Dec 28, 2025
If you haven’t watched the movie Moneyball, just skip this essay and go watch it. If you’re still here, there’s a scene at the end where Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) hands over the offer he got from Henry, the Owner of Red Sox to Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) after he kept asking him about it. That offer made Billy the highest paid general manager in the history of sports. And Billy ends up declining it. There’s a lot more depth to the scene but what stuck with me is when he says “I made one decision in my life based on money and I swore I would never do it again.”
Earlier in the movie, Billy is scouted and gets labeled a top prospect. He also had an offer from Stanford at the same time. He decides not to go for the money among other reasons. Turns out he wasn’t as good as the scouts made him believe he was. And his career doesn’t really take off. Not entirely his fault. The baseball scouting system was broken at the time.
That line got to me.
Looking back, software engineering jobs peaked in mid 2022. Bootcamp grads and juniors were getting six figure jobs and the field felt evergreen. I chose to study computer science over engineering and medicine. Not because I really wanted to but for the money. No other field had such a good pay to work ratio.
The field wasn't the same when I entered the workforce.
This wouldn’t have mattered if I was passionate about being a swe. But I cared more about the outcome than the process. Still, I got lucky. Somewhere along the way, software engineering started to click. I enjoy the work. I like building and obsess over product. That part’s real.
But, you never know what curveball life’s going to throw at you, so at the very least, make choices you won’t regret looking back.1 I keep a screenshot of Billy’s quote on my phone to remind myself not to make decisions in life based on money, at least while I have the luxury not to.