Hope I didn't discourage anyone with this video. Just trying to be honest about making money with code. Let me know what you think about the video and tell me how you're making money with code!
Fwiw, I'm actually En-couraged by your thoughts. I've been writing code for a few years now and I just like that I'm not alone in that "ugh, office toxicity sucks!" thought. I seem to manage to stay tangential to the "deadlines" (thus far) but on the flip side, when "the dishes are done, man!" happens, I still have to report a weekly "something" to the customer. Been basically making my own work for a bit, now. There is a blogger named Erik Dietrich (I think is the spelling). He speaks to freelancing as well. He echo's your thoughts, saying "All those layers of management you don't like? They're also what is responsible for all the things you don't have to worry about as an employee (marketing, taxes, payroll, etc) but have to do all yourself as a freelancer." To that end, awesome, eye-opening clip on the reality of writing code (or any job, really). That said, if one CAN get past that initial "find the customers" grind, I think it could be rewarding! And I think I'd still take that grind over the "spreadsheets, powerpoints and meetings" one any day!
“Telling people they can make money, makes YOU a lot of money on the internet.” That is the realest thing I have heard all year!! Subscribed! Thank you for this video.
Dan Lok taught me this a long time ago. This guy kept on pumping these how to make money videos, and courses too. Of course something was always off about him to me and I never really invested much in him. Then I asked myself a question and it clicked : “where is Dan getting his money from?”
@@fillipusshivute t's not a truth. It's a possible outcome, and highly depends on the person' encouragement, others in their life, luck of the draw (but that can only hold you back for just so long). The truth is, you get out what you put in. The last few generations have become more and more "entitled" which means they feel they do not have to put much into their life's path because someone will give them what they think they deserve.
I was in IT for 16 years. Big companies, small companies, a startup, some freelancing. This video is 100% correct. This is the most realistic take on getting into IT that Ive ever seen. I got into IT because of passion, but working for someone else will suck the passion right out of you. Find a job that pays the bills and that you can tolerate, but keep your passion stuff as a hobby and you can keep it fulfilling. That's my 2 cents ... which is essentially what Dorian is saying... It's good advice, from real life experience... fwiw
I worked at a MSP for 2 years, gained a ton of experience in exchange for my loss of interest in the field. Got burnt out in 2020 with all of the work from home clients. Quit my job and took a break for an entire year.
@@rayrobinsongonzaga6297 thank you for sharing that concept! I wasn't aware it exists. I belief people would do better in worklife when they would know about this concept.
25 years of experience here, and I can tell you, everything he’s saying is 100% on the nose. The waves of burnout are real. The plateaus are real. That said, if you have a passion for learning and solving problems with code… it’s worth it. And it does get easier. Software development is a craft. Even five years isn’t enough to master it. Hell, 25 years isn’t enough. But, that’s what’s thrilling about it. The learning never stops.
Yeah. It’s not you’ll ever have a deadline or do work you don’t like. Find clients is so easy. All need is 6 months and your financial stress will go away😏
Retirement for some people becomes their bondage in poverty because they failed to invest with the little they have on their active years of working, this is an error we need to start working on now, I’ll advise that while you still can work and earn also take some money aside and invest in your future after retirement so this classification won’t have to be yours
I've spent 30 years flinging code, and Dorian is spot on. It can be a rewarding and lucrative career. For me success came when I had the experience to choose who I worked for, and could use my skills and abilities to work towards both of our goals of building a better world, all while working for a company where there is mutual trust and respect. There is nothing better at the end of the day than to say to yourself, "I've made a huge difference in the world." And don't worry, when you've reached that level you won't have to worry about money. Oh, and the icing on the cake...I don't have a college degree.
good on ya man :) how many years until you felt confident to make that choice of who to work for? im just starting out myself but im 29! Hoping to one day make a difference as well.
Whoa 😮 you are my motivation.. thank you for sharing your wonderful story.. as someone who is learning to become a software developer people like yourself keep me motivated. Every job I’ve ever had I was the hardest worker and eventually became one of the best. I may not be naturally gifted but I simply refused to be out worked. I will take this attitude into all my endeavors. I am not afraid of hard work. is the software developer/programming field dreadful as portrayed in this video? I understand earning 6 figure salary is not easy but that’s literally true in ALL fields. No one is going to pay you 6 figures to chill. The work is not frightening to me, I only care about available opportunity to find steady work. I live in California by the way if that helps. Thanks so much for response sir
@@theword3917 Dreadful?? No. Hard?? Yes. I quite literally worked my way from a janitor, first cleaning restaurant and then a deck seaman in the Navy, to a senior analyst at a fortune 100. Like you, I always worked hard and earned the respect of whoever I worked for. With that I was given the freedom to make my own way. Even now, in a very large company, I am given the freedom to chart my own course. I worked at an auto plant as an electrician after getting out of the Navy. While most of my peers did as little as possible, I learned as much as I could...enough to become a controls engineer designing factory automation systems. There's so much more, but in short...find a problem wherever you work and solve it with an application....Don't ask, just do it. Now you have an app that solved a real business problem that is an elevator to the next job. There are a TON of jobs outside of the tech industry. Companies in all sectors need 'small' internal apps that can provide you not only a steady income, but a very rewarding career. You can do this!
As a senior developer (currently in the learning path for software architecture), I think everything you said there is true (I can't really comment about the freelancing portion as I haven't been a freelancer). This job is hard, and the higher you climb and harder it is. Somehow I have climbed pretty quickly in the company I'm working on even though it's pretty big. I joined as a guy with no experience at all that didn't know any of the languages the company used. 3 years later I was a senior dev and tech lead for small teams. Even though I learn extremely fast and have nice ideas, it wasn't easy at all, I worked my butt off and also learned how to make myself shine in front of clients and higher ups, specially since I didn't have a diploma and had to make myself look worth paying more for. The one thing I usually tell people is: Don't just go with the company with higher pay right away. Make sure the company allows you to grow, to learn, that has requirements that will challenge you and force you to be better. That will make you a better developer over time and you will probably be able to land even better jobs with way higher pay. I know people with more knowledge and experience than me who left the company for another one where they were paid more but had really boring work or barely had any work, and at this point it seems I ended up gathering more knowledge and experience than most of them and I'm earning similar or higher amounts. I'm getting job offers with really good salaries but I'm staying in this company as it has and still does help me with my mother who is battling against cancer. At some point I said I had to travel to see and assist her when she was hospitalized and nobody freaked out about the current projects or told me that I had just a couple days for that. They all told me they would cover my work and to take as much time as I needed. I was back two weeks later, still having trouble to get whole 8 hours of work a day as I was still helping my mother and they just told me to take it easy and not go overboard. I'm making over 130K a year (it was about 83K until lkast year). I have to say, I have gotten offers where I can earn a bit more, but I decided to stay with the company that actually treats me like a human being that has personal issues that might affect my job, that might need to leave early on short notice due to emergencies happening, the company that often checks whether I'm burning out and tries to avoid that happening, and also has my back when a client is being overly abussive. Then again, I had some luck landing here and also this company's culture really fitted me as everything here is about helping each other and learning in the process. Try to find something like that, and try to be someone who deserves to be treated like that.
I hope your mother is doing well and getting healthier.❤️ can you tell us how we can get success in this domain without any certificate degree or diploma..??
As a professional software developer for 20 years (most of the time freelancing) I can absolutely, 150% agree with all your points. On the internet everything seems to be easy (become rich, become fit, be the next Elon Musk,...), but the reality is different, not discouraging, but you just have to put much more effort into anything than it's proposed in many internet-content-pieces.
hello, I hope you reply to me but Im a fresh MIS graduate trying to get a job as a software engineer, if you have any tips for me I would srsly appreciate it
Things he said about game dev is terrifying for beginner game devs like me, being passionate and creative doesn't pay off in the end? How fucked up is that, people making money off of NFTs, most of these new trending stuff doesn't even make sense, feels like making money becoming more and more easier but I am missing something. Could you please as a game dev, share your experience and invested time in it here? Thank you.
@@dennisdzeko3916 Game dev is quite a cut throat environment. Yeah, on one hand you have the big companies focusing on making their investors happy, and devs just being numbers. Since the game devs are usually quite passionate about their craft and art the big companies found ways to exploit that. Crunch, low pay and high demands are quite common. Then there are the indies. Some are doing quite well, but most are always on the brink of bankruptcy because it is really hard to sell your games and past successes will not guarantee sales in the future. Also the dev cycles are really long - it takes years to be able to ship even a smaller game and you'd have to pay your staff during all this time. Oh, and then there are the - probably millions - of one-man shows (or really small dev studios with maybe 3 to 5 people) trying to make a dent... usually working somewhere else to make a living and just hoping a game will sell well enough to pay enough to make it a fulltime job. For many this never happens. I never worked in a big company, but I have friends who did and do, but I was working for smaller to middle sized indies and money is always an issue. BUT, the passion and craftsmanship in game development is really something special. If you can tip your toes into it I really encourage you to do it. But don't expect to be paid too well, or to have a 'simple life' while doing it.
@@RedOchsenbein Thank you so much for the detailed answer and all the tips. I actually wish to make money off of it but don't look at it as "easy money". Thinking if you do what you love and your work represents the passion, the effort you put into it, money comes like a bonus. I will keep your words in mind!
I like how real this felt. No fluff. I'm thinking about a game or app based off my tabletop creation, but now I understand even more of what stress and risk there would be. Thank you.
Gaming is about scaling. Every bit of an extra feature and what not, require exponentially more time (or coworkers). Before you do anything, I recommend you to learn gdd, game loops, and gaming Psychology and prototyping. Gaming is science in itself before you even write a single code. Scale everything down and at 30% buffer time, what every deadline you gave yourself. Have fun
0:00 - Intro 0:35 - Getting a job as a developer 3:53 - Freelancing 9:24 - Startups // Creating apps and saas products 11:15 - Game development 13:36 - Content creation as a dev 16:15 - Conclusion
finally an honest video about the matter. 20+ years of experience here, worked for some of the "big tech", worked for startups, used to run my own outsourcing company in SE-Asia: all of this was super exciting, but non of it was easy. it's either good money and hard hard work or easy work and small money.
Being a programmer in America seems super stressful compared to here in Scandinavia. I have been at my current company for 5+ years and it's great. Yes - there are stressful periods, but mostly it's not a problem.
@@toxicleaguex5546irst of all we in europe have our devs ourselves which are pretty good, second we have the DSGVO and especially in germany the BDSG which are kind of strict laws of security of people data and stuff, which often requires a special job in between to dont break that laws which can be insanely expensive, so basically the code must fit in this…not every country and continent have the same dev culture, too. Remote or move in another country is a thing for sure, but its easier to say than find a job and acually move…
This is great bro! Glad SOMEONE said it! So many “sales people” out their trying to sell courses and dreams, they always minimize the process and people suffer for it. Programming IS hard. Anyone whose gotten past HTML and CSS knows how hard it gets when finally entering the world of programmatic thinking. It’s literally learning of a new way to think and communicate. I say, “If you don’t enjoy it, don’t keep doing it.” Everything changed when I stopped trying to learn for a job and started learning to see what I could build.
Programming takes a while to learn and not everyone may get it. That's pretty much the only con this video got right. The salary numbers are way off at least for silicon valley, if you're counting bonuses and stocks (which you can immediately sell for cash) instead of just base salary. The culture is not toxic in most places because in tech the manager is required to avoid micromanaging people. And the workload totally depends on your luck and what team you end up in; you could be swamped or on the other hand you could have a really light workload and slack off (or alternating between the two sometimes).
Programming *is* indeed hard. But I can do it, 100%. That's not an issue. The issue is do I even *want* to? I'm slowly finding out that as a career, no I don't. Im a creative person, I need the freedom to create, and this sounds like the opposite of that.
@@MiketheNerdRanger It depends entirely on what you want to create, but in general what you said is just wrong; it is literally one of the most diverse ways to be creative in the modern day possible. Make your own app, game, etc could be done as a side project even if you have a day job.
new skills to learn are usually only a potent job for the next 2 to 10 years. meanwhile use what you already have with you, if you don't have any at all, be diligent to learn one which can take at least a year and semi-mastered.
