Its good to share your experience with new comers, I agree with some of it, there's a lot of stuff that's debatable, and I struggle to present my own experience as "truth" to begin with.

> As someone who spent a lot of years in this industry

Amazon calls qualifiers like "a lot" "weasel words", because they hide the information into a subjective expression. I had to go to the authors resume to understand what's "a lot" and it seems that it's 8 years. That's certainly more than average when you consider that the number of devs double every 5y, but I don't consider that "a lot". I have more than double that, and I still don't call that "a lot". I still have massive realization about work every now and then, which prevents me to establish "truths" given that it's all just perception. Side note: I tend to disconnect a little as soon as someone starts a sentence with "as a X", because they're trying to use their qualifiers as proof of what they say.

> College will not prepare you for the job

I feel like my own college prepared me well.

> The majority of software engineers hate meetings. But remember that your job is also to communicate about things openly and proactively.

I hate most meetings because they're useless. Half of the meetings I go to exist because a) someone does not like reading so they want me to read the status I gave in an email b) cargo cult c) because its more convenient for a single person to waste everyone else's. It's great that we can have meetings, some are productive, but in a software company that ships software, protecting the time of people who actually write the software seems like a good idea.

> Nobody gives a f** about your clean code

In the companies you went to, maybe. I give a f** about clean code, because once in a while I am gonna get called at night because stuff's broken, and I don't want that to be because of your shitty code. (also, I rarely saw a college graduate produce clean code, it seems to be something that you need to have experience to do).

> You will profit more from good soft skills than from good technical skills

There's truth in there, it's important to develop your communication and presentation skills. To be fair a lot of my graduate year at college was around that so, once again, I felt prepared. Saying that you will benefit more from that than tech skills is against a stretch that will vary based on where you are at on both sides, and generally speaking it pays more to be good at what you are being paid for.

> It will be almost impossible to disconnect from your job

Strong disagree, and I don't think that this is a message you should transmit. Funnily I think I pivoted my point of view on that topic around the experience level of the author. I think it's a tendency of your early years, when career is your priority, to always prioritize career. Later, when you find other things you enjoy, disconnection from work is entirely possible. Don't take your computer when you leave for vacation. Be strict about not communicating after hours. Dont reply to your phone (I don't even have work emails on my phone). If you really love your job and spending more time in it is your hobby, go for it. If that's not the case, learn to disconnect.