Josh Labau

I lead the engineering at a telemedicine startup - my job is to design and build the app that our patients use, and support the rest of our team's technology needs.

Any 4 year degree is helpful, but software engineering is becoming much more relaxed in its requirements. The biggest requirement is a history of making things and solving problems.

It depends on your industry, but a starting programming job can expect around $80,000.

Software engineering is one of the fastest-growing fields and show no signs of slowing down. It is not competitive to get into, but it is competitive to advance.

At a startup you have a lot of say in what you do every day - I make my job up as I go.

Having to make your job up as you goes means you can easily make mistakes, and you have to be prepared to own those mistakes and explain how you will improve. You have to be okay with failing a LOT, and understanding that the failure is just part of the job.

Get comfortable with discomfort and uncertainty. Software engineering never gets easier, you just get smarter and take on harder problems. When your program doesn't run or you can't find a bug, it can be very frustrating. If you take that as a reflection of your skill or self-worth, you will start to hate your job. The fact is that every software engineer goes through the exact same frustrations, it's just that the good ones understand that it's part of the job and stick with a problem until they solve it. It is incredibly rewarding to work on a puzzle for hours or days and then finally solve it.