Sunk Cost and the Compounding Career: Why This Fresh Grad Should Skip Java for Implementation Engineering

Hello everyone, I'm Shuangyue. Author of wangEditor, former senior front-end engineer at Baidu and Didi, top lecturer at Muke.com, PMP, author of Front-end Interview School.

I'm currently running a "Programmer 1v1 Interview Series", where I have 1v1 WeChat voice or text chats, sharing your status and confusion, and I give advice. Here is the main content of the 11th person (no personal sensitive info), shared for your reference.

Basic Info

• Male
• City: Taiyuan
• Married: No
• Education: Bachelor's
• Years of work: Fresh graduate
• Company size: Small
• Currently employed: Yes
• Position: Backend
• Industry: Finance

A 2026 graduate, has been interning and working for over a year. Major is business administration, self-taught Java in university, but later couldn't find a development-related job.

Now works at a small company doing outsourcing, mainly using Kingdee platform's low-code features to customize systems for clients, mostly in the finance industry.

His salary is low, and there are few such positions to switch to, so he still wants to switch to Java development. So he came to chat with me.

Why do you have to be a developer?

I asked him at the start, why do you have to be a developer? You have experience with this platform, you could become a business person, an implementation person. The salary isn't low, and there won't be a shortage of positions.

He couldn't give a specific reason; he just had his mind set on becoming a developer and couldn't break out of that circle anymore. His classmates and peers also feel that they have to become developers, and can't keep dragging and dropping to customize pages on a low-code software platform.

I analyzed the reasons for him:

First, they've just graduated and know very little about the workplace and their roles. They can only judge based on what they see in front of them and online, which easily leads to short-sightedness and an inability to view problems from a long-term goal.

Second, he learned a lot of Java in university, which gives him a huge sunk cost. Sunk cost heavily affects a person's decisions; it's human instinct. It feels like a waste not to keep using what you've learned. Like since you've paid for the meal, even if it's terrible, you force yourself to eat it.

Third, people who just graduated tend to think development is more impressive than business. I thought so too back then. Development involves writing code that can't be understood without professional training, while business people's work seems like anyone could do it, especially at the entry level. But as work experience grows, that view changes, and they can't see that yet.

After I analyzed this, he strongly agreed with my view and started thinking outside the circle with me.

How to choose a career direction

There are countless job positions in the world. For us ordinary people, choosing a job depends on two factors:

First, whether the job allows for continuous accumulation of experience and skills, i.e., a "compounding" effect. If you don't know the term, search it now.

For example, programming, implementation, law, medicine are all jobs with compounding effects. Over time, your skills and experience accumulate. The salary may be low at first, but after 5 to 10 years you'll become a technical expert.

For example, delivering food, setting up a stall, or telephone customer service are jobs without compounding effects. After 5 years, you're no different from a newcomer who just started two months ago. That's purely trading your life for living resources with no accumulation.

Second, look at market trends and personal strengths.

For example, in the current programming field, after AI entered, there are massive layoffs, the age-35 crisis, technology changes quickly, you need continuous learning, lots of overtime, an insular environment, taking a toll on both body and mind.

For another example, if you're introverted and not good with people, having you do sales and give gifts won't suit you.

From these two directions, there are plenty of positions to choose, not just development or programming.

Recommendation to become an implementation engineer

Based on his conditions and the current environment, I'd rather recommend he become an implementation engineer. No longer just dragging and dropping low-code configurations on a platform, but finding a real implementation engineer role that goes to the client site to deploy projects.

Stay within his current finance field, but don't be limited to one software platform. He can look for other software companies and other jobs.

Finance is a traditional field in society, and there should be many related positions. It's also relatively stable, and won't have random massive layoffs.

Compared to programmers, implementation work makes it easier to accumulate industry experience and form barriers. Programmers face unemployment at 35, but have you heard of project managers being unemployed at 35?

And as long as you focus deeply on one field for years, once you've built enough knowledge, you don't need to learn painfully every day like programmers do. Especially in traditional fields, knowledge changes very slowly, with only slight adjustments on previous foundations.

The only thing that might be tiring about implementation is: frequent business trips, possibly stationed with clients for a long time, coming back every two weeks. But for a fresh graduate without a family, it's not a big problem in the next few years.

I told him, I recommend you become an implementation engineer, focusing on the finance field. I can't guarantee you'll have an easy job or make big money; I can only say that with accumulated work experience, you'll become more competitive, compared to being a programmer.

Conclusion

If he were already a programmer with several years of experience, I'd still advise him to continue, since he'd have already built industry advantages.

But he's still a fresh graduate, just out of school for a few months, so don't rush into the crowded development field. If we can persuade one, it's good. I wish him a smooth transition to his next job.