So, you know about SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). And you have studied that boring book on software engineering. You don’t give a damn to the development model whether it is Waterfall model or Spiral model. And if you are new age engineer, you don’t even care about the new term “Agile”. There is only one thing that you focus on. Programming. That’s what you want to do. Build softwares. And if you are an engineer still in college or a graduate who just started his software engineering career about a year or two ago, writing code is all that matters to you.

Now, the pain point happens. First of all, any organization you join, they just hire so many managers. Project Manager, Program Manager, Product Manager, QA Manager, Build and Release Manager, and every one in the company above you seem to be a manager. And you think, how the hell a software can be developed with so many managers in place. These managers keep on asking you estimates, deadlines, turn around time, testing measurements, roadmaps, and so many things which do not even relate to coding. Of course, the development of software will never finish on time.

And it happens because when you are in engineering college, or in the early years of your career. No one taught you about software development. Everyone told you that be the best programmer. No one told you to become a real software “engineer”.

An engineer is a person who not only builds something but also plan for building it nicely for the customers to use it. But you as an engineer, know only about how to write code.

After a few years, you’ll become a Project Manager too and will do the same thing to the juniors. But If you knew Project & Product Management or real software engineering while being in college, you could have done this much faster in life. You could have got a better campus placement because you would know Agile methodology and how to break down the tasks. You would know the estimation techniques. And your team leads and managers would have been crying with joy to have you already trained.

This problem becomes a crisis in a few years when you feel that life is boring and you don’t know what to do. Because you don’t know management while you are in college, you don’t even know your career path.

You just know that life is all about writing code. But then, if you knew about Product Management, may be you did not need to write that code. Some of you may be studying programming because you don’t know about the rest of the things. You can be a product manager too if you are a person who has ideas and want to build ideas. But because you did not know about it in college, you became software engineer and realized only after 8–10 years of your life that Product Management is something you wish to do. and then, you want to learn management by going for an MBA. but by then, it is too late.

Learning Management is important for every engineer while being in college or in the early years of career itself. It can show you the right path. Software engineering is not about writing code but it’s about building softwares. Like any building construction, it needs planning, estimations, architectures, designing, budgeting, people management, stress testing, approvals, and of course selling. A complete software is built when it works for a customer. and customers never get to see the lines of code you write. And if you know all this, you can be an entrepreneur who can start his or her own company and be a famous CEO early in life.

I just wish that engineering colleges taught these subjects during the formative years of engineering. It can help students immensely as they can make informed choices about their career. Alas ! engineering colleges don’t think about it.