Ask HN: What was your biggest regret about learning programming?
This probably isn&#x27;t what you are looking for but I wish I never learned, or at least never decided it should be my career. A career writing software has a shelf life. Age discrimination is real, software engineer experience isn&#x27;t valued like other professions. And yes, there are plenty of firms that will hire engineers over 40, the fact remains that there are vast numbers of employers that won&#x27;t and once you hit the senior&#x2F;principal engineer in 5-10 years, you plateau. The pay is ok, for now, but the downward pressure on salaries is palpable. Also, it&#x27;s difficult to be told how well we are paid when a vast vast majority in the software mecca (SF) can&#x27;t actually afford a single family home with a sane commute. Some people can afford those homes, but it&#x27;s not the software engineers. The industry is filled with work that just isn&#x27;t interesting and of the interesting work that exists it tends to go to those that are the most political. We like to think this profession is a meritocracy but it isn&#x27;t. We are a managed people without a seat at the big boy table and this means we will never truly have the control over our &quot;destiny&quot; we think we have.<p>If I could do it over again, after graduating with a CS degree I would explore either going to Wall St to grind and retire after 5-10 years, go to a top 10 law school grind for 10 years and retire, go to medical school. Hell, I&#x27;d even just do a DO school in the carribean. Sure you get crapped on for your residency, but after that it only gets better and you don&#x27;t have shelf life.