There are literally thousands of career paths I could pursue. Why would I become a software developer?

It’s an important question because the career that I pursue will consume a significant portion of my waking hours. I will spend more hours working than I will spend with my family. So, this is an important decision.

The reality is that the right answer to “What made me want to be a developer?" will be different depending on everyone's circumstances.

There are many benefits of software development like the companies will provide me free food, a nice office, traveling, vacation, cycling, and collaboration. It's a high-demand skill, I can get a job easily, I can learn many things for FREE, etc.

But these are not the basic things. I can also live without them. These perks will only be present if I am present in a company but if I am fired, then the company is not my family to give me all the benefits.

Following points made me want to be a developer. 💻

There are three basic points that are based on my experiences. I kept these points in my mind and you should also keep these points in your mind while pursuing a rewarding and fulfilling career.

1. A career should be fun and interesting
2. It should provide me the flexibility to work remotely without going to an office
3. It should pay a good amount of money

I have decided to take the above three advantages for myself because only my family will support me in bad times.

1. Fun and Interesting Career 🕺

My Story 🤙

I didn't choose software development, it has chosen me, and I honestly like my work. For me, it was my childhood dream to work on a PC / laptop and today computer is my best friend. I spend the most time with it.

There is a story behind everything, and my story is no different from every science student, when I used to be in a bio lab I wanted to be a doctor and when I used to be in a physics lab I wanted to be a physics engineer but when the results were out, my grades were not allowing me to be a doctor or physics engineer. The only option left was computer science.

The college prioritized medical and other engineering majors except for computer science. Computer science was seen as a low-level major and it was also poorly delivered. That's why I dropped out and pursued computer science on my own.

Thank God, I learned so many things after dropping out.

I pursued a software development career because it is fun and interesting. For me, the thought of becoming an Accountant seems boring. Spending my life manipulating spreadsheets makes my neck hairs stand up.

In the beginning, I tried many things like web development, machine learning, cybersecurity, and much more. I spent a lot of money and time on courses and was a victim of tutorial hell.

After so much time, I found Golang and loved this language. I searched the use cases of Golang and found that it is used in DevOps. So I decided to pursue my career as a DevOps engineer. I also came to know about Open source and how you can contribute to the projects and get recognized. I found a really interesting community on Twitter and learned many things from them.

I love writing software, and if I didn’t get paid for doing it, I would do it anyway (just probably not as much). 🤣🤣There are few people on this planet who love their jobs as much as I love mine.

Some problems

In software development, I get stuck also. There are moments as a software developer when I am locked on a specific problem and time seems to slow down and everything else losses its importance.

Some people refer to this as getting into the flow. When I wake from one of these flow sessions, I am enveloped with a feeling that can only be described as pure joy.

Glassdoor Survey 📖

It is proven that if you enjoy your work then you can be ranked higher. It is not just me but the people who enjoyed their jobs are ranked higher.

Check out this list of the best jobs in the US.

Glassdoor made a list of the “top 50 jobs,” and they're ranked by a combination of jobs available, salary, and job satisfaction.

I counted them. The first 12 software-related jobs were present in the top 50 jobs, and most had between 4.0 to 4.3 out of 5 job satisfaction.

So that implies that most people are satisfied with their jobs, so I'd say they probably like their jobs.

Hard Truth

Although I am jobless. I love learning new things and I am progressing in my journey to get a nice job that will of course follow the three requirements that are mentioned above.

2. Remote Work 🧑‍💼

I am preferring remote work because in my childhood I traveled a lot with my family because my father was a government employee and we were compelled to go with him. It was not a vacation, it was just a job in which my father was not also happy.

I had a question always in mind, is there a way that I can get rid of this situation and just sit in my home comfortably?

I didn't like traveling because it was a new experience for me and most of the places were not good and fit for a vacation. People were different, their languages were different and as a child, I was not used to it. I had no brother and I was also away from my other relatives to spend time with them.

That's the reason that I spent most of my childhood alone and now I am prioritizing my family to live with them. That's also a reason that I included this point in my blog to show you that traveling is not suitable every time. Sometimes you do it for fun and that's great but sometimes you do it because there is no other option.

But today, the world is changed, and it provided us an opportunity to work from home. Here are some benefits of remote work.

What are the benefits of remote work? ✨

The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on working environments, particularly the possibility of working remotely. According to a GetAbstract survey, almost 43% of full-time employees in America wanted to work remotely even after the covid is passed.

Remote work has many benefits:

• Choose your workplace yourself

Goodbye offices. Now there is no need to be in an office if the same work can be done in a home by wearing your pajama. I have seen the stress of my father. Now I can say how much it is important.