@@DG-wr6cl IIUC this is a concern at a day job where you have a set task, but the skill itself (of programming) is extremely useful for being creative general. With my music skills I can create music, but with my programming skills I can create literally anything I can imagine. Imagine the ultimate game you want to play with all the best features; or an app that solves some inconvenience that's been frustrating you; you can create almost anything under the sky. For example, I recently made a game called AI Roguelite available on Steam, featuring my music. But it's apples to oranges and I often enjoy making music more than I enjoy programming, which is why it depends heavily on what one wants to create
Just gotta say, if doing one of these things is what you wanna do, don't let any of this info stop you. If you go into it with an understanding that it's not going to be easy, then you are much more likely to succeed past the point where it turns out to not be as easy as you might have otherwise expected. It really sucks when you expect something to be easy and then it turns out to be really hard, it's enough to crush your dreams and make you think that you can't do it.. But you CAN do it, it's just hard. If you know and understand that it's going to be hard work before you do it, the fact that it is hard isn't going to be enough to stop you and the most resilient and unshaking kind of confidence comes from knowing something is hard and knowing you can do it anyway. What it takes it persistence and perseverence, quitters never win.
The realest video I've seen about ways to make money programming. All other videos seem to say it is all that easy to make big bucks. But I never believed that, because of knowing the hard struggles of being a programmer myself. Thanks Dorian, for spreading great insights to the ways of making money programming.
5 Things to Never Do in Rush: 1) Giving away your trust 2) Making big desicions 3) Judging someone's character 4) Falling in love 5) Eating your food subscribe# SAYED#...
yeah this one guy (not gonna name lol) was in my recommended about a video on c++ employability, so i clicked through to read comments, ended up watching the vid, checking out his other stuff and then didn't watch a vid of his in a while until he got recommended again and he was calling coding the "golden ticket", like really preying on people who were probably in bad financial situations, and saying that you could get hired in 4 months using his course lmfao.
That is why I love your videos. Because you are real, honest and tell it like it is. No sugarcoating, no bull$hit, no "selling dreams". This $hit is HARD. It takes years and years. Some get lucky, but as you said, they are a minority. This doesn't happen over night, you need to put a lot of work, you study every day, there is so much stress, you take your work home, you need to sacrifice a lot. And it is very hard when you have to provide and take care of your family. You can't afford risk. You can't just play around and hope for the best.
I can agree quite much to what you mention here and in addition: i dont know if there is any other profession where you have to spend that much of your time in learning new features/tools/concepts, if you're not doing it you might end up jobless after some years. try to make it a normal part of your work, set yourself goals to improve your knowhow and skills once a year - from beginning until you get retired. some companies try to help you with these kinds of topics but most of them dont care at all
This video seemed like some hard truth, but in a way, I found it encouraging. I’m currently an RN but have developed complete deafness in one ear and partial deafness in the other. Because of that, I feel like my future in nursing is kind of capped. I’ve been thinking of another direction to go and coding has really gotten my attention. In regards to his advice in this video, I feel like my currently stable nursing career kind of allows me to take my time, move at my own pace, and not necessarily have to depend on an income from coding early on. Glad I found this channel to help guide me and keep my expectations in check. Love that this dude keeps it real.
You are a real teacher man!!! Seruously no body tells you the truth in UA-cam. It's all flowers and a biwl of cherries and that's not what the real world is AT ALL. Selling people dreams sells. Hats off to you. You've got a new subscriber.
Firmware engineer here. Dealing with low-level code. We need more people in this field. Everyone seems to like software and web, but no one seems to have any interest in firmware/embedded engineering path way. Lots of position open and its incredibly hard to find people to fill the position.
Man I've been poking on firmware development for a long time, yet I'm here staying still being backend engineer. I've been prodding to change lane for a while, might try to pursure this role.
@@averagehololiveenjoyer8496 yeah and with the chip shortages, the firmware/embedded job becomes even more important as company struggling to finding whatever available chip and have to re-write the drivers for it. Dealing directly with RAM and ROM can be seen as intimidating, but it's actually quite simple.
might be due to the higher cost of entry to embedded. unless you have a makerspace nearby, the upfront cost for equipment is definitely way more than a laptop and internet connection which you'd need for software and web. i really do wish there were cheaper and easier avenues for beginners. and, as dumb as it sounds, beginners roadmaps (which I find a little unrealistic when I'm further along the journey because they're way too set in stone and learning for a project is often fluid and combines plenty sub-specializations) can actually be helpful for beginners to get an overview of a field and all the sub-specializations in it... and just in general to get more knowledgeable and accustomed to a field. and there weren't many of those beginner roadmaps to be found when I was starting out. I was just going in blind with 200+ quid worth of kit that I'd managed to fleece my dad into buying lol
This paints a very realistic picture of what it means to become a successful programmer. The grind is real, apart from exceptions, you will only learn by failing a lot and get better by trying and trying. Love this content!
I can kinda imagine that software dev is one of the more realistic jobs for me, but it is stil pretty bad, cause it kills my brain and my psyche. And I need a pretty good working environment with the possibility to also work out. I have something similat to social anxiety and depression and I can not even imagine to work for hours, especially with people.
Straight up, straight forward and spot on. I'll add this. If ANYONE, thinks they are going to make North of 70K, doing anything, and they won't BLEED for it, well, here's your sign. No matter the area of study in IT, coding, security, networking, what have you. You'll earn, what you put in and? In the end, you'll put in more than most every other field out there. Doctors know this. They make mad money and? Sacrifice their lives for twenty years, literally, to get there. It, doesn't come free and frankly most people you know simply do not have what it takes and often you'll ask your self if you have what it takes.
Big tech companies in silicon valley are paying about $200k starting salary if you include the stocks and bonus (not just base salary), and the vast majority of those places are not toxic, quite the opposite actually. Smaller companies might pay lower but not by too much or else they won't keep up with the competition. I hope people don't take this video so seriously that they think toxicity is normal. In tech, managers aren't even supposed to keep an eye on you or anything; they just ask you once in a while what you've done. And your coworkers will tend to be very kind as well since everyone wants a good performance review.
@@dipanjanghosal1662 Depending on how performance reviews are structured, the office politics could be the opposite of toxic; in my case my manager advocates so hard for me that he overstates my accomplishments and abilities (in a good way) during performance review. The ridiculous salaries of the big companies force the small companies to also pay higher salaries so even if they're lower it won't be too much lower. Getting accepted into a big tech company is easier than most people realize. I failed my first interview miserably because all the questions were hard, and passed the 2nd one easily because my interviewers were inexperienced and didn't realize their questions were too easy. It's a game of luck so you just have to keep interviewing as many times as possible and try again as soon as the company policy allows you (usually 6 months between interviews, but you can try multiple companies at once)
@Nikola B. I was talking about lack of micromanagement. The manager should still check in with you frequently to see if there's anything they can do for you, get your preferences on what you enjoy or don't enjoy working on etc. There's literally no conceivable way it could get any more wholesome and less toxic than that; if you still think that's toxic you think everything is. Propping people up when they don't deserve it is only "toxic" from the company and shareholders' point of view. There's no reason for an employee to be unhappy with a system that unfairly benefits them.
@Nikola B. I meant it in the sense that the managers don't micromanage or pressure you. They check in to make sure you're happy with what you're working on and see progress across time. And you are completely exaggerating what happens during performance reviews. All I said was people are incentivized to be nice to you because they don't want a bad review. That does NOT mean that anyone who's nice automatically gets a good review even if they do literally nothing. Also, most people are just nice people at heart; you don't need the incentive of a good review just to be nice to others. They try to weed out the toxic people during the interview stage as much as possible. p.s. you can't "give a good review to a colleague because you want one back". You don't see each others' results until afterward.
Love how real Dorian keeps things. He's aggressive out of care and getting to the point, not elitism. While it's nice that people try to be encouraging and soft, they often leave out or underplay the harsh realities you are often likely to face and, how it has affected others and could affect you.
Great video, the bit about freelancing is spot on. I'd only recommend people to go freelancing if they either A. have some super in demand skill that they can just pick who they want to work with, or B. if you're more of a business type who can coordinate with other freelancers and deliver full projects rather than getting paid per hour. For most 'regular' developers, you're better off with a regular job or short-term full time contracts.
Also for side projects and app ideas, the business and idea aspect is way more important than coding. There are plenty of people who can build an MVP for your for very little. The real challenge is in validating a business idea and getting your first users, neither of which have anything to do with your coding skills. So if you're looking to build your own app or saas, focus on getting the business skills, not the coding skills.
@@michael.knightHe is right 5 Things to Never Do in Rush: 1) Giving away your trust 2) Making big desicions 3) Judging someone's character 4) Falling in love 5) Eating your food subscribe# SAYED#...
Wouldn't it be best to set a goal to freelance after having a 'regular' dev job while gaining experience? Full-time freelance to me seems like a dream so that would be the reward no?
hello, I hope you reply to me but Im a fresh MIS graduate trying to get a job as a software engineer, if you have any tips for me I would srsly appreciate it
Your helping others out by explaining that career longevity is going to make it much harder for people to evolve into homeownership across the US. That’s situation fewer people need to hold serious conversations about.
I'm working as a software developer and have none of these issues. Colleagues are great, work environment is clean and fun. Boss is cool, job isn't stressful at all most days. Yes you need to have your brain connected, but that's also one of the perks of the job. When I did manual labour before, I had time to think about how bored I was and what the time was so I could go home. Now I come to the office, and I'm transported into this alternate dimension where time just flies by because I'm focusing on it. It's great. Of course it's a grind, but it's about finding peace with your level of skill and just being open and honest always. You're often being paid by the hour, so there's no reason you need your cortisol through the roof. Grab a coffee, listen to some music while scouring through codebase and database looking for the cause of that one issue. Ask for help often when you're starting out. I swear, the name of my partner at the company is the one word I say more often than anything else including good morning.
Great answer. Some questions: 1.) Which stack do you handle at your job? 2.) How much years of experience do you have to feeling that comfortable? 3.) Did you pass through a technical interview to get the job? 4.) Did you have a portfolio back then to show? If you had, what were your projects? 5.) Back then, they were hiring trainees or juniors?
@@drdunkan15 I have done flash, javascript, php, front end, database etc. If you have been to a McDonalds in Canada, or ever played with a webkinz toy, you may have seen some parts of my work.
I did some contact for a while. After the birth of my daughter, I shifted away from that to concentrate on family. The overtime that is so common in our field is not helpful when raising kids.
Which one you think is easier to learn web developer or cybersecurity for a person with not IT experience? I understand you’re a software developer, but since you’ve been around for 20 years in IT, I thought you would have an idea. I’ll appreciate your opinion? Thanks!!!
Doing contract work recently. I was pleasantly surprised how easy operations work (supporting servers and routers) is compared to writing and supporting a big in-house applications. Code is so complex and difficult that companies are dumping the entire job of writing, testing, debugging, documenting, supporting (2 am calls) . The rest of the company is mostly people just getting in your way using archaic management systems like SCRUB (sic). The biggest upside of being an in house developer is that, your value goes up double each year because for someone else to learn what you know about the company's code takes years. You won't be compensated double but if the company is doing well you can easily demand 20-50% raises yearly.
This video is spot-on. Re skills: For the people asking what to learn, first do a quick online course in web development for a little perspective. Then check the job boards and look at what skills are most in demand for high paying jobs. Right now for front-end coding jobs, javascript frameworks like React, Vue, etc are high demand. For back-end, Laravel is quite pretty. The desired skills change from time to time, so you have to enjoy continuous learning. Re freelancing: I've freelanced for dozens of clients from ma-pa shops to startups to Fortune 500 companies. Most of the smaller non-tech companies won't understand what you do, so you'll have to know design + front and back-end code to complete their projects. They call this "full-stack", which as far as I can tell means you have to do all the work by yourself while everyone else tries to tell you how. Understand - this means they won't pay you until they are happy with the visual design, which can turn into countless iterations. I'd say at least 50% of my clients withheld payment; the trouble is they all think they are designers, so they'll want to do endless tinkering (almost invariably making it uglier or worse UX) before they pay, if they pay at all. I'm sure others have better ways of dealing with this, but it just wasn't my cup of tea, even though I began my career as a designer. I gave up freelancing except for the occasional startup that I do on spec, and only if I really see potential in an idea and the people making it. Instead, I work full-time as a front-end coder for one client [though technically I am self-employed]. I only do remote work and only for small companies, which allows me freedom and creativity. I prefer fintech, because (surprise!) these people are mostly just really amazing and fun. With 30 years experience I get to make these choices but it took me a while to get here. I don't regret any of it.
PS - Don't take your laptop onto the beach - you'll get sand in it.
