A few questions for any willing Software Engineer
Author
Hello, I've been interested in software engineering as a career for awhile, and am wondering if I could get a few questions answered about the job; what it's like, and related things. On a side note, yes, this is for a school project, but I'm also genuinely interested. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, I'm just thinking this will get attention fastest, which would be nice (the person I was planning on interviewing isn't replying to e-mails, and a report on this interview is due tomorrow).
On to the questions; if anyone wants to take the time to answer these, could you please respond in an e-mail to nachoforfun@gmail.com? I'd appreciate it a lot.
EDIT: Also, since there seems to be a request for it, posting your answers in this thread would be fine as well (and if you don't want to post your personal information (name and e-mail) on here, you can send me an e-mail with this).
What's your name?
How long have you been a software engineer?
What kind of place do you work for? (small company/large company?)
What's the environment like? (cubicles?)
What's your salary? (if you don't mind answering)
What's your daily routine like, as far as the job goes?
What're some of the things you design, software-wise? (examples?)
Can you give an example of how a project would get completed? (from start to finish (just an overview, don't need to go into detail, although that's fine too))
Do you do any programming at your work, or is that another department/person's job?
-if so, what language do you mostly use?
You don't have to answer these in-depth, although I wouldn't mind it; just answer however you feel like. Again, thanks to anyone willing to answer these questions on such short notice; I'd really appreciate it. And again, sorry if this is in the wrong place; I just really need a response to this.
EDIT: Added some questions after re-reading the requirements for the report.
[Edited by - Lollyn00b on October 11, 2007 6:32:12 PM]
I would also like to know this, as I am debating whether or not to take Computer Science or Software Engineering. Could you please post the answers on this forum or PM them to me. I would greatly appreciate that.
Quote:Original post by Lollyn00b
How long have you been a software engineer?
My job title is technically Programmer/Analyst, but the work is analogous.
Quote:
What kind of place do you work for? (small company/large company?)
Relatively small (250<1000 employee) private company in the healthcare industry.
Quote:
What's the environment like? (cubicles?)
Cubes. The developers' area tends to be a bit more dark, a bit more noisy, a bit more colorfully decorated than elsewhere.
Quote:
What's your salary? (if you don't mind answering)
About the 30-40th percentile for a Software Engineer I in Minneapolis according to salary.com
Quote:
What's your daily routine like, as far as the job goes?
There's generally two queues, a informal queue of major/minor projects to work on, and a more formal queue of requests to fix a bug, change some fields in a database, investigate a problem, answer some questions... Engineers will work through the informal queue when the formal queue is empty, or they're waiting for info, or if the informal project is a higher priority due to deadline or what have you. Otherwise it's the formal queue. Take this problem and resolve it sorta stuff. Interspersed with the usual lunch, office banter, breaks, and meetings. Meetings are really light here.
Quote:
What're some of the things you design, software-wise? (examples?)
Reports, automated scripts to update the info people get when they call in to pay their bills, tools to fix people's data when it accidentally gets duplicated, tools to find missing payments, code to electronically submit money transfers.
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Can you give an example of how a project would get completed? (from start to finish (just an overview, don't need to go into detail, although that's fine too))
Generally, my boss will walk by and ask for me to do something. I'll then interrogate him and the original business requestors about their requirements. I write/test code in a sandbox. The business requestors then review and sign off and the code gets rolled out to production.
Larger projects are more involved, but so far I'm doing little stuff.
Quote:
Do you do any programming at your work, or is that another department/person's job?
-if so, what language do you mostly use?
Most of my work is doing sql queries and running tools. I mostly use C++, but that's because my coworkers are relatively weak there so I get those projects. I've also done some Java, C#, and perl. The office uses mostly Java, though C++, javascript, C#, perl, C, shell scripting, and Lisp are all also used in descending commonness give or take.
Quote:Original post by Lollyn00b
1) What's your name?
2) How long have you been a software engineer?
3) What kind of place do you work for? (small company/large company?)
4) What's the environment like? (cubicles?)
5) What's your salary? (if you don't mind answering)
6) What's your daily routine like, as far as the job goes?
7) What're some of the things you design, software-wise? (examples?)
8) Can you give an example of how a project would get completed? (from start to finish (just an overview, don't need to go into detail, although that's fine too))
9) Do you do any programming at your work, or is that another department/person's job?
-if so, what language do you mostly use?
1)
2) My title is senior software *programmer*, not engineer, and I've been working in the industry for just over three years now
3) At this moment I work for Philips Research, large company. The department consists of just over 100 people, all software devs
4) AGILE/XP, so no cubicles, pair programming, having a good time with colleagues, very loose and personal atmosphere. Much better than the places I worked in the past.
5)
6) Other than drinking lots of coffee... make software. I have nearly no meetings, other than the daily standups and the occasional progress meetings with my customers.
7) eeeeh... I can't go into details here (research, you see). But it's very versatile. I did some C#/WPF/AMBX in the beginning this year, done some C++/OpenGL after that, and I'm now finishing up a project that resulted in a web-based game. Though the latter is not quite my cup of tea I learned new stuff every time.
8) Take a peek at the AGILE/XP: http://www.extremeprogramming.org/map/project.html
9) I program for like 70-90% of the time at work. Languages? As I said at point 7, no specific language. Whatever gets the job done and the customer wants.
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