[m3talsmith]

Senior Software Engineer and Team Lead for a Analytics Contractor. Pretty highly paid.

I put together teams around projects, mentor juniors, and build cross project teams to fix architectural problems. My favorite part is actually teaching juniors and watching them grow. I live for that!

My advice is to find a niche that you love and stay away from industries that stress you out. There are a ton of different sub industries in SWE.

I would definitely stay clear of startups if you don’t handle stress well: startups and failing companies are the worst and for the same reason – they are both in a financial free fall trying to gain a new lease on life.

[brundolf]

It depends on what stresses you out. I have a lot of savings (so not hugely stressed about income stability, relative to other factors) and my chief sources of stress at work include feeling lost in an enigmatic codebase and feeling like I don't have the power to make things better, so working at smaller companies or even startups tends to be less stressful for me.

[garbene]

Feeling lost in an enigmatic codebase. God, I hate that feeling.

My very first day as a software engineer, my boss had me pull down a massive code base, showed me the backlog, and told me to get to work. No training, no mentor. Years later, and I still only have a faint idea what that goddamn program did. Stuff of nightmares.

[xupybd]

Ha that was my job for many years. Training and mentoring is not something you I've experienced in the software industry.