Videos like this are a breath of fresh air to the development scene of UA-cam. For the past few years it’s been “code this not that”, “learn this language not that language”, “dive in, don’t be reserved”, “corporate cringe”, “top language of 202X”, “learn this technology, not that technology”. I really enjoy watching development related videos even if I know the topic or not, or if I’m really skilled at that language or not. I enjoy that it keeps me constantly thinking about the topics. But the last few years have been lack luster on UA-cam.
Absolutely love the honestly. I still am going to pursue software development as a career though because I am working in a low-paid job in a completely different industry that still forces me to deal with many of the issues you've outlined here, so I think it will be an improvement on my current situation.
If you take it seriously and see it as a craft that you’re about to learn + having the motivation from your current situation I have no doubt that you can thrive in your new field :)
You will definitely make it. Also don't listen to him about the "race to the bottom" in freelancing, I once fooled myself into thinking that and it discouraged me for years from freelancing. Took me over two years to change my attitude on it and when I did I simply set what rate (I started at $20/hr which was more than I was making at my job) and I found the freelance work I wanted.
Thank you for telling the truth. I'm software developer for 20 years in the technical and scientific range of applications. You need to understand everything in depth, and have a really good construction of your software. Otherwise you dig your own grave. So money should not be your motivation. You need to have a kind of love to this abstract stuff of software development. If you have it, THEN you can deliver great applications and have success.
In simple words, if you can get to the bottom of the problem and understand it thorughly, you should be able to translate it in simple and efficient code, otherwise, you will be coming back to stuff that does not work over and over again.
I'm a mid software engineer right now and it is so honest truth! Kudos to you for sharing that to the community! P.S. Actually I love what I do, but sometimes it gets super hard... :/
As a long time dev of 25+ years, I just want to say: You're so so so right and I'm happy that finally I found someone who said all of this in such a nice way. Good luck in your Content creation journey Dorian!
Love your - as you said - being transparent and not beating around the bush. Dreams and hopes are okay, but it's also important to keep it real and not believe in all the crap about it being so easy for everyone to just "learn development and land your 100k job in 3 months!" bs. Subscribed and waiting for more content, cheers!
I'm starting to build my path as a programmer, and it haven't been easy but some way some how i still love trying to learn programming even when i'm so frustrated about it. Thanks for your video! It was very helpful
I've been at this for a while, and - word for word - this is exactly right. Corporate job - on point. Freelancing - 100% on point. Game dev - man, I'm so sorry for all the game devs out there, because I know it's their passion. For anyone getting into coding, this is exactly what to expect.
I worked for a game dev brokering company and the same can be said for things like game testers. We had 3 in-house and that was it. That was for 200+ games, thousands of skins and sound effects, and dozens of producers. Of course, this was also when flash games and flash portals were big. Things have shifted a bit since then, but not really. It’s just mobile casual games now. 🤷♀️ My main point being: gamer passion projects are great to do in your spare time and game testing jobs aren’t very numerous so demand is low. Have a dream and keep with it, but “don’t quit your day job!”
It took me over a decade to get into the game industry professionally in a real job. When I got started I could _not_ get an entry-level job to save my life. I had to just get so good at programming that no one could refuse me anymore ... good enough to trip up interviewers with my responses and counter-questions. In the end, I bypassed entry-level game development jobs and went straight to senior-level roles and quickly started taking lead positions. And with that comes a hell of a lot more stress and sleepless nights. I can't complain though because I'm making a lot of money now and even have consulting work and extra income on the side. When they say "making a ton of money and living the dream life" it's really more like "making a ton of money and having no life", lol. I don't go anywhere or do anything, I just work, work, work ... but I have a goal in mind: I want to secure my own financial future with good investments and eventually start my own company. All of this work I'm doing now, I'm just learning how to be a project manager and team leader, not only from the engineering side but from the corporate side. It's just my real-world training for what I want to do some day, and I'm getting paid damn good learning it ... most people would have given up long ago, but I refused to ever let go of this dream. My advice to aspiring game developers is start off as a programmer in a regular software job and gain real-world programming experience. You can't bypass the programming knowledge and experience, there are no substitutes. And yes, indy/solo game dev is harder than an industry job. When you do get into the industry, be careful where you decide to accept a job. Find out about the company and how they treat their devs and operate. A game dev job can be hell or it can be great. But be prepared to spend a long, long time on the outside looking in. The only way you'll ever get in is by creating a lot of stuff on your own, sharing it and showing people what you can do. Forget about creating an MMO or a major commercial title on your own, just make small games, interesting prototypes of systems for larger games, game assets, etc and work on some other people's indy projects that have some following and attention online to get your name out there. Add it all to your portfolio. As an outsider trying to get into the industry for the first time, you need to be _better_ at programming than your competition. You need to be so good (and able to show it) that a company is willing to gamble on you as a no-name programmer who never shipped a commercial game. If you're only _as good_ as the competition they'll just hire people who are already established in the industry, or people with connections to the industry like graduates whose uncle works at some big studio and gets his nephew a job. It's just how the business works. It's very exclusive and wary of outsiders. The sooner you accept that and understand what you have to overcome the sooner you may be able to actually achieve your goal.
I always use to envy those who had their dad/close family member working in the same feild that they persue Cause this gives them a clear picture of what the job is about and what does it take away in return .Your channel serves that purpose ! Real Talk No Dream Selling no bs !
I know what you mean in that it is enviable that they have a guide that can help them get to “success” faster and easier. But that also comes with extreme expectations. It’s easy for us to sit back and be like if I had this or that advantage then I would be at point X. The richest and most successful people in human history came from nothing. Having that Rocky Balboa hunger cannot be bought and you aren’t born with it. One must have that drive In oneself. Only we as individuals can make ourselves do the things we need to do.
There's a possibility these people are just following those career paths because their parents or family are projecting their own dreams and aspirations on said people. It's not a good way of doing things. Just because everyone in your family is something, doesn't mean you have to be that something.
Dorian, this video was so wonderful. Thank you, everything you said is completely true and never talked about. Too much optimisim on youtube and nobody is realistic! If you weren't on youtube I feel like I'd be making these kinds of videos myself! So thank you for saving me that time. Middle management is a pain. Working as a freelancer you get project creep/people who don't pay. The people who say that you can make a lot of money in self taught are all conveniently not self taught! The 3 month/6month 0 knowledge to 100k salary are a MINORITY and doesn't accurately represent the brutal grind to get a humble 60k salary. Getting a job is highly based on luck/numbers game rather than being outright qualified. It's all possible! Just not likely or easy. Edit: I also appreciate the fact that you used the term "eat shit". I use the same phrase, if you wanna become a programmer you gotta eat shit for a few years, if you want to be a freelancer you gotta eat shit from your clients.
This was a refreshing video. It really made me feel more understanding of my own expectations and what to realistically expect. This is worth a subscription...provides True honest Value without all the other tech youtuber lies and glam.
As a freelancer with 12+ years of professional experience in large companies and start-ups, this is solid advice! It’s accurate and realistic. Great video! Also, coding can become very boring and isolating if you are at all even slightly extroverted. Think about other jobs that are still in high demand, like user experience and user interface design. I’ve worked as a FEWD, full stack, engineering manager, platform design manager, marketing director… and I absolutely love the ability to manage a group of people. I’m obviously a bit of an extrovert! 😅 Plus, having the experience of being “in the trenches” really helps you gauge whether something is actually not possible or your engineers are just being lazy. I really enjoy user and customer experience design and information architecture. Being able to make something better for our users is always great, and they give you all the info you need to help drive iterations towards better usability. That said, just want to reiterate that you should also consider other jobs that you may enjoy if coding for 10-12+ hours sounds arduous and tiring. ;) Again, great video and solid advice!
Hi, I'm 18 and have very similar feelings about the industry. I am in search of profession which is including creativity, communication and some engeniering. Something more serious than 2D illustrator but not so hardcore as backend developer. UX/UI sounds as a good option.
I'm 16 learning to code, working on a small discord bot, it's tough and I'm not even a full time Dev. I'll keep in mind what you said as I go on this journey. Also I subbed.
Good for you. Also don't believe what he says about freelancing sites as "a race to the bottom". I used to think so until I tried simply setting a higher rate, and now I am getting work at exactly the hourly rate I want. Turns out many people in USA want someone who they can communicate with better, even if it costs more.
Don't be a freelancer. Be a service provider. Be a businessman. Also, business can be as stressful as a job. During that time, also build passive sources of income.
I am grateful for your honesty. I'm about two and a half years into a five year programming education ("Datatechnician specialized in programming") and I'm struggeling a bit. Maybe it will get easier further down the line.
I cant emphasize enough about how truthful the section on getting a job as a dev is. I had an unrelated degree and I self taught for about 1.5 years and took an online part time bootcamp. I got my first job over a month ago, but I wish someone told me what he is telling us now. Granted, I did pretty well for my first job, 80k salary, WFH, decent environment, full benefits, etc. I see how SWEs get burned out quickly though. The mountains of issues and features that never seem to stop coming gets tiring. The bi weekly meetings with business people who are just like "do this" and "do that". The endless fires I have to put out, I'm working on one feature and I get a message from the business people saying "Hey this is urgent, come do this!". I love coding and I'm thankful to be able to do something I love, but all of those day in the life videos don't show this aspect of the industry. So listen to this guy! Im only a month in, but I feel like if i had someone to tell me what he is saying, I would be able to know what to expect and adjust quicker.
Unfortunately you'll always run into the 'just do this' types in any profession. Just have to smile nod and always do the best you can, which is all you can do at the end of the day. Engineers are bad about this because a lot of them never repair or use the equipment they design. 🙃 Gotta trudge through the bs and keep your head up!
consider yourself lucky 80k where i live is basically a surgeon salary, and im not in a 3rd world country i live in europe, in my country if you make BARELY 30k you're lucky (with 5yrs experience in development)
@@sharkpyro93 yea, I know location is a big factor. Here in the US, 80k pretty low compared to what people make with experience. Though 80k for a first dev job here is lucky
@@DJ-xp9bs the only Country which have kinda the same Salaries as US Is germany but the enrry barrier Is absurdly high its not even funny, i dont have a college degree so i Just accepted my fate
Two years into a programming job and I just gotta subscribe, most of the things you mentioned I can vouch for. I'm probably about to experience all of the things you said that I haven't experienced yet haha
Great video! I actually wanted to look into freelancing as a side job after I get a tech job. I knew it would be tough, but now I know to have more patience with it. Thanks
I've been a programmer for more than 20 years. The only advice I can give is if you love what you're doing the money will sort itself out. I've been through the journey, small, corporate, freelancer and the one thing I regret is that when I started, I went the route that everyone else does. Working for someone else. I would have started my own company off the bat, if I knew then what I know now. Either way it's a hard and slow road but much more stratifying to build your own business and burn out because of that than burning out to make someone else money. If you want to take this route learn the first lesson, employ someone to do the things you suck at.
I have 10+ Years of experience as a software developer and I'm currently working on a game as a side project. I can confirm that this route is really difficult, but also its very rewarding to build something yourself, probably the most rewarding thing I did so far and maybe someday I can live off of it.
I am 48 at the time of writing. I started coding professionally in 1999. After 5 years I transitioned to freelance. I burned out after 17y and stopped coding professionally. Now work in a totally different field and coding is again a hobby, like it was in the early 90's. Every word of this video is true. I've lived it.
Appreciate your opinion and honesty. However, if something doesn’t work, or never worked for you - it might work for me or someone else. Fact is - there’s no free, easy money anywhere. We have to work or do dangerous things to get that money. Grind is real, but to anyone saying that coding is stressful, etc. - I would suggest to try to work as a dispatcher or a planner at a big company with 150+ trucks, with 1200+ daily incoming emails, never ending problems, changes, switches, breakdowns, etc. then you tell us what is stressful 🤣
nothing is easy in life specifically beginning is always the hardest part we shouldn't be giving up just assuming maybe someone out there is doing better so let's not do this 🤷
@Mcloud30 Thank you for this comment, I know the intention of this vid isn't to deter people but I was seriously having doubts about my future as I'm quick to worry, I think things will be okay just gotta take it day by day.
"I would suggest to try to work as a dispatcher or a planner at a big company with 150+ trucks, with 1200+ daily incoming emails, never ending problems, changes, switches, breakdowns, etc." I think I might enjoy that as it has a kind of rhythm. I previously worked as a corporate stooge where the only value I provided was coming up with ideas, normally for irrational people.
dude, love your honesty. id rather have the cold hard truth that actually benefits my life than the usual pipe-dream many force feed on the internet. best of luck to you my friend and thank you again for the insight!
