Do you know when it’s time to change careers and if software development is the right path for you?

Precious Akams
3 min readJun 21, 2022

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How to know its time to make a career switch

There are so many ways of knowing it’s time for a career switch, but some major indicators are.

Your job is harming your self-esteem.

Low self esteem cycle

If you are starting to doubt yourself and your work, something drastic needs to change in your working environment. Staying in a job that makes you feel bad about yourself as a person is never worth it, regardless of the pay or benefits. A rewarding career should boost your confidence and self-esteem, not the opposite.

You’re bored at work.

bored at work

You were enthusiastic about your job when you first started it, but now you’re second-guessing your career choices and fantasizing about changing careers. You’re exhausted physically, emotionally, and socially as a result of your job, and you spend the entire day waiting for it to end. If money is the only reason you continue to show up for work, you need to make a change.

How to know if software development is the right career for you

This is not an exhaustive list but some indicators are

A commitment to learning.

education

Software engineers are constantly learning new things, and if you’re not learning, your skills will become obsolete in a matter of years. The majority of software solutions are released as MVPs (minimal viable products) Then they stay in a constant state of beta, where software engineers use user feedback and intuition to improve it. Being a lifelong learner is essential in software engineering.

The ability to collaborate with others.

collaboration

Coding is often solitary work, but it is almost always done within the context of a larger team. It emphasizes collaboration with others on the team, communicating goals and strategies, and working with others to solve a problem. The ability to collaborate with others is one of the most important skills you need to have to succeed as a software engineer.

You have a natural talent for problem-solving.

If you enjoy looking at problems and trying to figure out which angle to approach them from, software development could be a great career for you. Creating technology that solves a user’s problem is an important part of software development. There is also a lot of problem-solving involved in the actual work.

A logical, analytical frame of mind.

Possessing a logical and analytical mindset enables you to simplify a complex set of instructions. It also gives you the ability to make data-driven decisions rather than emotional ones. The best software engineers will write far less code than their peers to achieve the same goal.

jump off the cliff

If you’re feeling stuck in your current job, make a change, learn and try something new, watch some tutorials, and eventually take that scary step and jump off the cliff; who knows, you might end up in paradise. In conclusion, money should never be the only motivator for a career.

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Precious Akams
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Full-Stack Web Developer: JavaScript, NodeJS, Rails, React, Redux, Making a difference, one commit at a time.