Is programming a good career?
I've got some mixed thoughts on this.
I was a software developer for 15 years, now I run some online businesses, Simple Programmer
being one of them.
I don't really write code anymore, but let me tell you what has gotten me to where I
am in life.
Just so you know I'm retired.
I retired at 33 years old, I'm multi-millionaire, and I get to kind of live the lifestyle that
I want to live.
What has gotten me there has been being a programmer.
What's up John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com, so I have some mixed thoughts on this, and
it depends on where you are in life.
In general, I would say that, yes, programming, being a software developer, being a software
engineer, all those things are really good careers, but you have to be smart about what
you do, you have to be smart about what you do with your money, and you have to consider
some of the alternative option.
As far as just like an enjoyable job, I really don't think there's a much more enjoyable
job.
I have to say, even with what I'm doing now, even creating YouTube videos I had a lot more
fun writing code, figuring things out, creating.
Creating things like that.
Definitely as far as rewarding, working with people solving difficult problems.
Programming is a career that is a lot more interesting than a lot of alternatives out.
It's always gonna be a new challenge, you're always learning new things, so if you're interested
in that from that perspective, yes, it's great.
Now, if you're interested in making some money, okay.
There's a couple of things to consider here.
A software development career is very high paying career.
You can make a lot of money, you can get right out of high school, and make a six figure
job.
It's possible, not everyone does that, okay?
If you wanna know how to do that make sure you click the subscribe button, and join the
channel, because there's a lot of information here on the YouTube channel as well as on
the website go to simpleprogrammer.com especially in the members section.
Just making a six figure salary that's not enough.
That's not going to make you rich, you're not gonna become a millionaire.
I would not have gotten to where I am in life if I had just stop there.
What I learned in my career was building a brand, marketing myself, creating the original
Simple Programmer blog, by the way, it's been 10 years now since I started that blog.
It's our 10 year anniversary this year.
That is what really allowed me to make a lot more money, to skyrocket my career, and to
open up a lot of other opportunities.
I've recorded about 55 courses for the company Pluralsite, and I got a huge amount of money
from them.
I got a huge amount of royalties that really contributed to my net worth, but that was
teaching people programming.
So, it's not enough just to be a software developer or a programmer.
What you really wanna do, you need to learn how to market yourself, to not just increase
your development skills, but to figure out how else can you utilize this skill set.
If you're a software developer, you have the option of doing freelancing.
You can charge at one point, I was charging $300 an hour to write code, and once you have
that ability, you can also take that to a consultant role, and come into companies and
consult on software development, engineering, and architecture best practices, and you could
be charging 500 to 1000 bucks an hour.
You could be giving classes.
You can go in, and you could give classes, training classes.
I had a good buddy of mine that used to do a backbone class, a JavaScript backbone class,
and he would go in there, and he would make $20, 000 in a day teaching this class.
There's a lot of other options, you gotta think outside the box.
The career is great, and there's great opportunities there, but you gotta figure out what else
you can do.
Another thing you can do is you can build a business.
People like Mark Zuckerberg, and the guys that created Snapchat, or Uber, or all those
guys, they were developers.
A lot of them came from Google, and from different companies in Silicon Valley, and they started
their own company, and they wrote the code, and they created a new thing, and they made
a lot of money doing that, so you've got a lot of options.
Don't just think that you have to be just a career developer.
There's a lot of options when you go down this path, and like I said, you don't even
have to be one forever.
I've got some coaching clients that I have that are programmers, but they don't like
programming.
That's not their passion, it's fine, but they do it anyway, and they get paid $150, 000
a year, and what do they do with the money?
They invest it in real estate, they invest in their business.
They use that to be able to create the kind of life that they want, to be able to invest
in other areas, so that they can eventually leave that job, and they can have their own
business, they can have their real estate investments, they can have passive income,
so that's another option as well.
If you become a programmer, you can love the job.
It's a lot of fun.
I think it is as well, you can make good money, even if you just stay there your whole career
you'll do well, you'll do well, but you can take that, and you can take those skills,
and you can make it into something more.
You can start a freelancing business, you can start a consulting business, you can go,
and you can create books, you can create video courses, and tutorials, and training, and
sell products.
You can do all that kind of stuff.
That's what I did with my knowledge of programming.
Tapping a very high pain career is lucrative.
It makes a lot of things easier.
If you look at someone who's making like 30, $40, 000 a year, and they wanna try to invest
in real estate, or they wanna start a business, and all that, they're kinda handicapped, but
if you got someone, like some of my clients in Silicon Valley making 150, $200, 000 a
year, they can drop $50, 000 a year into starting a new business, or investing in some real
estate, and so they've got a lot more chances for success.
Overall, yes.
Programming, good career.
Now, I'll say one last thing about this, which is that if your whole idea is that you just
wanna have passive income, and you wanna be an entrepreneur, then maybe you skip that,
and maybe you just start building a business.
That's the only thing I would say against it, but there's really no reason why if you're
inclined to do it, and you can do programming that you shouldn't learn it, and you shouldn't
at least give it a try, and like I said, you can use those skills in entrepreneurship in
a business as well.
Leave a thumbs up if you don't mind.
I'll talk to you next time.
Take care.