06/03/2017
What being a software engineer is like?
Software engineering is a very broad category that can safely encompass a variety of jobs in a plethora of industries. You could work in banking, technology, medicine, on web, mobile or desktop applications. That having been said, there are some things that nearly every software engineer will do at some point in their career and some patterns that exhibit themselves across these domains.
Pros:
• Excellent compensation and benefits
• Exposure to an environment where co-workers can have rather
diverse ethnic backgrounds
• You can pretty much find a job anywhere in the world.
• The opportunity to solve mundane to complex problems every
day.
• Temperature controlled! For those who have worked outside
every month of the year in harsher climates, you'll never forget
the rough days.
• The sky is truly the limit to how much you can do to contribute to
other causes. Volunteer to make websites for people. Freelance
on the side. Make an app. Or maybe just some little program for
yourself.
• You can troubleshoot just about any problem more proficiently
than the average person.
• You get a sense of pride and craftsmanship in your work. This
can be hard to get a sense of, especially in larger companies, but
with software you can often see the results tangibly with both
qualitative and quantitative data
Neutrals:
• You can work remotely. This means working at home in harsher
climates like rain or snow, but also means some positions might
ask you to be available on vacation or 24/7 in case something
you are responsible for supporting goes down.
• You might need something to keep you going on the days where
you are mentally dragging. Some load up with caffeine, others
work out, and many of us blast music in our headphones to
artificially stimulate our brains.
• You may have increased mood swings that are work related.
When you are passing unit tests, checking in code with no merge
conflicts and implementing with ease, you will be ecstatic.
Cons (and ways to combat them):
• You will be asked by your friends if you can fix their computer /
tech device. Regularly.
• You will discover eye fatigue. If you are going to be working on a
computer for a living,
• Limited physical activity. Except for walking to/from the bathroom,
lunch, meetings and your car, you will become a rather stationary
worker.
• You will become more matter-of-fact in your social life.
Software engineering in a complete nutshell includes quality, process, method and tooling. It is a field that will be here for a long time to come and the problems we are solving are big ones. In the near future a software engineer’s job will only become more important as advances in various fields and technology in general call upon software people to solve even more problems.
Credit Quora Author: Daniel Caspers, Software Development Engineer at Shure Inc.