Thanks for your honesty and I am just on the pathway to becoming a software engineer. And I will want to have my own UA-cam channel and build my own Tech ideas.
As a Game developer, I really appreciate you for saying & explaining how it really is and the brutal honesty in this entire video. People need that slap in the face before they go for tech.
I've tried to create a game, spent a year trying it and it was a complete failure. Then I tried to create apps and after 10 apps created and 3 years dedicated to it, I only earned $1k, which is another complete failure. I finally started freelancing and now I can earn $1k a month, it's not a lot but it's already showing much more promise than my previous attempts to survive as a developer. Today I think about how much time I wasted chasing a dream of becoming a millionaire when I could have started freelancing years ago.
Thank you for the sincerity. I know making 6 figures a year is too good to be true (and it is), but still I will give my best because I really enjoy coding. I don't want to give up before even trying. Though this video is really humbling and I will keep it in mind going forward.
He is right 5 Things to Never Do in Rush: 1) Giving away your trust 2) Making big desicions 3) Judging someone's character 4) Falling in love 5) Eating your food subscribe# SAYED#...
I grew up dirt poor. Worked my way up from a janitor to a senior analyst at a fortune 100 making well over $100,000. Programming is one of the very rare fields you can actually make it happen without a degree. Keep coding if you enjoy it, and you will make it.
Don't forget that for startups and game development, information security has become a critical dimension which adds on to the complexity of these two ventures.
"Deal with middle management," that hurt me right in the management. :( To be honest, as an Engineering Manager, I try to help my team be the best they can be both at work and home. But, I was and still am a developer, and my previous experience has been what is expressed in this video. I learned from that and help devs as much as I could.
Now that I saw the whole thing. Thank you for removing the illusion that I always see online. I used to be a freelancer/consultant, and it's HARD. I was lucky and privileged that I had others manage the clients. But, I had some terrifying experiences, and they were not fun.
I've been in software development for 13 years. Spent 3 years in freelancing, and honestly, it wasn't great. You end up working for little money and competing against newbies/students who charge way less. About burnout, you don't really feel it when you're starting your career. Coding and picking up new tech is fun at first. But after a while, it hits you. I even went through a bit of depression and had an identity crisis. I used to think I’d code non-stop like Uncle Bob, but there came a point where I just couldn’t stand coding anymore. Got through that tough time by completely cutting out coding at home and just doing the bare minimum at work - enough to avoid getting fired. Now, I’m doing okay. I look after my mental health a lot more, taking breaks when I need to (when my mind feels tired). Back in the day I’d code non-stop, even after work. But I’ve learned that’s not the way to go. You've got to ease up a bit or burnout will get you.
Started my first professional dev job this past Monday. Damn it's tough. 100% on the bug fixes. I'm fighting imposter syndrome right now.it's a smaller dev team so I touch the code in almost every stage but man it's a lot.
hello, I hope you reply to me but Im a fresh MIS graduate trying to get a job as a software engineer, if you have any tips for me I would srsly appreciate it
The problem with local freelance clients is that many small businesses (depending on the area) are not willing to spend that kind of money and time to develop websites when there are extremely low cost website builders that exist. Upwork and other freelance platforms are pretty cancerous because you will always find yourself competing with others in low cost of living areas asking extraordinary low prices for things. Even with experience, as you said, it’s really hard to get going. I have 10+ YoE in the industry and converted to freelance at the end of last year and it’s been very difficult to find high quality clients for reasonable prices.
Am a freelancer for 4 years now, (almost 7 years as a prof in total) of which the first two years I took the "approach clients and kiss their butt" route and the last two working as a freelancer for a single company. Everything this guy said is true, but I can vouch for working at a company as a freelancer being the silver lining. Besides that I'll add one more point to his freelance con list: Every project you accept, work on, finish, will result in maintenance the minute after its initial "release", unless you pass it on to someone else. Keep that in mind when you're picking clients/projects, because you can get swamped very easily by multiple clients wanting their project/update to be finished around the same time. Gl with that on your own.. And oh yeah, forget about any personal projects while you're at it.
Shouldn't you be charging an annual fee for maintenance though? I'm not saying it reduces the amount of maintenance work to be done, but at least you are paid for it.
@@Martinit0 Yea, that's an option. Depends on whatever you agree on with each client. Haven't tried that model myself though, so can't say if it's better or worse than just invoicing the hours worked on maintenance. Just to be clear: I never did any maintenance for free, unless it was a really minor update (
Agreed with every single word this man said. I always wanted to be Software engineer because I liked video games so much in my early years. Only until I was 27 I learned Python and worked in Animation for some movies creating their pipelines until one day I finally landed to the video game industry and was a total disappointment. Long hours, low pay, and the list goes on. Luckily, my skills went beyond than simply coding and now at 33 y/o I'm working architecting cloud (devops) but, as he mentioned hasn't been easy... I spent sooo many hours building my skills, learning so many different technologies, learning how to design instead of develop, I have worked 6 days a week, 15 hours per day for months to get to where I am right now, earning a decent salary, and my LinkedIn inbox full every week... have been easy? Totally not! Would I do it again? Without hesitation!
Hello and how are you? You're a cloud architect? I want to learn cloud. Is it possible for us to talk? I'm just starting on my coding journey and I think I want to specialize in the cloud but don't know where to start. From research I think I want to learn AWS cause most businesses use their cloud services. Do I need to learn html, css, Javascript or python to work in the cloud?
I am a freelancer for 3 months now and I really love it. But I waited for this until I got at least 3 years of experience in software development. Also communication is very important, be confident in what you do and be prepared to chew on glass.
hello, I hope you reply to me but Im a fresh MIS graduate trying to get a job as a software engineer, if you have any tips for me I would srsly appreciate it
This is good info. I mow lawns on the weekends on my own biz and work at a clinic during the week. That’s the beauty of working for someone else they get all the headaches.
My second game hit #1 on the App Store for overall apps, was the #1 trend on twitter, and netted me over $200k in about 5 months. I agree with all of your talking points, however, you won’t make it to the top, if you constantly tell yourself you’re not good enough to get there. Much respect! Great video.
hello, I hope you reply to me but Im a fresh MIS graduate trying to get a job as a software engineer, if you have any tips for me I would srsly appreciate it
If money is your incentive to become a programmer then programming isn't for you. The learning curve is immense and unless you are at least a little weird or fueled by an intrinsic drive to build something you will hit the wall really quick. I was lucky enough to experience my interest in creating technology at a very young age and learned that there is nothing out there that will kill your drive as fast as doing it as a job. The pingpong table and chef made meals are great but the reality is that 90% of the daily tasks just aren't as interesting as you will spend 50% of your time in unnecessary meetings anyway, companies just don't allow people to have fun and/or experiment anymore and it kills all creativity. If you look at history you can consistently see that the greatest inventions were made by accident while playing around with edge cases and getting their hands dirty, business is no place for accidents and inventions are deemed "unviable" or a "waste of resources". Fastest way to kill the fun in programming is to become a pro.
And anything you do invent on company time automatically becomes company property that they're free to profit off whilst you get nothing except a small bonus increase at the end of the year
@@CynicalOldDwarf Well employees holding equity in the companies they work for isn't exactly rare in the tech world, however if you're paid by the hour do the inventing once you get home for sure.
"Giving all praise to this team of guru's for bringing my life back on track when I thought everything was gone, but with the help guidelines I was able to realized that the secret to making a million is saving for a better investment. I always tell myself you don't need that new Maserati or that vacation just yet. That mindset helped me make more money investing. For example last year I invested 80k in stocks (with the help of my Financial Advisor of course) and made about 146k, but guess what? I put it all back and traded with her again and now I'm rounding up with more than I can imagine
The pandemic came and taught everyone the importance of having multiple stream of income, unfortunately having a nice paying job doesn't mean you are financial secured anymore. So we all need to put in an extra-income earning chance, like investments.
Yes I agree with you, Covid taught us the importance of having a plan "B" income. You are not safe with just one paying job, when nobody knows what will happen next. Look at what happened to so many of u...
Investment is that tiny line that separates the RICH from the POOR. The foolish from wise sorry to say. I can proudly say I am wise today because I can provide for my family through my investments.
I have been freelancing for over 13 years now and I agree with most of what Dorian has to say in this video. Freelancing can be great and over a lot of freedoms. However, you can go through dry periods when you have no projects to work on and you practically live from hand to mouth. It is also challenging to work with multiple clients and projects and that can lead you to burning out even faster. Moving from project to project is also not easy. This is why I think the best job to have as a developer is working at a company that works on one or two products and not an agency where you would have to change and switch to other projects over and over again.
Hope I didn't discourage anyone with this video. Just trying to be honest about making money with code. Let me know what you think about the video and tell me how you're making money with code!
But, it is lol. Everything is difficult brother Nothing is easy. Just take it and move it and it can be done...
I hope you did discourage people. Less competition for meeeeee lol
Learn to code. Find a good company. Make money. Repeat as necessary.
I will still give it a shot and build up my own ideas. No harm in trying
Fwiw, I'm actually En-couraged by your thoughts. I've been writing code for a few years now and I just like that I'm not alone in that "ugh, office toxicity sucks!" thought. I seem to manage to stay tangential to the "deadlines" (thus far) but on the flip side, when "the dishes are done, man!" happens, I still have to report a weekly "something" to the customer. Been basically making my own work for a bit, now.
There is a blogger named Erik Dietrich (I think is the spelling). He speaks to freelancing as well. He echo's your thoughts, saying "All those layers of management you don't like? They're also what is responsible for all the things you don't have to worry about as an employee (marketing, taxes, payroll, etc) but have to do all yourself as a freelancer." To that end, awesome, eye-opening clip on the reality of writing code (or any job, really). That said, if one CAN get past that initial "find the customers" grind, I think it could be rewarding! And I think I'd still take that grind over the "spreadsheets, powerpoints and meetings" one any day!
“Telling people they can make money, makes YOU a lot of money on the internet.” That is the realest thing I have heard all year!! Subscribed! Thank you for this video.
Dan Lok taught me this a long time ago.
This guy kept on pumping these how to make money videos, and courses too.
Of course something was always off about him to me and I never really invested much in him.
Then I asked myself a question and it clicked : “where is Dan getting his money from?”
You should mention teaching software development as well.
Some people make serious cash by teaching.
I also subscribed because of that truth...
@@Darth_Bateman because theres a sucker born every minute.
@@fillipusshivute t's not a truth. It's a possible outcome, and highly depends on the person' encouragement, others in their life, luck of the draw (but that can only hold you back for just so long). The truth is, you get out what you put in. The last few generations have become more and more "entitled" which means they feel they do not have to put much into their life's path because someone will give them what they think they deserve.
wow, this guy can do everything! Plumber, tennis coach, electrician, boss, manager, and now he's a software developer!?
this comment is so underrated.
well he was a the Innocent Johnny Sins
He's also a doctor
also an astonaut
Bro, I burst out laughing 🤣🤣🤣🤣 good thing I'm alone.
I was in IT for 16 years. Big companies, small companies, a startup, some freelancing. This video is 100% correct. This is the most realistic take on getting into IT that Ive ever seen. I got into IT because of passion, but working for someone else will suck the passion right out of you. Find a job that pays the bills and that you can tolerate, but keep your passion stuff as a hobby and you can keep it fulfilling. That's my 2 cents ... which is essentially what Dorian is saying... It's good advice, from real life experience... fwiw
thanks for sharing your exp
I totally agree with that, keep what you love a hobby, if it's not possible to do at work. Work is not as fulfilling as one may belief first.
I worked at a MSP for 2 years, gained a ton of experience in exchange for my loss of interest in the field. Got burnt out in 2020 with all of the work from home clients. Quit my job and took a break for an entire year.
This concept is what they call Ikigae in Japanese...
@@rayrobinsongonzaga6297 thank you for sharing that concept! I wasn't aware it exists. I belief people would do better in worklife when they would know about this concept.
25 years of experience here, and I can tell you, everything he’s saying is 100% on the nose. The waves of burnout are real. The plateaus are real. That said, if you have a passion for learning and solving problems with code… it’s worth it. And it does get easier. Software development is a craft. Even five years isn’t enough to master it. Hell, 25 years isn’t enough. But, that’s what’s thrilling about it. The learning never stops.
thanks for the reply Steve :)
wow two Steves
I think its because a lot of new frameworks and technology keep coming out and you have to continuously learn
Whoa Steve! Hatsoff.
Yup, you have to learn how to learn. And master Googling. And have a strong foundation in Computer Science. It is a VERY hard job.
