Hey, I'm 19 CS undergrad but i don't really know what to do but I really wanna build something that can shape the world. Can you tell me more about why you would advice someone to learn about transistors? what are the possible career paths?
Not the original commenter, but in my view as a crusty old software engineer, the reason to learn how transistors is because they're interesting and the key to how all computation is implemented. Once you learn how transistors work, you can learn how logic gates work. And then how CPUs and memory work. Bit by bit, computers stop being magic boxes and start being something built from technologies you understand.
Now, for most software careers (including my own), that knowledge isn't directly practical. BUT, the most important things for a successful, fulfilling career are curiosity and a willingness to dive into subjects _without_ necessarily knowing how (or even if) that knowledge will yield practical applications. That drive is what's going to lead to insights and breakthroughs over your career that wouldn't happen if you just let abstractions be abstractions.
The bottleneck moved. It used to be writing code. Now it's knowing what to ask for, in what order, and how to validate what comes back. That's a fundamentally different skill than coding.
Only if your job was to write code alone, which isn't what most people do. Most of my job for the past 10 years was explaining to people what had to be done, how and then verifying they did it.
Any senior/staff engineer was already doing this, if they weren't they were on the wrong job or had the wrong title.