• Greater productivity

One well-known study from 2014 led by Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom examined remote workers at a Chinese travel agency and found that they were 13 percent more efficient than their office-based peers.

• More time with family

I personally love this point because I haven't spent more time with friends and relatives. I can even write a whole blog on this topic only but here I just want to say that:

Families benefit from open two-way communication that is loving, understanding, and patient. They share their activities together. Happy families share a feeling of togetherness. Families are made up of different individuals with different needs but they encourage each other to try new things and take an active interest in each other’s hobbies.

3. Lots of Money 💰

The third requirement for a good career is money.

Let’s be honest with each other; money is significant to the happiness and fulfillment of your life.

• Q. Is money more important than family?

• A. No… of course not!

• Q. Is money more important than time with loved ones?

• A. Again, no way!

Some of the wealthiest people walking around the planet generated their wealth from software (Bill Gates & Mark Zuckerberg).

Developers provide values 🎁

A life without Google, Facebook, Windows, Amazon, and smartphones—this is a world that seems almost unthinkable today. Technology has transformed society, but how much have software engineers contributed to that?

Software engineers impact society by making life easier and more convenient through the programs and applications they create. They design digital tools to help address problems, improve communication, simplify tasks, and store data. Moreover, they help catalyze society’s development.

During the pandemic, a significant challenge was how to reduce face-to-face interactions to contain the virus better. People shifted to online setups to avoid virus exposure, but they could only successfully transition because of useful and effective software.

ZOOM, Slack, Google Meet, ClickUp, and Google Workspace are just a few of the applications and programs workers use and benefit from as they work online.

• Software Engineers Improve Communication

Communication has taken a leap from ancient messengers and slow mail. Now, it only takes seconds for a friend to get your Twitter dm or Facebook message. One can now hold online classes through Zoom or Google Meet video calls.

• Software Engineers Help in the Storage of Large and Accessible Data

Businesses and companies rely heavily on data. They use it to analyze trends and make critical decisions. I even benefit from these large troves of information through Google, Facebook, and other platforms that allow us to retrieve data in mere seconds.

I also take advantage of Cloud storage(Google Drives, etc) that can store many gigabytes of files.

• Software Engineers Help Catalyze the Development of Society

The work that software engineers do has no doubt helped in the overall development of society. We have come from an era where computers were non-existent to a world where these gadgets have made tasks that take months to happen in a few minutes or years. The software allows for the automation of tasks and speeds up many processes.

Because of software’s convenience and advantages, many businesses and sectors have adapted to it. That is why software engineers are in demand even beyond the technological industry.

By providing so much value, software developer deserves a good amount of money. Those who think that sitting in front of the computer is easy should try it. Especially when you're not using social media but instead solving algorithmic problems.

After the money is provided to the software developer, its importance should also be provided.

Why money is important? 🤑

There are a lot of opinions about money. On one side of the spectrum, there’s the idea that money is “the root of all evil” and that “it can’t buy happiness.” On the other, there’s a massive financial industry made of wealth-building experts vying for your attention. The fact is that – like it or not – money is important.

• Money is linked to happiness

It seems that the old proverb “Money can’t buy happiness” isn’t true. A famous study in 2010 showed that life satisfaction increases with income. Interestingly, they found that emotional well-being (which along with life satisfaction measures happiness) plateaued when people were earning $75,000.

• Money helps families support each other

When people succeed in life, they’ve most likely had help. Many get financial help from their family. When Jeff Bezos started Amazon, his parents gave him $300,000. Even in families where a member isn’t a billionaire, exchanges of money are common. The more money a person has, the more helpful they can be to family members or friends in need.

• Having money helps you make money

When you look at articles that focus on how a 30-year-old became a millionaire, odds are you’ll see more than just “they worked really hard” or “they landed a high-paying job.” The vast majority of the time, they’ve had a big financial boost somewhere along the way. Oftentimes, it’s from buying real estate or investing in the stock market.

Final thoughts

Engineers, in general, provide a higher value to products and services than plumbers or hospitality workers do. That means that there is more money to pay engineers and flexible hours to give to work from anywhere. There is also the fact that there are fewer folks capable of doing engineering of any type than for most lower-paying jobs. If the above three things are provided then the employees will happily work.

If you pursue software development as a career, and if you stick with it, you will make plenty of money and you can enjoy the flexibility of remote work by touring the world also.

This article is published as my #week1 article for the Hashnode #4articles4weeks Writeathon.

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Thank you.