r/WGU • u/Left_Goose_7177 B.S. Software Engineering( in progress) • 6h ago

Cloud and network engineering Vs software engineering program. What’s a safer bet to be able to get a job?

I been seeing lot of post about the job outlook for software engineering after graduation ( I’m in the software engineering track), not sure if I should change it to the cloud and network engineering program instead. My main fear is jobs after graduation I don’t want to not have one after spending all this money on a degree. Any advice or 2 cents would help, thanks

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u/_FrankTaylor 5h ago

As someone in that industry, I can tell you it doesn’t matter.

Get the degree in which ever field interests you more. If you don’t have any experience, start working on whatever open source projects you can find. Make your own projects - doesn’t matter just do something you can point to. You just need to be able to demonstrate your knowledge.

When you’re looking for work, don’t limit yourself to the big firms/labs. There’s a shit ton of jobs out there in government, healthcare, finance, start ups, medium sized tech firms and the big boys.

It’s also very competitive so you need to network with recruiters.

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u/TejelPejel 6h ago

I'm wrapping up a software engineering degree now and the outlook isn't great. AI has taken a lot of the security from it (though that's becoming more common across the board). There's been layoffs and many of the more entry/lower level software engineering jobs are disappearing. From what I've seen companies are more interested in hiring senior level roles and use them to do what the AI can't.

I don't know enough to say much about the cloud/network arenas.

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u/lordartec 6h ago

This market is extremely tough especially with no experience. I won't make it sound otherwise like it's all roses

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u/Disastrous-Strike822 5h ago

After months of searching, I settled for a position at a large company that could lead to internal hiring for software engineer position which I have been happily doing now for a little over a year!

That’s the key, get in a large company and move internally

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u/DFW_Drummer B.S. Network Engineering and Security 2h ago

Exactly! I started as a local hospital’s biomed junior tech, specializing in their PCB repairs, moved over to their networking, then moved to the hospital enterprise RTLS team with a plan to move to the cloud engineering team. Started at $18.50/hr and now I make almost $30/hr after 2 years.

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u/Lucky-Tie-2349 6h ago

The one benefit of the Cloud and Network degree vs the software engineering one, is that it comes with industry certs that will help with the job search. 

However, the key issue is that both IT and software dev are highly impacted fields for entry level. So regardless, it will still be a tough road ahead to get a job - a degree is NOT a guarantee of a job.

The field is still rewarding if you have genuine interest and passion for it.