Thank you for being HONEST AND TELLING IT LIKE IT IS!!!!
Yeah. It’s not you’ll ever have a deadline or do work you don’t like. Find clients is so easy. All need is 6 months and your financial stress will go away😏
Retirement for some people becomes their bondage in poverty because they failed to invest with the little they have on their active years of working, this is an error we need to start working on now, I’ll advise that while you still can work and earn also take some money aside and invest in your future after retirement so this classification won’t have to be yours
The thought of retirement has given me the opportunity to sort out another source of earning
I started paying more attention to stock and learning more about online trades
Trading became interesting when I met Shanita online and she gradually exposed me to the whole trade market and how to earn massively from it
I was introduced to forex with the guidance of Mrs Creswell and there isn’t a single trade I have loosed
I invested $10,100 with her and she made profit of $53,000 for me just in 5days
I've spent 30 years flinging code, and Dorian is spot on.
It can be a rewarding and lucrative career. For me success came when I had the experience to choose who I worked for, and could use my skills and abilities to work towards both of our goals of building a better world, all while working for a company where there is mutual trust and respect. There is nothing better at the end of the day than to say to yourself, "I've made a huge difference in the world."
And don't worry, when you've reached that level you won't have to worry about money.
Oh, and the icing on the cake...I don't have a college degree.
good on ya man :) how many years until you felt confident to make that choice of who to work for? im just starting out myself but im 29! Hoping to one day make a difference as well.
@@tman695695 About 5 years, and I was only slightly younger than you at 27 when I started. You got this.
Whoa 😮 you are my motivation.. thank you for sharing your wonderful story.. as someone who is learning to become a software developer people like yourself keep me motivated.
Every job I’ve ever had I was the hardest worker and eventually became one of the best. I may not be naturally gifted but I simply refused to be out worked. I will take this attitude into all my endeavors. I am not afraid of hard work.
is the software developer/programming field dreadful as portrayed in this video?
I understand earning 6 figure salary is not easy but that’s literally true in ALL fields. No one is going to pay you 6 figures to chill. The work is not frightening to me, I only care about available opportunity to find steady work. I live in California by the way if that helps.
Thanks so much for response sir
@@theword3917 Dreadful?? No.
Hard?? Yes.
I quite literally worked my way from a janitor, first cleaning restaurant and then a deck seaman in the Navy, to a senior analyst at a fortune 100. Like you, I always worked hard and earned the respect of whoever I worked for. With that I was given the freedom to make my own way. Even now, in a very large company, I am given the freedom to chart my own course.
I worked at an auto plant as an electrician after getting out of the Navy. While most of my peers did as little as possible, I learned as much as I could...enough to become a controls engineer designing factory automation systems.
There's so much more, but in short...find a problem wherever you work and solve it with an application....Don't ask, just do it.
Now you have an app that solved a real business problem that is an elevator to the next job.
There are a TON of jobs outside of the tech industry. Companies in all sectors need 'small' internal apps that can provide you not only a steady income, but a very rewarding career.
You can do this!
My man talks about real truth here. Exactly.
As a senior developer (currently in the learning path for software architecture), I think everything you said there is true (I can't really comment about the freelancing portion as I haven't been a freelancer). This job is hard, and the higher you climb and harder it is. Somehow I have climbed pretty quickly in the company I'm working on even though it's pretty big. I joined as a guy with no experience at all that didn't know any of the languages the company used. 3 years later I was a senior dev and tech lead for small teams. Even though I learn extremely fast and have nice ideas, it wasn't easy at all, I worked my butt off and also learned how to make myself shine in front of clients and higher ups, specially since I didn't have a diploma and had to make myself look worth paying more for.
The one thing I usually tell people is: Don't just go with the company with higher pay right away. Make sure the company allows you to grow, to learn, that has requirements that will challenge you and force you to be better. That will make you a better developer over time and you will probably be able to land even better jobs with way higher pay. I know people with more knowledge and experience than me who left the company for another one where they were paid more but had really boring work or barely had any work, and at this point it seems I ended up gathering more knowledge and experience than most of them and I'm earning similar or higher amounts. I'm getting job offers with really good salaries but I'm staying in this company as it has and still does help me with my mother who is battling against cancer. At some point I said I had to travel to see and assist her when she was hospitalized and nobody freaked out about the current projects or told me that I had just a couple days for that. They all told me they would cover my work and to take as much time as I needed. I was back two weeks later, still having trouble to get whole 8 hours of work a day as I was still helping my mother and they just told me to take it easy and not go overboard.
I'm making over 130K a year (it was about 83K until lkast year). I have to say, I have gotten offers where I can earn a bit more, but I decided to stay with the company that actually treats me like a human being that has personal issues that might affect my job, that might need to leave early on short notice due to emergencies happening, the company that often checks whether I'm burning out and tries to avoid that happening, and also has my back when a client is being overly abussive.
Then again, I had some luck landing here and also this company's culture really fitted me as everything here is about helping each other and learning in the process. Try to find something like that, and try to be someone who deserves to be treated like that.
This is really motivating.
I hope your mother is doing well and getting healthier.❤️ can you tell us how we can get success in this domain without any certificate degree or diploma..??
Please 🙏
What luck are you talking about? That’s something you can’t gloss over
Which company is it
It's hard to find honesty on UA-cam, thanks and I'm happy to donate my eyes to your ads and contribute to whatever it gives you
As a professional software developer for 20 years (most of the time freelancing) I can absolutely, 150% agree with all your points. On the internet everything seems to be easy (become rich, become fit, be the next Elon Musk,...), but the reality is different, not discouraging, but you just have to put much more effort into anything than it's proposed in many internet-content-pieces.
be the next Elon Musk,...)
hello, I hope you reply to me but Im a fresh MIS graduate trying to get a job as a software engineer, if you have any tips for me I would srsly appreciate it
After more than 20 years in the industry and having done everything from Freelancing, Corporate Jobs to Game Dev I could not agree more.
what one have you settled with?
@@Kaxon Who says I did? 😀 Anyways currently in a more corporate environment and quite happy in general. But nothing's set in stone.
Things he said about game dev is terrifying for beginner game devs like me, being passionate and creative doesn't pay off in the end? How fucked up is that, people making money off of NFTs, most of these new trending stuff doesn't even make sense, feels like making money becoming more and more easier but I am missing something. Could you please as a game dev, share your experience and invested time in it here? Thank you.
@@dennisdzeko3916 Game dev is quite a cut throat environment. Yeah, on one hand you have the big companies focusing on making their investors happy, and devs just being numbers. Since the game devs are usually quite passionate about their craft and art the big companies found ways to exploit that. Crunch, low pay and high demands are quite common. Then there are the indies. Some are doing quite well, but most are always on the brink of bankruptcy because it is really hard to sell your games and past successes will not guarantee sales in the future. Also the dev cycles are really long - it takes years to be able to ship even a smaller game and you'd have to pay your staff during all this time.
Oh, and then there are the - probably millions - of one-man shows (or really small dev studios with maybe 3 to 5 people) trying to make a dent... usually working somewhere else to make a living and just hoping a game will sell well enough to pay enough to make it a fulltime job. For many this never happens.
I never worked in a big company, but I have friends who did and do, but I was working for smaller to middle sized indies and money is always an issue. BUT, the passion and craftsmanship in game development is really something special. If you can tip your toes into it I really encourage you to do it. But don't expect to be paid too well, or to have a 'simple life' while doing it.
@@RedOchsenbein Thank you so much for the detailed answer and all the tips. I actually wish to make money off of it but don't look at it as "easy money". Thinking if you do what you love and your work represents the passion, the effort you put into it, money comes like a bonus. I will keep your words in mind!
I like how real this felt. No fluff. I'm thinking about a game or app based off my tabletop creation, but now I understand even more of what stress and risk there would be. Thank you.
I was kind of just creating videos on UA-cam after listening to this....
Gaming is about scaling. Every bit of an extra feature and what not, require exponentially more time (or coworkers). Before you do anything, I recommend you to learn gdd, game loops, and gaming Psychology and prototyping. Gaming is science in itself before you even write a single code. Scale everything down and at 30% buffer time, what every deadline you gave yourself. Have fun
0:00 - Intro
0:35 - Getting a job as a developer
3:53 - Freelancing
9:24 - Startups // Creating apps and saas products
11:15 - Game development
13:36 - Content creation as a dev
16:15 - Conclusion
Thanks
9:24 - Conclusion
Thanks 👍
finally an honest video about the matter. 20+ years of experience here, worked for some of the "big tech", worked for startups, used to run my own outsourcing company in SE-Asia: all of this was super exciting, but non of it was easy. it's either good money and hard hard work or easy work and small money.
Love your honesty. It is always best when someone gets into something knowing what to expect. RESPECT!
Being a programmer in America seems super stressful compared to here in Scandinavia. I have been at my current company for 5+ years and it's great. Yes - there are stressful periods, but mostly it's not a problem.
Couldn’t someone from a foreign country or American who knows how to program work remotely with you guys
HAHA doing *anything* I America is super stressful. Now there's no house for less than half a million dollars, so we have to work twice as much now.
@@karlybyrd1551 depends on the state you're in, there's houses starting at 130-150k on the low end and they're decent too
@@toxicleaguex5546irst of all we in europe have our devs ourselves which are pretty good, second we have the DSGVO and especially in germany the BDSG which are kind of strict laws of security of people data and stuff, which often requires a special job in between to dont break that laws which can be insanely expensive, so basically the code must fit in this…not every country and continent have the same dev culture, too. Remote or move in another country is a thing for sure, but its easier to say than find a job and acually move…
This is great bro! Glad SOMEONE said it! So many “sales people” out their trying to sell courses and dreams, they always minimize the process and people suffer for it.
Programming IS hard. Anyone whose gotten past HTML and CSS knows how hard it gets when finally entering the world of programmatic thinking. It’s literally learning of a new way to think and communicate. I say, “If you don’t enjoy it, don’t keep doing it.”
Everything changed when I stopped trying to learn for a job and started learning to see what I could build.
Programming takes a while to learn and not everyone may get it. That's pretty much the only con this video got right. The salary numbers are way off at least for silicon valley, if you're counting bonuses and stocks (which you can immediately sell for cash) instead of just base salary. The culture is not toxic in most places because in tech the manager is required to avoid micromanaging people. And the workload totally depends on your luck and what team you end up in; you could be swamped or on the other hand you could have a really light workload and slack off (or alternating between the two sometimes).
Programming *is* indeed hard. But I can do it, 100%. That's not an issue. The issue is do I even *want* to? I'm slowly finding out that as a career, no I don't. Im a creative person, I need the freedom to create, and this sounds like the opposite of that.
@@MiketheNerdRanger It depends entirely on what you want to create, but in general what you said is just wrong; it is literally one of the most diverse ways to be creative in the modern day possible. Make your own app, game, etc could be done as a side project even if you have a day job.
new skills to learn are usually only a potent job for the next 2 to 10 years. meanwhile use what you already have with you, if you don't have any at all, be diligent to learn one which can take at least a year and semi-mastered.
@@DG-wr6cl IIUC this is a concern at a day job where you have a set task, but the skill itself (of programming) is extremely useful for being creative general. With my music skills I can create music, but with my programming skills I can create literally anything I can imagine. Imagine the ultimate game you want to play with all the best features; or an app that solves some inconvenience that's been frustrating you; you can create almost anything under the sky. For example, I recently made a game called AI Roguelite available on Steam, featuring my music.
But it's apples to oranges and I often enjoy making music more than I enjoy programming, which is why it depends heavily on what one wants to create
i love this channel just cuz of how real u keep it man, keep going, keep it real
Thank you Dorian for being the most real Software Developer on the internet. Much love brother.
Just gotta say, if doing one of these things is what you wanna do, don't let any of this info stop you. If you go into it with an understanding that it's not going to be easy, then you are much more likely to succeed past the point where it turns out to not be as easy as you might have otherwise expected. It really sucks when you expect something to be easy and then it turns out to be really hard, it's enough to crush your dreams and make you think that you can't do it.. But you CAN do it, it's just hard. If you know and understand that it's going to be hard work before you do it, the fact that it is hard isn't going to be enough to stop you and the most resilient and unshaking kind of confidence comes from knowing something is hard and knowing you can do it anyway. What it takes it persistence and perseverence, quitters never win.
This comment will forever be seared into my inner most brain…. Thank you sir.
I dig your content and values thanks for sharing!
The realest video I've seen about ways to make money programming.
All other videos seem to say it is all that easy to make big bucks. But I never believed that, because of knowing the hard struggles of being a programmer myself.
