Future Employment

[craigsup]

So I'm currently on placement working for a fairly large Software Engineering company. Upon finishing my placement, returning to University to complete my degree the company will (hopefully) be offering me a permanent full time position - I think the salary will be fairly good (roughly £22,000 from what I've heard in the past).

The opportunities to progress up the business seem fairly easy to begin with - Graduate Software Engineer -> Assistant Software Engineer -> Software Engineer -> Senior Software Engineer (being probably the hardest within reach).

I don't know what the pay is like for the latter - but for Assistant Software Engineer my friend said he's on around £29,000.

Thing is, I don't think I could do this job for a long time - it's fairly dull, but at the same time I don't hate it. My plan at the moment is to apply for other opportunities in my final year to see if I can get something with greater potential and have this job as a backup. If I take this job I will work here for a minimum of 12/24 months simply to be able to get a Mortgage - I have enough savings for a ~25% deposit on a house pushing the £200k mark.

My real dream would be to work in something innovative and rewarding with a high pay packet. I was thinking something like F1 however from the topics on this website it seems the F1 industry isn't as glamorous as it's portrayed on TV.
Is there anything I can do in my final year (apart from graduate with a 1st) to open up some life changing opportunities?

I am studying Computer Science, in my second year I got a 1st and aim to graduate with a 1st.
I came top in the hardest module, achieving 100% in one assignment (average mark was roughly 55%). In my final year I plan to take an option module which is titled 'Advanced C++' - literally everyone else I've spoken to is choosing a robotics module. I don't see the point in this as it'll be starting from 0 knowledge and the progress will be minimal as opposed to advancing on my fairly decent knowledge of C++ - also if most people take the robotics module, I will stand out if I do the C++ one.

My best language is probably Java / C.
Been using a lot of ASP.net and web technologies while on placement along with ASP, HTML, C#. VB and Sql.

Another aim in the future is to complete a postgraduate course - been looking at both Masters and PhD. But I'm unsure if they will offer any major benefit in regards to jobs / salary.

At the end of the day, salary is a major importance to me - as it fuels my social life and my desire for nice objects. Having said that - I don't want to be stuck in a dull and horrible job even if the salary is high.

Is anyone from a SE / CS background or have a job in these areas - if so, can you shed any light on paths or things I can do to progress / improve my potential?

Sorry for the long post - just throwing a lot of information and hoping to get some insight.

Edited by craigsup on Thursday 29th October 10:03

Edited by craigsup on Thursday 29th October 10:04

[Monty Python]

Just out of interest, what sort of salary are you looking for and how long are you prepared to wait to get it?

[craigsup]

Monty Python said:

Just out of interest, what sort of salary are you looking for and how long are you prepared to wait to get it?

Ideally I'd like to be hitting the 40k mark rather quickly - within 5 years, with aims of over £60k in my later life. I don't know if I'm being optimistic as I've got no one to reference this against. Googling 'Senior Software Engineer salary' returns $109,000 - roughly £70k; does that seem correct for the UK?

[Monty Python]

craigsup said:

Ideally I'd like to be hitting the 40k mark rather quickly - within 5 years, with aims of over £60k in my later life. I don't know if I'm being optimistic as I've got no one to reference this against. Googling 'Senior Software Engineer salary' returns $109,000 - roughly £70k; does that seem correct for the UK?

I have a couple of mates in IT - one's a lead software developer and has been in the job for 7 years and is on a touch over £40k, the other is a senior network engineer in the US and is on nearly $150,000 (after 15 years or so). From what I can gather salaries can be quite variable depending who you work for. This might be of some use:

http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/salary-checker/salary-calc...

[edc]

You can make 70k per annum no problems in the software development field. Of course it depends on your experience and industry to some extent.

[Hedgeman]

If you are motivated by the potential for big bucks then you should consider London and software development for a finance firm...graduate starting salaries of £50k are possible, and total comp well into 6 figures by the time you are in your mid to late 20's.

You need to be good mind, it's a competitive field.

[Greg-]

My best advice I can give if you want to get into innovative stuff, try and land a grad job with a company doing that, it'll give you a good bed rock, I graduated 4 years ago and a lot of my friends picked up the first job they got offered and despite been academically stronger than me, find themselves maintaining SharePoint sites, not a bad gig and they earn more than me but it's not innovative. They also seem to be quite stuck in that sort of work, I love my job, now they don't hate theirs, but they don't love it.

I have worked for a couple of R&D companies and think I've found my niche in Simulation. Within those companies if you're good and proactive you can progress quite quickly, but you may have to switch jobs every now and then. If you want to be doing innovative stuff and R&D I think Defence industry is best place to be doing that.