I studied to be an S.E. for 7 years (undergrad/grad) and practiced for a little over a year before I gave it up for software. First, the pay was atrociously bad given they years of schooling. Seriously, I couldn't justify doing it if I didn't absolutely love it because I was barely getting by.
Furthermore, S.E. in practice is pretty boring -- lots of repetitive calculations. Yes, there is room for software automation, but that kind of automation is never rewarded - so much of the tasks just seemed to be coordination and paper shuffling. Beyond that, working on projects often meant waiting years to see anything come of it - think about how long it takes to get a large project from concept (design) to completion. In most markets it's a very long timeline.
That said, if I were to have stayed in S.E. I would have focused on smaller projects (with shorter timelines) and I would have tried to specialize in field engineering (being on-site) since that's where most of the real problem solving happens.
Furthermore, S.E. in practice is pretty boring -- lots of repetitive calculations. Yes, there is room for software automation, but that kind of automation is never rewarded - so much of the tasks just seemed to be coordination and paper shuffling. Beyond that, working on projects often meant waiting years to see anything come of it - think about how long it takes to get a large project from concept (design) to completion. In most markets it's a very long timeline.
That said, if I were to have stayed in S.E. I would have focused on smaller projects (with shorter timelines) and I would have tried to specialize in field engineering (being on-site) since that's where most of the real problem solving happens.