In my professional career as a software engineer/developer/coder I've noticed something about my peer group. We're all really good at talking about recursion, and APIs and SDKs and IDEs and all kinds of other TLAs. But something that most of my colleagues really seem to struggle with (myself included) comes in the form of the soft skills that we need to employ. After all, even though we love telling computers what to do in very specific terminology, I'm fairly certain we also love getting paid for doing it. Whether you're running a successful software business, or just running your own personal brand - engineering has a business side. That's where this blog comes in - it's my observations and recommendations about how those of us who didn't really get why someone would get a business school major really could benefit from some background in business education, and reflection, too.
So, why should you care about what I'm writing?
I have two majors from business school, and one from the math and computer science department. Most of the time when I was in my B-School classes, the people there were agitated with me for being a curve-breaker. Most of the time when I was in my Computer Science classes I'd bring up something like KPI or ROI and my classmates would look at me like I'd grown a second head. And, the whole time my professors on both sides wished they could convince some of my classmates to cross boundaries, even just a little bit. My training in management and leadership combined with my love of technology really shapes the way I see professional software engineering. I've been in the workforce for 8 years, I've held 4 jobs, and every single time I changed jobs my salary raised by 25% or more. My last raise was 35%. And my employer seems very happy to have me on the team for my current salary.
But, money isn't everything. You just love writing code.
Good, so do I. Code is really cool. It makes robotic vacuum cleaners work. It protects patients during robot assisted surgery. It flies drones. It turns on and off light bulbs. But, all of those things are part of the economy that we live in - and they all deserve to make our own personal economies a little bit better. Just because you love what you do shouldn't mean you have to live in a cardboard box (with WiFi) to do it. Right now the demand for highly talented software engineers is at an all time high. There's no reason why we shouldn't take advantage of the economic principle of increased demand and earn what we should be, because after all - the market will bear it.
A very brief background
I'm a devoted Christian (first). Second, I'm a devoted husband and father of 3 wonderful girls. Third, I write software and get paid well doing it.
Did I Miss Anything?
I'm always open to answer any questions you might have about anything. I try to be an open book when it comes to my career goals and to the things I write about. If you'd like to know more about me, don't hesitate to email me at jason@businessofengineering.com, or drop me a line on LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, or Twitter.
