Career advice for a 27-year-old system engineer feeling lost
I’m 27, have a Master’s degree, and work as a system engineer in Germany.
Professionally, I use quite a broad stack: Elixir, Phoenix, LiveView, JavaScript, Python, Bash, Terraform, and C++. I’m comfortable building things and working across different areas, but lately I’ve started feeling like I’m not actually good enough at anything.
I constantly feel like I should be learning something else or getting better at something, and it’s becoming difficult to tell what actually matters for my career.
At the same time, I’d like to build some additional income and increase my wealth over the long term. But honestly, the whole “just build a SaaS and make passive income” trend doesn’t really appeal to me. It often feels unrealistic and I don’t particularly enjoy that kind of business.
So I’m trying to figure out what a realistic next step looks like.
For people who have been in software/system engineering for a while:
What skills would you prioritize at my age?
Would you specialize more deeply or continue being a generalist?
What would you do if you were starting from my position today?
Are there realistic ways for an engineer to build additional income without turning it into a full-time startup?
What career investments actually paid off for you?
And how do you deal with feeling lost or burned out when, objectively, your career seems to be going reasonably well?
I’m not looking for motivational advice like “believe in yourself.” I’d really appreciate practical perspectives from people who have been through this.
Thanks.