Thanks Dorian, for spreading great insights to the ways of making money programming.
5 Things to Never Do in Rush:
1) Giving away your trust
2) Making big desicions
3) Judging someone's character
4) Falling in love
5) Eating your food
subscribe# SAYED#...
yeah this one guy (not gonna name lol) was in my recommended about a video on c++ employability, so i clicked through to read comments, ended up watching the vid, checking out his other stuff and then didn't watch a vid of his in a while until he got recommended again and he was calling coding the "golden ticket", like really preying on people who were probably in bad financial situations, and saying that you could get hired in 4 months using his course lmfao.
That is why I love your videos. Because you are real, honest and tell it like it is. No sugarcoating, no bull$hit, no "selling dreams". This $hit is HARD. It takes years and years. Some get lucky, but as you said, they are a minority. This doesn't happen over night, you need to put a lot of work, you study every day, there is so much stress, you take your work home, you need to sacrifice a lot. And it is very hard when you have to provide and take care of your family. You can't afford risk. You can't just play around and hope for the best.
I can agree quite much to what you mention here and in addition: i dont know if there is any other profession where you have to spend that much of your time in learning new features/tools/concepts, if you're not doing it you might end up jobless after some years.
try to make it a normal part of your work, set yourself goals to improve your knowhow and skills once a year - from beginning until you get retired.
some companies try to help you with these kinds of topics but most of them dont care at all
I'm a seasoned developer with 10+ years' experience, he is exactly spot on.
Great video.
This video seemed like some hard truth, but in a way, I found it encouraging. I’m currently an RN but have developed complete deafness in one ear and partial deafness in the other. Because of that, I feel like my future in nursing is kind of capped. I’ve been thinking of another direction to go and coding has really gotten my attention. In regards to his advice in this video, I feel like my currently stable nursing career kind of allows me to take my time, move at my own pace, and not necessarily have to depend on an income from coding early on. Glad I found this channel to help guide me and keep my expectations in check. Love that this dude keeps it real.
You are a real teacher man!!! Seruously no body tells you the truth in UA-cam. It's all flowers and a biwl of cherries and that's not what the real world is AT ALL. Selling people dreams sells. Hats off to you. You've got a new subscriber.
Just hit my 8 year mark as a developer. This is all completely accurate. So glad I found this channel. This man is the truth.
Firmware engineer here. Dealing with low-level code. We need more people in this field. Everyone seems to like software and web, but no one seems to have any interest in firmware/embedded engineering path way. Lots of position open and its incredibly hard to find people to fill the position.
Man I've been poking on firmware development for a long time, yet I'm here staying still being backend engineer. I've been prodding to change lane for a while, might try to pursure this role.
@@averagehololiveenjoyer8496 yeah and with the chip shortages, the firmware/embedded job becomes even more important as company struggling to finding whatever available chip and have to re-write the drivers for it. Dealing directly with RAM and ROM can be seen as intimidating, but it's actually quite simple.
@@milky3ay566 any resources to learn ROM programming?
might be due to the higher cost of entry to embedded. unless you have a makerspace nearby, the upfront cost for equipment is definitely way more than a laptop and internet connection which you'd need for software and web. i really do wish there were cheaper and easier avenues for beginners. and, as dumb as it sounds, beginners roadmaps (which I find a little unrealistic when I'm further along the journey because they're way too set in stone and learning for a project is often fluid and combines plenty sub-specializations) can actually be helpful for beginners to get an overview of a field and all the sub-specializations in it... and just in general to get more knowledgeable and accustomed to a field. and there weren't many of those beginner roadmaps to be found when I was starting out. I was just going in blind with 200+ quid worth of kit that I'd managed to fleece my dad into buying lol
What would you recommend someone learn to become a firmware engineer? Can be anything doesn't have to be programming languages.
Such true words. No youtuber exactly says the pain as you do. I'll be subing you for nice content you made with your experience.
This paints a very realistic picture of what it means to become a successful programmer. The grind is real, apart from exceptions, you will only learn by failing a lot and get better by trying and trying. Love this content!
I can kinda imagine that software dev is one of the more realistic jobs for me, but it is stil pretty bad, cause it kills my brain and my psyche. And I need a pretty good working environment with the possibility to also work out. I have something similat to social anxiety and depression and I can not even imagine to work for hours, especially with people.
Straight up, straight forward and spot on. I'll add this. If ANYONE, thinks they are going to make North of 70K, doing anything, and they won't BLEED for it, well, here's your sign. No matter the area of study in IT, coding, security, networking, what have you. You'll earn, what you put in and? In the end, you'll put in more than most every other field out there. Doctors know this. They make mad money and? Sacrifice their lives for twenty years, literally, to get there.
It, doesn't come free and frankly most people you know simply do not have what it takes and often you'll ask your self if you have what it takes.
Big tech companies in silicon valley are paying about $200k starting salary if you include the stocks and bonus (not just base salary), and the vast majority of those places are not toxic, quite the opposite actually. Smaller companies might pay lower but not by too much or else they won't keep up with the competition. I hope people don't take this video so seriously that they think toxicity is normal. In tech, managers aren't even supposed to keep an eye on you or anything; they just ask you once in a while what you've done. And your coworkers will tend to be very kind as well since everyone wants a good performance review.
@@MaxLohMusic there's office politics everywhere. Moreover, not everyone can get into the big silicon valley companies.
@@dipanjanghosal1662 Depending on how performance reviews are structured, the office politics could be the opposite of toxic; in my case my manager advocates so hard for me that he overstates my accomplishments and abilities (in a good way) during performance review.
The ridiculous salaries of the big companies force the small companies to also pay higher salaries so even if they're lower it won't be too much lower. Getting accepted into a big tech company is easier than most people realize. I failed my first interview miserably because all the questions were hard, and passed the 2nd one easily because my interviewers were inexperienced and didn't realize their questions were too easy. It's a game of luck so you just have to keep interviewing as many times as possible and try again as soon as the company policy allows you (usually 6 months between interviews, but you can try multiple companies at once)
@Nikola B. I was talking about lack of micromanagement. The manager should still check in with you frequently to see if there's anything they can do for you, get your preferences on what you enjoy or don't enjoy working on etc. There's literally no conceivable way it could get any more wholesome and less toxic than that; if you still think that's toxic you think everything is.
Propping people up when they don't deserve it is only "toxic" from the company and shareholders' point of view. There's no reason for an employee to be unhappy with a system that unfairly benefits them.
@Nikola B. I meant it in the sense that the managers don't micromanage or pressure you. They check in to make sure you're happy with what you're working on and see progress across time. And you are completely exaggerating what happens during performance reviews. All I said was people are incentivized to be nice to you because they don't want a bad review. That does NOT mean that anyone who's nice automatically gets a good review even if they do literally nothing. Also, most people are just nice people at heart; you don't need the incentive of a good review just to be nice to others. They try to weed out the toxic people during the interview stage as much as possible.
p.s. you can't "give a good review to a colleague because you want one back". You don't see each others' results until afterward.
this is prob one of the most truthful videos i ever watched
Love how real Dorian keeps things. He's aggressive out of care and getting to the point, not elitism. While it's nice that people try to be encouraging and soft, they often leave out or underplay the harsh realities you are often likely to face and, how it has affected others and could affect you.
There was 0 agression in the video.
@@TrueNeutralEvGenius The dictionary would disagree
@@xOmniCloudx Broken semantics in your brain? Tell linguist about that.
Great video, the bit about freelancing is spot on. I'd only recommend people to go freelancing if they either A. have some super in demand skill that they can just pick who they want to work with, or B. if you're more of a business type who can coordinate with other freelancers and deliver full projects rather than getting paid per hour. For most 'regular' developers, you're better off with a regular job or short-term full time contracts.
Also for side projects and app ideas, the business and idea aspect is way more important than coding. There are plenty of people who can build an MVP for your for very little. The real challenge is in validating a business idea and getting your first users, neither of which have anything to do with your coding skills. So if you're looking to build your own app or saas, focus on getting the business skills, not the coding skills.
@@michael.knightHe is right
5 Things to Never Do in Rush:
1) Giving away your trust
2) Making big desicions
3) Judging someone's character
4) Falling in love
5) Eating your food
subscribe# SAYED#...
Wouldn't it be best to set a goal to freelance after having a 'regular' dev job while gaining experience? Full-time freelance to me seems like a dream so that would be the reward no?
hello, I hope you reply to me but Im a fresh MIS graduate trying to get a job as a software engineer, if you have any tips for me I would srsly appreciate it
Your helping others out by explaining that career longevity is going to make it much harder for people to evolve into homeownership across the US. That’s situation fewer people need to hold serious conversations about.
I'm working as a software developer and have none of these issues. Colleagues are great, work environment is clean and fun. Boss is cool, job isn't stressful at all most days. Yes you need to have your brain connected, but that's also one of the perks of the job. When I did manual labour before, I had time to think about how bored I was and what the time was so I could go home. Now I come to the office, and I'm transported into this alternate dimension where time just flies by because I'm focusing on it. It's great.
Of course it's a grind, but it's about finding peace with your level of skill and just being open and honest always. You're often being paid by the hour, so there's no reason you need your cortisol through the roof. Grab a coffee, listen to some music while scouring through codebase and database looking for the cause of that one issue. Ask for help often when you're starting out. I swear, the name of my partner at the company is the one word I say more often than anything else including good morning.
wow, i love this response!
@@91dgross Yeah me too.
@@mgasukihanwa841 good luck on your journey brother, we got thiss!
@@91dgross we got this mate
Great answer. Some questions:
1.) Which stack do you handle at your job?
2.) How much years of experience do you have to feeling that comfortable?
3.) Did you pass through a technical interview to get the job?
4.) Did you have a portfolio back then to show? If you had, what were your projects?
5.) Back then, they were hiring trainees or juniors?
20 years experience in and I can vouch for all of what you're saying.
What type of development do you do?
@@drdunkan15 I have done flash, javascript, php, front end, database etc. If you have been to a McDonalds in Canada, or ever played with a webkinz toy, you may have seen some parts of my work.
Are you a freelance developer??
I did some contact for a while. After the birth of my daughter, I shifted away from that to concentrate on family. The overtime that is so common in our field is not helpful when raising kids.
Which one you think is easier to learn web developer or cybersecurity for a person with not IT experience? I understand you’re a software developer, but since you’ve been around for 20 years in IT, I thought you would have an idea.
I’ll appreciate your opinion?
Thanks!!!
Doing contract work recently. I was pleasantly surprised how easy operations work (supporting servers and routers) is compared to writing and supporting a big in-house applications. Code is so complex and difficult that companies are dumping the entire job of writing, testing, debugging, documenting, supporting (2 am calls) . The rest of the company is mostly people just getting in your way using archaic management systems like SCRUB (sic). The biggest upside of being an in house developer is that, your value goes up double each year because for someone else to learn what you know about the company's code takes years. You won't be compensated double but if the company is doing well you can easily demand 20-50% raises yearly.
This video is spot-on.
Re skills: For the people asking what to learn, first do a quick online course in web development for a little perspective. Then check the job boards and look at what skills are most in demand for high paying jobs. Right now for front-end coding jobs, javascript frameworks like React, Vue, etc are high demand. For back-end, Laravel is quite pretty. The desired skills change from time to time, so you have to enjoy continuous learning.
Re freelancing: I've freelanced for dozens of clients from ma-pa shops to startups to Fortune 500 companies. Most of the smaller non-tech companies won't understand what you do, so you'll have to know design + front and back-end code to complete their projects. They call this "full-stack", which as far as I can tell means you have to do all the work by yourself while everyone else tries to tell you how. Understand - this means they won't pay you until they are happy with the visual design, which can turn into countless iterations. I'd say at least 50% of my clients withheld payment; the trouble is they all think they are designers, so they'll want to do endless tinkering (almost invariably making it uglier or worse UX) before they pay, if they pay at all. I'm sure others have better ways of dealing with this, but it just wasn't my cup of tea, even though I began my career as a designer.
I gave up freelancing except for the occasional startup that I do on spec, and only if I really see potential in an idea and the people making it. Instead, I work full-time as a front-end coder for one client [though technically I am self-employed]. I only do remote work and only for small companies, which allows me freedom and creativity. I prefer fintech, because (surprise!) these people are mostly just really amazing and fun. With 30 years experience I get to make these choices but it took me a while to get here. I don't regret any of it.
PS - Don't take your laptop onto the beach - you'll get sand in it.
