Suraj VishwakarmaThis post is produced in collaboration with keypup.io
When I was a child, I wanted to become a software engineer. At that
time, I was unaware of how much more than just coding was required. Now
that I have been in that role for a while, I wanted to share with you
all the hard and soft skills I identified as needed for this position,
so you can be prepared for the long run.
Software engineering is one of the most "wanted" jobs in today's
omnichannel world. Every year, there is a rise in software engineering
jobs. By 2030, it is estimated that 45 million people worldwide will be
working as software engineers. $86,157 is the average annual salary for
software engineers in the United States*.* It goes beyond $100K in
many cities in the US such as San Francisco, for instance.
While the payslip may sound interesting, it is important to understand
what the prerequisites for such roles are. In this article, we will:
Define Software Engineering?
Go through the main programming language used by Software Engineers
Provide tips to help you land a software engineer job
List the roles and responsibilities of a Software Engineer
So let's dig into software engineering in detail.
What is Software Engineering?
Let's understand the term software engineering. First, we should
understand the term 'Engineer'. Originally, engineers were people who
design, build or maintain engines, machines, or structures.
Now let's apply this principle of engineering to software development
for designing, building, and maintaining software. A person who will
perform the above task is a Software Engineer.
Software engineers must be proficient in one or more programming
languages to develop applications. Software engineers have skills such
as:
Writing code using a programming language
Designing a solution applying high levels of logic before coding
Developing and deploying software
Communicating with other developers, stakeholders, and customers
Software engineer's most popular job titles are:
Frontend Engineer
Backend Engineer
Full-Stack Engineer
DevOps Engineer
Security Engineer
Network Engineer
There are more jobs that are related to software engineering.
Main Programing Languages Used by Software Engineers
Learning at least one programming language is essential to becoming a
software engineer. You can find yourself a developer job quite easily if
you are proficient with any popular programming language. I emphasize
the word "popular" because it will match a large number of jobs
available in most cities, while the least used programming languages
will have a low number of job openings.
Here is the list of the most used programming languages among developers
worldwide, as described in a study published in 2021 by
statistica.
Unsurprisingly, JavaScript is the most used language, which is widely
used in Web Development. HTML/CSS is combined with JavaScript for web
development. The required skills to become a software developer vary
compared to a software engineer.
Tips to Help you get a Software Engineer Job
The beauty of software engineering is that you don't necessarily need
years and years of studies and work experience to become a good
software developer. I met, during my career, multiple talented software
engineers you can call "self-made". The most important skill to do this
job is having a passion for coding and observing the beauty of the code
in action: an up-and-running project/software. To kick start your
software engineer career:
1) Learn the ins and outs of " a programming language. There are plenty of free online courses and Youtubers that can help you learn the basics and get started with projects.
2) Add some basic SQL knowledge to your courses - while it's not mandatory, most applications (if not all) deal with data, so learning how to query data is standard in the role.
3) Create personal projects using the programming language and build your own portfolio.
Armed with a few certifications and a portfolio of projects, getting a job as a software engineer will be a lot easier. Creating projects also strengthen your knowledge of the programming language and allows hiring managers to gain greater confidence in your abilities.
Roles and responsibilities of a Software Engineer
Once you take up the job as a Software Engineer, you need to perform a
variety of tasks. So, let's take a look at the roles and
responsibilities of software developers to understand the job more
precisely.
Creating and Improving software
The primary job of a software engineer is related to code creation,
which includes coding, but most importantly architecting the code and
designing its logic. A Software Engineer deals with the creation
of software applications. They have to develop software according to the
client's or organization\'s requirements. They also work on existing
software to make it better through code base improvements.
Designing
Software developers also design the software in terms of planning, tech
stacks to be used and most importantly they define the logical way to go
about implementing the solution and creating the code That latter step
is critical to ensure your code performance will be to the highest
possible standard, which is increasingly becoming a must-have
requirement gave the nature and usage of applications these days. The
software design will help developers to create software by taking
references. This designing process is required before writing code or
you would be at risk of starting on a weak basis, which is akin to
randomly baking a cake without logical steps - rarely produces good
results.
Software design can differ on the basis of software requirements and
platforms such as desktop, mobile, or Web-based applications.
