What is long-term career for software developer?

When I changed my career to work as a software developer, I'm still wondering if what is my long-term career for this profession. After short research on the internet, and some conversion with older developer, it seem that this career is not really as good as many people think.

Nowadays, with the development of online job hunting website, more and more people get access to the jobs available with median salary. On many such website, software developer are the most popular. The truth is we are having high demand of developer in Vietnam. But another reason come from the fact that developers, who stay hours in the internet, prefer to look for new job in head-hunting website, rather than get reference from their social network.

Return to the pops and cons of Software developer career. Even they're paid with good salary, more and more complaint have been published from older people in this career. They said that this career is tough for old people, when they young developer can do more task the a senior one, with much lower salary. Hence company would prefer to hire young developer. The job market as normal developer is shrinking for aged developer. In addition, developer is a stressful job when you have deadline all the time with frequently over-time working. The young developer have youth to overcome all of that. But for aged developer, they have too much to worry about (family, health...) that make them unhappy with such stressful job. The other, who continue to stay in the industry, can continue to pursuit the path of knowledge by becoming a Technical Expert, or becoming a project manager for someone who want to follow the management career.

But after investigate more about development & business world, I've found out that there's a promising career for developer:

That's it, you can be a Product Manager

Yes for most software company in developing country like Vietnam, they are out-sourcing company, so their main business is to develop product of "other". Hence there's no title in such company (like the one i'm working for). However, for company that develop product for their own (like Facebook, Google, Misfit...) they always need product manager, who take overall responsible for a product. For example, the product manager for Gmail, product manager for Facebook messenger, or product manager for Apple's i-watch. They are the one who work from the initial steps till last phase of product life cycle:

There's many phase in product life cycle that require many job to be involved. We are developer who are mostly limited in developing phase, so we limit out career vision in developing product.

But for future long-term career position, you can think of a higher position in software developing, which is a product manager. You not only manage the life cycle of a product, from analyzing customer requirement, to development, then deployment and maintenance; but also you need to know about the market and how to sell your product and some other thing about financial status. If you reach this level, I think you can start you business with your own product. That is how many Startup is blooming these years.

"Why did I write this article?"

Well, at first, i'm working as a SAP supporter, working in the last phase (maintenance) of a product life cycle. I started to get bored with my current task and have already request to work in development team, which is much more interesting to me.

However, developing application is not the last position in my career. I keep question what can I do after becoming senior in developing application, then I study & research more more. Thanks to internet and some interesting course from openSAP, I've learned more about product's life and long-term career of a developer. Which help me identify my long-term career position: Product Manager.

How about yours? Keep working smart and keep being curious about your career. I believe you can find the answer someday.

Source: my LinkedIn article

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