I think a lot of software development engineers might have thought about this once in their career time – where is this path taking them to. I thought about it before I started my journey with OSU and while I’m on this path now. And for me, the two paths I was comparing are software development engineer and product manager. I was on the product management team in the retail industry for many years so I knew all the inside and out about this job. So it seems natural to consider continuing being a product manager. With a CS degree, I should be able to at least knock some doors in the tech industry. I have heard stories about people being a SDE for many years and decided to make a career transition to become a product manager. Reasons that drive them making the transition are various, some of them found themselves in a career bottleneck, some of them do not want to do coding for their entire life. The technology changes too quickly and engineers are expected to respond quickly to the new technology. Some of them seem to find a seamless transition with their tech background and love what they do, and some realized this does not fit and went back to being a SDE. So the key really lies in where my passions are. For me, I’m really not sure what life will look like being a developer as a profession. I enjoyed coding while studying at OSU and I do not mind taking more responsibilities and extra time to get the job done and make it better. But I’m worried that my coding skills will not be that great compared with my peers and I will have to make a strong commitment to improve my skills to professionally advance. I guess all these thoughts came from the fact that I will face the real challenge of being a software engineer in a few months and I’m nervous about what’s coming next!