To those aiming to become IT engineers.

I want this to reach those who have graduated from school and are aiming to become IT engineers, or those who are thinking of changing careers to become IT engineers.

Introduction

I have been in the IT industry for 25 years since graduating from university. I started as a fledgling IT engineer in 2001, right in the middle of the employment ice age.
Although I didn't have a clear career vision from the start, I now have solid confidence in my "resume," and I can clearly envision my future career path and will realize it.

I personally consider this industry and profession to be my "calling." I have never once felt what many people likely feel, such as "I don't want to go to work," "work is painful," or "I want to change to a different industry." Even in such a job, I have experienced many things and seen many people through recruitment activities and actual work. I would like to write this down in the hope that it might be of some help.

Why are you aiming to become an IT engineer?

I think this is the same for any profession, but those with impure motives will sooner or later fail.

・I want to work mainly through telework
・I want to work at my own pace as a freelancer
・If I have a skill as an engineer, I shouldn't have any trouble
・I want to step up and aim for an annual income of over 10 million yen
・I want a job I can do silently by myself
・My salary will keep going up by changing jobs

There must be quite a few people who have these images. However, it is better to think that only a very small number of people can actually realize and maintain such things. These are all things that "come later as a result" and are not things to "aim for." To put it harshly, you will never be able to match those with pure motives, and you will end up failing, getting sick, or changing jobs to outside the industry again.

Common traps in the industry

It is not limited to the IT industry, but when people are in a "comfort zone" (a comfortable environment), they tend not to try to get out of it themselves. This is because leaving a "comfort zone" involves "pain," but you need the resolve to leave it for the sake of growth.
In the IT industry, especially in development sites, there are traps waiting that you are prone to falling into.

Case 1: The trap of temporary staffing and SES
If you look at the company information section of a company, there may be descriptions such as "human resources services" or "engineering services" in the business description. Simply put, this means going to a customer (a higher-level SIer or user company) instead of your own company and doing work as told. Naturally, your relationship with your own company's employees will become thin, and the skills you can acquire will be limited. If you are lucky enough to be at a good site, you can acquire skills, but I recommend "in moderation." It is still better if you go intending to train as a fledgling engineer for 1-2 years, but eventually, you will only do work with the skills you already have, and it will appear "easy." Because it is easy, you will start doing work by habit, and
after 5 or 10 years, your market value will drop without you knowing it.

Case 2: The role trap
There are roles at development sites such as the following:
・Tester (person who tests)
・Programmer (person who writes program code)
・Lower-level system engineer (person who writes design documents)
・Upper-level system engineer (meetings with customers, requirements definition, basic design)
----Up to this point corresponds to the so-called "engineer" profession-----
・Project leader/project manager (manager)
・Consultant (introduction consultant, etc.)
When people say "engineer," many people think of programmers or system engineers, but there is a trap here. For example, if you are in charge of the "programmer" role, the question is "how long will you be a programmer?"
Of course, it is fine if there are people who want to dedicate their lives to being a programmer, but if you are looking ahead, you need to take some action yourself. There is a trap where you cannot get out for the same reason as Case 1.

Case 3: The job change trap
After 3 to 5 years of starting as an engineer, you may gain a strange sense of confidence. You think, "If I change jobs, my salary should go up more." However, it is not that easy. Due to labor shortages, the hurdle for changing jobs is not that high, but without a "selling point" that has market value, changing jobs as you wish is difficult. As one of the IT engineers in the world, for what reason do you think your market value "should be higher than your current salary"?
Let's objectively evaluate your market value periodically.

Case 4: The independence trap
IT engineers can easily become independent if they have one computer.
I will not write about it in detail here, but there are always things you gain and things you lose.
Also, it does not necessarily mean that your "take-home pay will increase." Also, since you may fall into the same trap as Case 1, you need to think about independence carefully and systematically.

Case 5: The trap of losing touch with human feelings
You use a computer every day and become overly familiar with the messages the computer puts out. You spend an overwhelmingly longer time facing a computer than facing people. The more you understand the feelings of a computer, the more you may lose touch with or become insensitive to the feelings of humans.
Be careful not to develop communication disorders.

A real message that is not just social pleasantries

I feel that articles and books related to the IT industry are overflowing with "high-consciousness" (conscious-oriented) content. I have the exact opposite way of thinking.
"Effort," "study," "doing your best," "getting better"—I don't like these words. If you are an engineer, you should not talk about such qualitative words or processes, but rather talk in quantitative terms and results. I consider it a world of "competing with your skills." Will you "get better as an engineer if you make an effort and study hard"? No. That's not possible. I even think that "if you steal and slack off at work, you can transcend being an engineer." To survive in the IT industry, you must clarify the "critical path" of your career. You don't need to be able to clarify it from the beginning. Just as a car's headlights cannot illuminate all the way to the destination, if you at least always look 3 to 5 years ahead, the possibility of having an accident will be low.

Conclusion

The "speed of change" is what makes this industry attractive. Because the speed of change is fast, there are always opportunities for learning and growth. What I personally feel while working in this industry is that "work" is not just labor, but a part of the art that expresses oneself. Designing how to live within that—that is the idea of Life & Work Arts, which is the theme of this Note.