Is Aerospace Engineer a good career path?

Which career path for a person with software engineer skill is better?

• I'm currently a 3rd year student in a university in Canada, and I'm also working in a start-up company of software industry for about 1 year as lead mobile developer (inter/co-op). Besides, I've developed my own application in mobile and started selling. I'm about to graduate (theoretically), and don't know which direction is better for me. 1. Since this is a start-up company and I'm working here from the beginning (when there were only about 5 people), so I can choose to stay here and finish bachelor as part-time, as long as this company is not going to fall apart. The future plan for this company is extending business to North America and growing to a medium company with about 50 employees. 2. Finish school and seeking for some opportunities of large company in USA as Software Engineer. For what I've learn so far, software engineer has a better career in US instead of in Canada. But I'm not sure according to my working experience and education, I'm able to find a job like that. (Also may be work visa is a potential problem). Since working in a large corporation like Google, it's not hard to make 100k or more in a year. 3. If I can't find a good opportunity, I also plan to attend master degree in USA, but not sure if a master degree in Software Engineering is necessary or valuable. 4.  My own software has just started open to market and not sure if it's profitable and big enough for starting a company. So I was thinking may be I can start my own business before or after graduate from University. Well even I'd prefer run my own business eventually, I think it's better to choose those 3 options above first in next few years. Thanks for reading all these. Any advice would be appreciated. And some of those opinions are personal, correct me if i'm wrong.

• Answer:

  Since you have already experienced #1 I would suggest trying #2 for a bit in lieu of sticking around too long. Be cautious though, I would only do #2 if you can get into a good company who's product is software and learn as many roles (from prototyping to deployment) as you can. Big companies who aren't software focused are often graveyards for developer decay. If your end goal is to build your own business you should consider another option. "Find and work for a good studio or consultancy with a history of big and innovative products for their clients". There you can experience working with lots of new products and varieties of companies. They can be particular about who they hire but I don't know a single one who would deny a motivated, experienced, product focused developer. If you can't get into a good one, just do a good job on one or two contracts, or spend a year somewhere notable and you will get in the door. The other nice thing about contract to contract, especially if you are young and healthy and like travel, is that you get more cash and more free time between contracts to work on your own projects. You will also experience a variety of workplaces, approaches, and (hopefully) great leadership and rockstars. I've run across consulting groups who actually pay their devs to work on their own projects and they understand you taking a break to go work on your own.