Videos like this are a breath of fresh air to the development scene of UA-cam. For the past few years it’s been “code this not that”, “learn this language not that language”, “dive in, don’t be reserved”, “corporate cringe”, “top language of 202X”, “learn this technology, not that technology”.
I really enjoy watching development related videos even if I know the topic or not, or if I’m really skilled at that language or not. I enjoy that it keeps me constantly thinking about the topics. But the last few years have been lack luster on UA-cam.
thanks mate, i like your honesty. I am so sick of people who just lie to get your views. and so on.
Absolutely love the honestly. I still am going to pursue software development as a career though because I am working in a low-paid job in a completely different industry that still forces me to deal with many of the issues you've outlined here, so I think it will be an improvement on my current situation.
If you take it seriously and see it as a craft that you’re about to learn + having the motivation from your current situation I have no doubt that you can thrive in your new field :)
You will definitely make it. Also don't listen to him about the "race to the bottom" in freelancing, I once fooled myself into thinking that and it discouraged me for years from freelancing. Took me over two years to change my attitude on it and when I did I simply set what rate (I started at $20/hr which was more than I was making at my job) and I found the freelance work I wanted.
Thank you for telling the truth. I'm software developer for 20 years in the technical and scientific range of applications. You need to understand everything in depth, and have a really good construction of your software. Otherwise you dig your own grave. So money should not be your motivation. You need to have a kind of love to this abstract stuff of software development. If you have it, THEN you can deliver great applications and have success.
In simple words, if you can get to the bottom of the problem and understand it thorughly, you should be able to translate it in simple and efficient code, otherwise, you will be coming back to stuff that does not work over and over again.
I did my BE mechanical and, I have 5 years of experience in production, planning and control engineering can a go for data science in Canada
I'm a mid software engineer right now and it is so honest truth! Kudos to you for sharing that to the community! P.S. Actually I love what I do, but sometimes it gets super hard... :/
As a long time dev of 25+ years, I just want to say: You're so so so right and I'm happy that finally I found someone who said all of this in such a nice way. Good luck in your Content creation journey Dorian!
I did my BE mechanical and, I have 5 years of experience in production, planning and control engineering can a go for data science in Canada
Love your - as you said - being transparent and not beating around the bush. Dreams and hopes are okay, but it's also important to keep it real and not believe in all the crap about it being so easy for everyone to just "learn development and land your 100k job in 3 months!" bs. Subscribed and waiting for more content, cheers!
Your honesty just gave your channel a new subscriber's. Great content !
I'm starting to build my path as a programmer, and it haven't been easy but some way some how i still love trying to learn programming even when i'm so frustrated about it.
Thanks for your video!
It was very helpful
I've been at this for a while, and - word for word - this is exactly right. Corporate job - on point. Freelancing - 100% on point. Game dev - man, I'm so sorry for all the game devs out there, because I know it's their passion. For anyone getting into coding, this is exactly what to expect.
Lol 😆
I worked for a game dev brokering company and the same can be said for things like game testers. We had 3 in-house and that was it. That was for 200+ games, thousands of skins and sound effects, and dozens of producers. Of course, this was also when flash games and flash portals were big. Things have shifted a bit since then, but not really. It’s just mobile casual games now. 🤷♀️
My main point being: gamer passion projects are great to do in your spare time and game testing jobs aren’t very numerous so demand is low. Have a dream and keep with it, but “don’t quit your day job!”
@@illuminateunity2382 I hate it when solo game devs go on youtube to say they quit their job while they are not even half way done with the game
It took me over a decade to get into the game industry professionally in a real job. When I got started I could _not_ get an entry-level job to save my life. I had to just get so good at programming that no one could refuse me anymore ... good enough to trip up interviewers with my responses and counter-questions. In the end, I bypassed entry-level game development jobs and went straight to senior-level roles and quickly started taking lead positions. And with that comes a hell of a lot more stress and sleepless nights. I can't complain though because I'm making a lot of money now and even have consulting work and extra income on the side.
When they say "making a ton of money and living the dream life" it's really more like "making a ton of money and having no life", lol. I don't go anywhere or do anything, I just work, work, work ... but I have a goal in mind: I want to secure my own financial future with good investments and eventually start my own company. All of this work I'm doing now, I'm just learning how to be a project manager and team leader, not only from the engineering side but from the corporate side. It's just my real-world training for what I want to do some day, and I'm getting paid damn good learning it ... most people would have given up long ago, but I refused to ever let go of this dream.
My advice to aspiring game developers is start off as a programmer in a regular software job and gain real-world programming experience. You can't bypass the programming knowledge and experience, there are no substitutes. And yes, indy/solo game dev is harder than an industry job. When you do get into the industry, be careful where you decide to accept a job. Find out about the company and how they treat their devs and operate. A game dev job can be hell or it can be great. But be prepared to spend a long, long time on the outside looking in. The only way you'll ever get in is by creating a lot of stuff on your own, sharing it and showing people what you can do. Forget about creating an MMO or a major commercial title on your own, just make small games, interesting prototypes of systems for larger games, game assets, etc and work on some other people's indy projects that have some following and attention online to get your name out there. Add it all to your portfolio. As an outsider trying to get into the industry for the first time, you need to be _better_ at programming than your competition. You need to be so good (and able to show it) that a company is willing to gamble on you as a no-name programmer who never shipped a commercial game. If you're only _as good_ as the competition they'll just hire people who are already established in the industry, or people with connections to the industry like graduates whose uncle works at some big studio and gets his nephew a job. It's just how the business works. It's very exclusive and wary of outsiders. The sooner you accept that and understand what you have to overcome the sooner you may be able to actually achieve your goal.
oof yeah rip to game devs. they need unions or something, their conditions are sad :/
These guys on youtube are beating the hell out of the coursera and udemy teachers! TY so much, I will be supporting any way I can!
I always use to envy those who had their dad/close family member working in the same feild that they persue
Cause this gives them a clear picture of what the job is about and what does it take away in return .Your channel serves that purpose !
Real Talk No Dream Selling no bs !
I know what you mean in that it is enviable that they have a guide that can help them get to “success” faster and easier. But that also comes with extreme expectations. It’s easy for us to sit back and be like if I had this or that advantage then I would be at point X.
The richest and most successful people in human history came from nothing. Having that Rocky Balboa hunger cannot be bought and you aren’t born with it. One must have that drive In oneself. Only we as individuals can make ourselves do the things we need to do.
There's a possibility these people are just following those career paths because their parents or family are projecting their own dreams and aspirations on said people. It's not a good way of doing things. Just because everyone in your family is something, doesn't mean you have to be that something.
Dorian, this video was so wonderful. Thank you, everything you said is completely true and never talked about. Too much optimisim on youtube and nobody is realistic! If you weren't on youtube I feel like I'd be making these kinds of videos myself! So thank you for saving me that time.
Middle management is a pain. Working as a freelancer you get project creep/people who don't pay. The people who say that you can make a lot of money in self taught are all conveniently not self taught! The 3 month/6month 0 knowledge to 100k salary are a MINORITY and doesn't accurately represent the brutal grind to get a humble 60k salary. Getting a job is highly based on luck/numbers game rather than being outright qualified.
It's all possible! Just not likely or easy.
Edit: I also appreciate the fact that you used the term "eat shit". I use the same phrase, if you wanna become a programmer you gotta eat shit for a few years, if you want to be a freelancer you gotta eat shit from your clients.
You deserve a like and subscribe just for being Honest and Transparent.
This was a refreshing video. It really made me feel more understanding of my own expectations and what to realistically expect. This is worth a subscription...provides True honest Value without all the other tech youtuber lies and glam.
As a freelancer with 12+ years of professional experience in large companies and start-ups, this is solid advice! It’s accurate and realistic. Great video!
Also, coding can become very boring and isolating if you are at all even slightly extroverted. Think about other jobs that are still in high demand, like user experience and user interface design.
I’ve worked as a FEWD, full stack, engineering manager, platform design manager, marketing director… and I absolutely love the ability to manage a group of people. I’m obviously a bit of an extrovert! 😅 Plus, having the experience of being “in the trenches” really helps you gauge whether something is actually not possible or your engineers are just being lazy.
I really enjoy user and customer experience design and information architecture. Being able to make something better for our users is always great, and they give you all the info you need to help drive iterations towards better usability.
That said, just want to reiterate that you should also consider other jobs that you may enjoy if coding for 10-12+ hours sounds arduous and tiring. ;)
Again, great video and solid advice!
Hi, I'm 18 and have very similar feelings about the industry. I am in search of profession which is including creativity, communication and some engeniering. Something more serious than 2D illustrator but not so hardcore as backend developer.
UX/UI sounds as a good option.
Thank you for being open.
I'm 16 learning to code, working on a small discord bot, it's tough and I'm not even a full time Dev. I'll keep in mind what you said as I go on this journey. Also I subbed.
Good for you. Also don't believe what he says about freelancing sites as "a race to the bottom". I used to think so until I tried simply setting a higher rate, and now I am getting work at exactly the hourly rate I want. Turns out many people in USA want someone who they can communicate with better, even if it costs more.
keep it up, i really wish I started learning when I was younger now I'm 28 years old I want to learn but sometimes it just feels late
Don't be a freelancer. Be a service provider. Be a businessman. Also, business can be as stressful as a job. During that time, also build passive sources of income.
Easier said than done
@@eleh1337 Nothing is easy, my friend. If you are on your way to do this, I wish you best of luck.
@@theplaymakerno1 🤣🤣 good luck though
@@eleh1337 good luck to you, my good man. Stay focused and you will achieve whatever you want.
It
I am grateful for your honesty.
I'm about two and a half years into a five year programming education ("Datatechnician specialized in programming") and I'm struggeling a bit. Maybe it will get easier further down the line.
Five years is too long - if you can get working on something while your studies continue.
thank you, I'm still motivated to learn but this definitely help putting myself back into realty about this career path. Very informative video .
One of the realest vid I watched in a long time....This man speaks the truth, Great content keep it up
I cant emphasize enough about how truthful the section on getting a job as a dev is. I had an unrelated degree and I self taught for about 1.5 years and took an online part time bootcamp. I got my first job over a month ago, but I wish someone told me what he is telling us now. Granted, I did pretty well for my first job, 80k salary, WFH, decent environment, full benefits, etc. I see how SWEs get burned out quickly though. The mountains of issues and features that never seem to stop coming gets tiring. The bi weekly meetings with business people who are just like "do this" and "do that". The endless fires I have to put out, I'm working on one feature and I get a message from the business people saying "Hey this is urgent, come do this!". I love coding and I'm thankful to be able to do something I love, but all of those day in the life videos don't show this aspect of the industry. So listen to this guy! Im only a month in, but I feel like if i had someone to tell me what he is saying, I would be able to know what to expect and adjust quicker.
Unfortunately you'll always run into the 'just do this' types in any profession. Just have to smile nod and always do the best you can, which is all you can do at the end of the day. Engineers are bad about this because a lot of them never repair or use the equipment they design. 🙃 Gotta trudge through the bs and keep your head up!
consider yourself lucky 80k where i live is basically a surgeon salary, and im not in a 3rd world country i live in europe, in my country if you make BARELY 30k you're lucky (with 5yrs experience in development)
@@sharkpyro93 yea, I know location is a big factor. Here in the US, 80k pretty low compared to what people make with experience. Though 80k for a first dev job here is lucky
@@DJ-xp9bs the only Country which have kinda the same Salaries as US Is germany but the enrry barrier Is absurdly high its not even funny, i dont have a college degree so i Just accepted my fate
Two years into a programming job and I just gotta subscribe, most of the things you mentioned I can vouch for. I'm probably about to experience all of the things you said that I haven't experienced yet haha
THANK YOU for keeping it real and honest!!
Great video! I actually wanted to look into freelancing as a side job after I get a tech job. I knew it would be tough, but now I know to have more patience with it. Thanks
Appreciate the realness 💯I unsubbed from someone recently because of how hard they were pushing the digital nomad narrative 🙄
I've been a programmer for more than 20 years. The only advice I can give is if you love what you're doing the money will sort itself out. I've been through the journey, small, corporate, freelancer and the one thing I regret is that when I started, I went the route that everyone else does. Working for someone else. I would have started my own company off the bat, if I knew then what I know now. Either way it's a hard and slow road but much more stratifying to build your own business and burn out because of that than burning out to make someone else money. If you want to take this route learn the first lesson, employ someone to do the things you suck at.
