (Hacker News discussion, Feb 2025)
- Levels.fyi 2025 Compensation Data (shows senior+ plateau outside top companies)
- Blind threads on 2024–2025 layoffs (ongoing anonymous industry sentiment)