Testing End-User Application
There are 3 types of testing where the software engineers are not only
actively involved, but actually testing themselves:
Unit testing: test functions individually.
Manual testing: tests a chain or sequence of functions, without automation
End-to-end testing: tests a chain or sequence of functions in an automated manner
It is to be noted that sometimes it is not possible to conduct
exhaustive end-to-end automated testing. Therefore, manual testing
should never be bypassed.
Unit testing is a fundamental concept for software engineers and one
that saves time and helps ensure a greater level of quality of the code
produced. It belongs to the framework called Test-Driven Development
(TDD). Concretely, it consists in writing the tests first - before
writing the code - for a given function. The engineer then implements
the function in a rough way, meaning their code is not necessarily
refined or optimized but contains all the key elements for the function
to work.
They then run a first test session based on their test scripts. The test
status should switch from red (initial state) to green. If not, they
need to correct the code of the function. This is also an opportunity to
refine the test scripts.
Assuming success, the software engineer then goes back to the function
and refactor it, to refine the coding - paying particular attention to
the notions of optimization, performance, quality, etc.
They run their tests again, and their status should stay green, which
concludes the "red-green-refactor" process, which is the best
practice for TDD.
It is important to understand that unit tests cannot cover all the
possible causes. They aim at covering "families of cases" - manual
testing will investigate potential edge cases.
If a unit testing is too big or cumbersome, it probably means the
function is too broad and trying to achieve too much at once. The
solution is to split the function into smaller ones, and re-apply the
TDD methodology on all smaller functions.
Once all functions are tested and implemented with TDD, it is time to
run the manual testing. This is where the software engineer tests all
the possible user flows. Most importantly this is where they identify
and test edge cases (e.g. if they plan to display a list, they will test
the particular case where the list is empty).
This is also where they remediate a large portion of the edge cases not
identified during the TDD whilst testing with families of cases.
This step informs what they should test in the end-to-end testing.
The last step is the end to end testing, which encompasses multiple
functions at once and is automated. It tests the end result of a chain
or sequence of functions. This is also where the software engineer will
test the result of injecting an input into a sequence of functions and
verifying the output is as expected. For instance, when testing an API
endpoint, they will send an HTTP request, and check that the HTTP
response's content is as expected. This API call involves a chain of
functions, including authentication, authorization, business logic, etc.
Maintenance
After software development, software engineers have to maintain
a certain level of quality, performance, and security. The
innovation in the tech world is quite fast, so it is important to keep
the application up to date, useful and relevant. Failing to do so could
result in security vulnerabilities, code obsolescence, or simply
functions not working anymore due to a too important divergence with the
rest of the code.
Software engineers work on parts of code or functions regularly to keep
them properly maintained, in particular when introducing new code
somewhere else that could impact legacy code. . Feedback from the
end-user also helps in adding and updating features.
Planning and Project Management
A Software Engineer has to plan a roadmap for developing a
software application or collaborate with a product management team to
do so. They have to create a plan that should follow the Software
Development Life Cycle. This plan includes tech stacks, deadlines,
project structure, assignments, etc.
The more development is planned, the smoother it will be to carry out.
It is one talent of excellent software engineers to be able to
anticipate steps and difficulties as much as possible before starting
the actual development. This avoids scope creeps, delays,
inconsistencies or simply producing code that cannot be merged with the
existing code base.
Planning and anticipating are as important as designing and testing.
Code production in itself can only properly commence when these steps
are complete.
Meeting and Discussion
Communication is one of the essential skills of a Software engineer.
They have to communicate with the team and take part in discussion
groups. They may have to communicate with the clients on project
requirements and future updates on the project.
More often than not, communication within the team happens via instant
messaging apps. It has nothing to do with the fact that software
engineers do not like to talk or socialize, and everything to do with
avoiding as much as possible disruptions, and keeping a trace of what is
asked or needed, in order to avoid misunderstandings and confusion.
Conclusion
As you can see, a software engineer has to wear many hats and perform
various tasks while keeping up with the tech trends.
This is what makes this role so captivating and thrilling, but also so
demanding. It does not just require coding skills. It's a combination of
hard and soft skills, of creativity and organization, imagination, and
absolute precision.
I hope this article has helped you in understanding the different
aspects of a Software Engineer. Thanks for reading!
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