I have 10+ Years of experience as a software developer and I'm currently working on a game as a side project. I can confirm that this route is really difficult, but also its very rewarding to build something yourself, probably the most rewarding thing I did so far and maybe someday I can live off of it.
Moral of the story: no matter what path you take in life, it will most likely be stressful and difficult. Gotta love the world we live in
Amen to that.
Life sucks
The easiest path is being fine with not earning as much money and take a regular job that doesn't pay as much.
I think the best thing possible is finding something that makes you fulfilled even if it doesnt generate much money
Can't agree
You just earned a new subscriber! Thanks for being real. I am not discouraged one bit.
I am 48 at the time of writing. I started coding professionally in 1999. After 5 years I transitioned to freelance. I burned out after 17y and stopped coding professionally. Now work in a totally different field and coding is again a hobby, like it was in the early 90's. Every word of this video is true. I've lived it.
what are you working on?
@@darianmorat actually I'm working on an nft collection for a very talented musician. As a side project, as a hobby, not for money.
I want to start freelancing can you help me
@@kizzayusuf4098 no not really sorry
@@kizzayusuf4098 learn yourself on the internet
Appreciate your opinion and honesty. However, if something doesn’t work, or never worked for you - it might work for me or someone else. Fact is - there’s no free, easy money anywhere. We have to work or do dangerous things to get that money. Grind is real, but to anyone saying that coding is stressful, etc. - I would suggest to try to work as a dispatcher or a planner at a big company with 150+ trucks, with 1200+ daily incoming emails, never ending problems, changes, switches, breakdowns, etc. then you tell us what is stressful 🤣
nothing is easy in life specifically beginning is always the hardest part we shouldn't be giving up just assuming maybe someone out there is doing better so let's not do this 🤷
@Mcloud30 Thank you for this comment, I know the intention of this vid isn't to deter people but I was seriously having doubts about my future as I'm quick to worry, I think things will be okay just gotta take it day by day.
"I would suggest to try to work as a dispatcher or a planner at a big company with 150+ trucks, with 1200+ daily incoming emails, never ending problems, changes, switches, breakdowns, etc." I think I might enjoy that as it has a kind of rhythm. I previously worked as a corporate stooge where the only value I provided was coming up with ideas, normally for irrational people.
Right. He's just stating facts of life not just for programming.
dude, love your honesty. id rather have the cold hard truth that actually benefits my life than the usual pipe-dream many force feed on the internet. best of luck to you my friend and thank you again for the insight!
Thanks for sharing ; I believe marketing is more important than the actual software when it comes to indie dev
Thanks for your honesty and I am just on the pathway to becoming a software engineer. And I will want to have my own UA-cam channel and build my own Tech ideas.
Subbed. Thx for your honesty. You have integrity 👏 no better way to succeed then to move forward with the right expectation. You are not a pessimist;)
Thanks for telling the truth. Like with a lot of things, we only hear about the amazing stories, but those people only represent a small percentage.
As a Game developer, I really appreciate you for saying & explaining how it really is and the brutal honesty in this entire video.
People need that slap in the face before they go for tech.
You're very sincere. You're 90% right and I agree with you.
I've tried to create a game, spent a year trying it and it was a complete failure. Then I tried to create apps and after 10 apps created and 3 years dedicated to it, I only earned $1k, which is another complete failure. I finally started freelancing and now I can earn $1k a month, it's not a lot but it's already showing much more promise than my previous attempts to survive as a developer. Today I think about how much time I wasted chasing a dream of becoming a millionaire when I could have started freelancing years ago.
Where are you from? $1000 doesn't seem a lot but it depends on the country you live in I guess.
@@123ftw1 for me this amount is little, my long term goal is to get $10k per month, but for this year I'll be happy with an average of $2k per month.
❤️
esta trampando em qual site man?
How is your experience with freelancing?
Thank you for the sincerity. I know making 6 figures a year is too good to be true (and it is), but still I will give my best because I really enjoy coding.
I don't want to give up before even trying. Though this video is really humbling and I will keep it in mind going forward.
He is right
5 Things to Never Do in Rush:
1) Giving away your trust
2) Making big desicions
3) Judging someone's character
4) Falling in love
5) Eating your food
subscribe# SAYED#...
I grew up dirt poor. Worked my way up from a janitor to a senior analyst at a fortune 100 making well over $100,000. Programming is one of the very rare fields you can actually make it happen without a degree. Keep coding if you enjoy it, and you will make it.
This is the most honest video on UA-cam right now
Don't forget that for startups and game development, information security has become a critical dimension which adds on to the complexity of these two ventures.
I agree 👍
"Deal with middle management," that hurt me right in the management. :(
To be honest, as an Engineering Manager, I try to help my team be the best they can be both at work and home.
But, I was and still am a developer, and my previous experience has been what is expressed in this video. I learned from that and help devs as much as I could.
Now that I saw the whole thing. Thank you for removing the illusion that I always see online. I used to be a freelancer/consultant, and it's HARD. I was lucky and privileged that I had others manage the clients. But, I had some terrifying experiences, and they were not fun.
I've been in software development for 13 years. Spent 3 years in freelancing, and honestly, it wasn't great. You end up working for little money and competing against newbies/students who charge way less.
About burnout, you don't really feel it when you're starting your career. Coding and picking up new tech is fun at first. But after a while, it hits you. I even went through a bit of depression and had an identity crisis. I used to think I’d code non-stop like Uncle Bob, but there came a point where I just couldn’t stand coding anymore. Got through that tough time by completely cutting out coding at home and just doing the bare minimum at work - enough to avoid getting fired.
Now, I’m doing okay. I look after my mental health a lot more, taking breaks when I need to (when my mind feels tired). Back in the day I’d code non-stop, even after work. But I’ve learned that’s not the way to go. You've got to ease up a bit or burnout will get you.
Started my first professional dev job this past Monday. Damn it's tough. 100% on the bug fixes. I'm fighting imposter syndrome right now.it's a smaller dev team so I touch the code in almost every stage but man it's a lot.
hello, I hope you reply to me but Im a fresh MIS graduate trying to get a job as a software engineer, if you have any tips for me I would srsly appreciate it
Your videos deliver honesty and truth, subbed
The problem with local freelance clients is that many small businesses (depending on the area) are not willing to spend that kind of money and time to develop websites when there are extremely low cost website builders that exist.
Upwork and other freelance platforms are pretty cancerous because you will always find yourself competing with others in low cost of living areas asking extraordinary low prices for things. Even with experience, as you said, it’s really hard to get going. I have 10+ YoE in the industry and converted to freelance at the end of last year and it’s been very difficult to find high quality clients for reasonable prices.
Am a freelancer for 4 years now, (almost 7 years as a prof in total) of which the first two years I took the "approach clients and kiss their butt" route and the last two working as a freelancer for a single company. Everything this guy said is true, but I can vouch for working at a company as a freelancer being the silver lining. Besides that I'll add one more point to his freelance con list: Every project you accept, work on, finish, will result in maintenance the minute after its initial "release", unless you pass it on to someone else. Keep that in mind when you're picking clients/projects, because you can get swamped very easily by multiple clients wanting their project/update to be finished around the same time. Gl with that on your own.. And oh yeah, forget about any personal projects while you're at it.
Shouldn't you be charging an annual fee for maintenance though? I'm not saying it reduces the amount of maintenance work to be done, but at least you are paid for it.
@@Martinit0 Yea, that's an option. Depends on whatever you agree on with each client. Haven't tried that model myself though, so can't say if it's better or worse than just invoicing the hours worked on maintenance. Just to be clear: I never did any maintenance for free, unless it was a really minor update (
Agreed with every single word this man said. I always wanted to be Software engineer because I liked video games so much in my early years. Only until I was 27 I learned Python and worked in Animation for some movies creating their pipelines until one day I finally landed to the video game industry and was a total disappointment. Long hours, low pay, and the list goes on. Luckily, my skills went beyond than simply coding and now at 33 y/o I'm working architecting cloud (devops) but, as he mentioned hasn't been easy... I spent sooo many hours building my skills, learning so many different technologies, learning how to design instead of develop, I have worked 6 days a week, 15 hours per day for months to get to where I am right now, earning a decent salary, and my LinkedIn inbox full every week... have been easy? Totally not! Would I do it again? Without hesitation!
Great honesty
You give me a lot of motivation with your last line
Hello and how are you? You're a cloud architect? I want to learn cloud. Is it possible for us to talk? I'm just starting on my coding journey and I think I want to specialize in the cloud but don't know where to start. From research I think I want to learn AWS cause most businesses use their cloud services. Do I need to learn html, css, Javascript or python to work in the cloud?
I am working 0 hours a day, I do not understand how other people are able to work for so long.
Congrats on your accomplishments, for sharing.
I am a freelancer for 3 months now and I really love it.
But I waited for this until I got at least 3 years of experience in software development.
Also communication is very important, be confident in what you do and be prepared to chew on glass.
How did you manage to quit your job to start your freelance career? Can I write to you privately for some advice? Thank u
@@Andrea-vi3kb I got fired and I just said fuck it and registered a business
@@WladBlank i'm curious to hear your story
hello, I hope you reply to me but Im a fresh MIS graduate trying to get a job as a software engineer, if you have any tips for me I would srsly appreciate it
@@mrlebanon6055 sure, hit me up at instagram and we can talk
"telling people that you can make money - can make you a lot of money on the internet." Perfect!!
This is good info. I mow lawns on the weekends on my own biz and work at a clinic during the week. That’s the beauty of working for someone else they get all the headaches.
My second game hit #1 on the App Store for overall apps, was the #1 trend on twitter, and netted me over $200k in about 5 months.
I agree with all of your talking points, however, you won’t make it to the top, if you constantly tell yourself you’re not good enough to get there.
Much respect! Great video.
What’s the app
"crickets crickets"
@@xgamerzxz lol
how can you mentor me, on that. I need you to see what am working on
hello, I hope you reply to me but Im a fresh MIS graduate trying to get a job as a software engineer, if you have any tips for me I would srsly appreciate it
If money is your incentive to become a programmer then programming isn't for you. The learning curve is immense and unless you are at least a little weird or fueled by an intrinsic drive to build something you will hit the wall really quick. I was lucky enough to experience my interest in creating technology at a very young age and learned that there is nothing out there that will kill your drive as fast as doing it as a job.
The pingpong table and chef made meals are great but the reality is that 90% of the daily tasks just aren't as interesting as you will spend 50% of your time in unnecessary meetings anyway, companies just don't allow people to have fun and/or experiment anymore and it kills all creativity.
If you look at history you can consistently see that the greatest inventions were made by accident while playing around with edge cases and getting their hands dirty, business is no place for accidents and inventions are deemed "unviable" or a "waste of resources".
Fastest way to kill the fun in programming is to become a pro.
And anything you do invent on company time automatically becomes company property that they're free to profit off whilst you get nothing except a small bonus increase at the end of the year
@@CynicalOldDwarf Well employees holding equity in the companies they work for isn't exactly rare in the tech world, however if you're paid by the hour do the inventing once you get home for sure.
"Giving all praise to this team of guru's for bringing my life back on track when I thought everything was gone, but with the help guidelines I was able to realized that the secret to making a million is saving for a better investment. I always tell myself you don't need that new Maserati or that vacation just yet. That mindset helped me make more money investing. For example last year I invested 80k in stocks (with the help of my Financial Advisor of course) and made about 146k, but guess what? I put it all back and traded with her again and now I'm rounding up with more than I can imagine
The pandemic came and taught everyone the importance of having multiple stream of income, unfortunately having a nice paying job doesn't mean you are financial secured anymore. So we all need to put in an extra-income earning chance, like investments.
Job will pay your bills, business will make you rich but investment makes and keep you wealthy, the future is inevitable
Yes I agree with you, Covid taught us the importance of having a plan "B" income. You are not safe with just one paying job, when nobody knows what will happen next. Look at what happened to so many of u...
Investment is that tiny line that separates the RICH from the POOR. The foolish from wise sorry to say. I can proudly say I am wise today because I can provide for my family through my investments.
Indeed crypto is the best investment, earning 3x my salary soon I won't work anymore...everyone should start taking part in it.
I have been freelancing for over 13 years now and I agree with most of what Dorian has to say in this video. Freelancing can be great and over a lot of freedoms. However, you can go through dry periods when you have no projects to work on and you practically live from hand to mouth. It is also challenging to work with multiple clients and projects and that can lead you to burning out even faster. Moving from project to project is also not easy. This is why I think the best job to have as a developer is working at a company that works on one or two products and not an agency where you would have to change and switch to other projects over and over again.