Broad question, I'd love to understand what you see as the pros and cons of each career path (type of work, wlb, comp, what you see as the necessary skills / personality traits to really excel in each). I'm still early in my career and am trying to decide which direction to commit to.
All of the jobs are in Engineering. Data science is just better engineering. The non-technical stuff is just connections or whatever.
sounds like a stretch generalization..
Well, I mean, it's the only way to answer.
In the order of importance 1. Engineering 2. Data science 3. PM In tech everything boils down to engineering. An engineer can build a product, on his own, without PM, but a PM can't build anything without an engineer. DS sits comfortably in between. DS with with good engineering skills is a killer combo, though.
“but a PM can't build anything without an engineer” Don’t be silly. If we’re talking about a one person project I’ll just write the code or solder the wires my own damn self. There’s no need to run a whole damn process about it. I PM because I can scale more that way on a project that needs it, not because I’m not perfectly capable of writing code or doing other forms of engineering.
What did I just read !! The question is not what you choose to be or why you choose to be. Think of it in this way that if you choose to build something on your own, and you can have exactly 1 of these 3 skills, which one would it be? It's great if you can do both engineering and PM, but when you roll up your sleeves and start writing code, you do it as an engineer, or a better way to put it would be you can do it because you did study software engineering
Can you tell that all the responses are from engineers? ;)
Go to product, while the initial comp is lower for PM, you will rise faster to exec if you’re any good. There’s a lot of competition for eng. just look at all the good and experienced engineers stuck at L5-6 at google/fb. You’ll see this difference 10-15 years into careers
This is the best answer so far. Thank you
Some people like sushi. Some people like pasta. Just pick what you like
PM just seems more fun. I don't like being stuck behind a computer most of the week. PM you can in many ways have more impact as instead of contributing your own work you can get a whole team heading in the same direction. I also enjoy the strategy and multidisciplinary aspects of PM. No weekend production issues is a very nice bonus.
What do you want to do 10 years from now?. There are 3 paths - 1. Be an engineer (SWE) 2. Manage engineers directly (sdm). 3. Manage engineering functionally. (PM)You can start as an engineer and pivot to any of the three. Either you are passionate about one of this and work towards it or you will figure it out on the way. No right or wrong answer. 3 totally distinct yet important cogs of the wheel.
Software engineering - the skillset is most transferrable and valuable across multiple industries unlike most other roles.
Other roles are transferable too. Depends on how you sell yourself.