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Why Is Being A Programmer A Good Career Choice?

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Steve Downing, Palantir Technologies Engineering Team Lead

I'm going to answer this from a Engineering in Silicon Valley perspective:

Being a programmer is like winning a goddamn game show every day:

  • You get to make things all day long in environments that are usually very fun and casual.
  • Companies are falling all over themselves to get good programmers (this has been true since at least 2005, but it's especially true right now).
  • If you're a good programmer and you want to get rich, Silicon Valley will make you rich eventually.

As for some specific concerns:

  • If you're not okay with working overtime, there are many big companies and government institutions that rarely ask that of their programmers.
  • Almost any job you can think of that doesn't involve manual labor will sit you in front of a computer all day. That said, I'm a fan of motorized desks that let you stand up.
  • I don't know what other career paths you're considering, but unless you're thinking about being a doctor, investment banker, or lawyer, you're probably not going to make more money than you would as a programmer. And I'm not sure about investment bankers or lawyers anymore.
  • Even weak programmers can make a good living in the United States.
  • Offshoring was over-reported when it first entered the public consciousness last decade. Among the relatively small number of companies who tried offshoring their entire software development operation, failure was widely reported.

A couple caveats:

  • If you dislike programming, a lot of the above won't apply.
  • If you work at a company whose main product isn't software, a lot of the above won't apply.

This question originally appeared on Quora. More questions on engineering in Silicon Valley: