I have a friend, also a software engineer, who is starting to look for a new job. I asked him what his ideal next job looked like. He listed a lot of standard things like better pay and a healthy work culture, but he also said he wanted interesting problems to work on.
Interesting problems are one of the hardest things to find in a job, in my experience. Any job has moments of working on interesting problems, but sustained, long-term involvement in interesting problems is such a rarity in the tech world. I’m not sure if this is inevitable or not.
Reflecting on this topic made me realize that this is why I am trying to learn C++ and DSP: so I can work on “interesting problems”. Of course I’m sure if I ever make this career leap, I will find the same thing is true - the interesting problems come and go with time. As everything in life, they are wave-like. But until then, it renews my motivation to learn more about this new and challenging domain.
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