# The reality behind the service-industry engineering job Canonical page: https://thejasonsamuel.com/service-industry-engineering [Home](https://thejasonsamuel.com/) > [Essays](https://thejasonsamuel.com/essays) # The reality behind the service-industry engineering job Restored from Instagram stories · 17 February 2023 few things. 1. i do not give education advice to select this course and not select that to anybody. the reason is, if you end up being the top 1 percentile in your class, chances are that you are someone who can be employed. regardless of the numerous degree holders we have, the ones who actually know the subject and have really studied everything that's there and can apply practically in real life are less than 1% for any degree. so, do what you're doing - make sensible decisions to what can further your career and what you could afford to do. 2. i diss engineers who are working in the service industry, because of the reality of certain things. - first, devs in consulting companies and service based companies should know that they are a resource and not a dev/nor an engineer. resource.. resource. a billable resource. (billable or non-billable) the salary that you get there doesn't say your true value. but merely what the company can afford to bill you. if you're earning $800/month, it's because the company bills you at $30 for 40 hrs a week. calculate for 160 hrs a month and you earn the company a cumulative $4800 per month. *costs are basic to show you the reality. actual costs are complex and involves pretty much more stuff. so, when you're asking for a 15% hike, 20% hike - as long as you are important for the next next billable projects they will keep rewarding you. until the time comes where - they feel that they are overpaying you and can replace you with two engineers whom they can afford to pay $300/mo each. that's why it's a continuous circle. so, you get your true value in product companies where you own the product that you build, you proudly look at what you sent to production and what people use. you really become an engineer there implementing what you're learning. instead of just pushing 4 tasks a week which you received in your sprints and attend useless 1 hr standups everyday, you get to see how the product gets done and apply engineering. when any guy says i know full stack dev in this tech in a service company, chances 99% are - they don't know front end nor backend. they are the worst. especially the ones who come after finishing a course believing that they know. being a CSS expert is a rare trait. an expert backend engineer is good. same for a good devops engineer. start with one, become an expert. jack of all trades is shit if you aren't managing. having said all of this, let me tell you the reality. these billable/non billable 'resource' companies I am dissing have always been a boon to people in South India. i know a lot of people whose lifestyle was increased from a poor family to an upper middle class family. i personally know people who were very poor, couldn't even afford a laptop during their engineering days. studied with the PC in lab. campus placed. their first own laptop is the laptop that the company sent. now, their hut home changed into a two storeyed brick and motor building, a bike, a car and he's married and blessed with a kid. i know what the service industries have done. and i want them to uplift more and more people. so, don't listen to these entrepreneurs. i am sick of most of them in social media who tell people to drop off, start a startup and stuff like that. the above advice is true especially if you are the first degree holder in your family. your focus is only on one thing son. -> study. study. study. learn how much you ever can. be hungry for what you could learn in your stream get your campus placement. go for that service industry job. but understand the reality and keep upskilling yourself. you don't have to quit your job from the service industry. you are from a tier-3 place in a city like Bangalore and Chennai. i know it's fancy for you. it looks different. don't try to fit in (just because you have to) remember where you came from son. you need money. don't be distracted by the girls, the parties, and waste your youth. STUDY. start with any programming language. start creating things from it..build a webapp, a small mobile app, see if what you're building is useful to someone. learn how to think, do wireframe, build, push to production and see the joy of people using it, fixing those bugs. do these on your side. keep learning. when you get a life changing opportunity in a good product company, you know when you shift. until you can afford to do that - be in a service company. there's zero shame in it. ----- some might point out, what i might be telling in terms of not partying or not be with girls as a boomer advice. it might be. but the advice isn't for you. it's for first time degree holders from the poorest places trying to up their lifestyle. remember son. you can pick up those skills later. women will come to you when you upskill yourself, your character, and when you have a stable career. every woman loves a man who strives for themselves. my previous sections is for people who want to come up. not for people who are stupid, and can afford to do what they want. i am least bothered about the likes of you. this is about intelligent people who are the pillars of what a society should be. as i have said before, i know really intelligent people who have ruined their life completely because of mistakes that are caused due to their personal inability to control themselves. and i weep for them. i genuinely greave for intelligent men who ruin themselves. take from this what you will. approx only 1% of the world's population are expert devs/programmers/software engineers. if you think the next AI is going to replace them, it's stupid. can the AI do better programming ? yes. can it build a product by itself ? no. anyone who believes AIs are 0 and 1 and can only decide between what's real and factual haven't dealt with an AGI or an LLM which does unsupervised learning. AI comes with its own biases as we unlock it's ability to have it's own personality. AI will only make things better for actual devs. it's like a power tool in the hands of you. instead of turning the screwdriver, you have a machine which allows you to do so. don't be a couch potato and fear that. and with that stat of 1% remember this too. no other job has come close to paying that good when compared to that. so, that's the first thing i tell any guy who wants to move UP. be the giga chad indian dev that we were supposed to but never are/were. [← Previous essay](https://thejasonsamuel.com/a-startups-first-job-is-to-build)[All essays](https://thejasonsamuel.com/essays)[Next essay →](https://thejasonsamuel.com/re-examining-the-license-raj)All rights reserved. Copyright © 2026 Jason Samuel