Just a hard decision to make, I have been working on a new role as epicor specialist in the past 3 months as a recent graduate. I have recently had an offer for a software engineer role. Epicor seems to be a difficult system to understand and my company has no one on site who has an idea of how the implementation and customizations are designed. I am at a crossroad. Just finding out from the MVPs here, should I stick to being an epicor specialist and look for a mentor or someone to help me navigate or move to the new role as a software engineer. Note I use Python but seems I need to learn C# for epicor. Any advise?
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A software engineer’s job is going to be a lot more broad.
You’re probably going to need to learn a few more languages in that role, which ones depends on many factors.
Since you’re pretty new to all of it, it’s going to be challenging no matter which way you go.
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Yes, but in my thinking since the software engineer role is a graduate role, there will be more time to learn and a ton of resources available
If you are looking to flex your coding muscles Epicor might not be the right space to do that.
It seems like their direction is toward low to no-code solutions and the folks who want to solve every Epicor problem with c# are becoming dinosaurs.
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And that’s why Epicor jobs pay so much…
Epicor is a niche field. Competent Epicor specialists are hard to find, and if you can become one, you can be extremely valuable.
It really depends on what you want to do. I don’t know the market for general software engineers but I would guess that it’s less specialized and more competitive than the Epicor market.
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Speaking from my own experience specialization is a quick way to reach further (leap over) some of the traditional career paths. As a regular software engineer you’ll start as an intern / junior and slowly work your way up.
If you can specialize in whatever (Epicor… or anything else) your worth can go up quite significantly much quicker, but it does have its downside and that is you tend of pigeonhole yourself. ERP Isn’t sexy, it isn’t going to be the “next app” or the next “facebook” but it is the backbone of the entire enterprise.
It really comes down to what you enjoy, I love solving problems that have real immediate impact to the company / enterprise I work for. Writing code , or configuring or implementing software that makes direct impactful changes in manufacturing process is hella sexy to me. Writing code that physically changes a machine, or improves the way something is made. I love having direct access to the customer I am helping and working with them to solve a very tangible problem.
On the other hand I have friends who are more traditional software engineers building some giant app. They are handed a spec they write some code send it to QA and then go back and write some other piece of code… rinse repeat. They never interact with the end user they just write code and solve problems. There is nothing wrong with either approach though. It just comes down to what you want to do with your career.
You said Epicor is difficult and so I’ll say that’s what makes specialization valuable because it is difficult there is a handful of people in the world who truly know it and that makes them very valuable. On the other hand if Epicor goes bankrupt next week… the fact that you know how to hand build a BAQ in code isn’t going to get you very far with a FANG company.
As far as learning C# (or any other language) I’d highly recommend that regardless of where you end up don’t focus on a particular language rather use the right language or tool for the right job. You can google Syntax for any language or framework the best thing you can do for yourself and your employer is to be flexible and recognize that certain tools are better for certain problems. Python is great for scripting and command line tools and quite a few other things but using it for Epicor while possible it isn’t going to yield the best results. Right tool for the right job 
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Hi Jose, I have watched your video with codabears about using the Epicor API. I actually wanted to reach out to you for mentorship. Would that be something you can help me with?
These days I am stretched so thin I don’t really have the time required to directly mentor anyone. I help out on the forum and the EUG meetings and such and I’d gladly answer any questions you have here on the forum openly but I really can’t take on a more direct role that that.
This forum is an amazing resource though and there’s a lot of folks here that are incredibly knowledgeable and willing to share, however the most important thing is you need to do your part and put in the work of reading the resources, participating and trying things out on your own. The folks I have seen grow and explode in this forum throughout the years who have started from zero and have become leaders here all have one thing in common. They put in the work, do the tedious reading, ask questions and then try to solve the problems on their own, use the forum search to find prior answers and try to adapt those answers to their problems, and most importantly… they give back to the community.
The best way to learn something is to teach it , so, once you’ve gotten your bearing, trying to answer other people’s question on the forum is a great way to learn.
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I have noticed that the low-code/no-code trend extends far beyond Epicor: Microsoft PowerApps, SalesForce, OutSystems, etc. Even dinosaurs like me use AI to help with coding.
@kinggba, while Software Engineer is a good career, I agree with Jose that one way to increase your value is to learn other domains with your coding skills. A coder is great but one that understands finance, healthcare, manufacturing, supply chain, etc. is far more attractive to potential employers or customers if you choose to consult.
You may also find some good advice in this post from a few years ago.
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Pretty Understandable Jose. I appreciate it. Thank you
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Yeah, just to confirm what everybody is saying here, it is really hard to find someone who:
- is very good with everything IT;
- is versatile enough to do a bit of coding but also can use low-code tools;
- Understands the system of your choice very well (Epicor, but it could be SAP or Odoo or Infor or whatever);
- But most rare of all, keeps their focus on the goals of the business and the needs of their team.
You do those things well and there will be no end of opportunities for you.
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