Recently, about two months ago, I graduated from university with a CS degree. Like many others, it has been hard to find roles as a fresh college grad as a software engineer.
I was able to land an offer as a data engineer. At first I was very excited and thought this was a great opportunity, as it is at a well recognized medium sized company that you've probably heard of (not faang).
However, I have been working here for a couple months now, and it is not what I expected. I love to code, and the amount of programming in data engineering is not that much at all. It is mostly working with data tooling, SQL, and creating scripts/configuration files to glue things together with Python.
Right now I want to begin my plan to jump ship to SWE in the near future. I plan on practicing leetcode, contributing to open source, and developing some personal projects.
How hard would it be to land a software engineering role in the near future if I stay at this data engineering role for 6-12 months, given the current job climate and that it would be the only professional experience that I would have after graduation.
Data engineering is a growing market, and the old adage of how to make money during a gold rush applies “sell picks and shovels”… the picks and shovels of data engineering are all software, which by learning how to make them, lets you build the classic “I took my experience using others tools and made my own better ones” narrative and put forward an excellent pitch to future prospective employers.