Sr. Software Engineer

What's the biggest misconception people have about your job?

Asked by JUpton over 9 years ago

It seems the government and others are on a big kick that "anyone can program" and they are trying to mandate programming courses into schools. I can slightly agree that sure "anyone can program" but working in the field seeing these "anyones" and their programming make me confident in my next statement. Just because you can write code doesn't mean you can write good code. This blog does a great job at pointing out some of the common issues developers have, some of them are just due to the mental capacity people have and their inability to think logically, there are other things as well and this site points out a few of them. http://www.yacoset.com/Home/signs-that-you-re-a-bad-programmer 

Another misconception I would say is that "You have to be a mathmatical super star" is completely incorrect. Sure if you cannot do basic arithmatic then you will struggle but you do not need to have triganoetry, physics and other advanced mathmatics to survive as a developer. Math is most important for game developers but if you are an application developer understanding PEMDAS and a basic understanding of algorithms will get you where you need to be. If you do stumble across a situation where you need a special algorithm thanks to google it is usually a search away.

With a project management degree, can you become a project manager with no experience in the field

Asked by smiley over 9 years ago

I am sure it is possible but it would take some work and probably a good cover letter selling yourself. Asking a PM might wield a better answer though.

Why do you call yourself a "software engineer"? Is that just a fancy word for developer or programmer? Are they all the same thing?

Asked by allurbase over 9 years ago

I am using it as that is my official job title. Though to me there is no difference between a programmer, developer, or engineer. These are frequently and constantly interchanged and it just depends on where you work or who you talk to. I will say an arcitech though is a different position with different responsibilities, again though it depends on where you work.

To call me a Web Developer though would misrepresent my skill set though. The applications I write are most frequently web applications but I also do a lot of backend work as far as windows and web services. I have also work on automation, ETL, migrations, database development and much more.

From Wikipedia, An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics, and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical, societal and commercial problems. Engineers design materials, structures, and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost.

That in an abstract way describes what I do. My honestly opinion though? Software Engineer sounds pretty awesome and make me feel worth my paycheck. When I was a junior or probably even a mid level developer I would not have felt comfortable with engineer in my title as my approach was not the same as it is now. I feel in this point of my career I am actually engineering the software. Again though, the companies make the titles, I just fill the shoes.

If you could learn one of Ruby or Python first, which would it be and why? (Asking for myself.)

Asked by Sidney over 9 years ago

I honestly have not worked with either one myself. I have had an interest in learing Ruby on Rails as it seems like there is some demand for it and from my understanding it follows an MVC pattern which I enjoy working with. I am bias to the microsoft stack as that is what has fed me and my family for years. If you are just starting out programming I would recommend C# as you can do all kinds of development with it from web application, games(Unity, etc), mobile(Xamarin, etc), windows and web serivices, console apps, and so much more. There are libraries that allow you to do pretty much anything you could think of. One language I have been wanting to learn but haven't had time is F#. If I were starting out fresh again I would probably give F# a go then move into C#. It is not as robust as C# but it allows you to write less code more verbose and it helps prevent a lot of errors that C# enables.

Hello, I've started to learn prog 9 months ago to create a felix clone
http://myfelix.software.informer.com/2.1/

an interactive window-less desktop-mate but I can't find a language that allows me to do that, any idea what language I should learn?

Asked by Bobijoe over 9 years ago

I am not sure about other languages, but I am sure C# has this capability. I am assuming it could be done with Windows Forms or WPF. I am not as familiar with windows form solutions but I know they have the ability to make parts of the form transparent, my best guess is that they did something around this but perhaps there is a graphics library that would better handle it while working with C#. There are tons of libraries out there to assist with all types of needs I would be surprised if something did not exists to aid you with this effort.

Found a link to assist: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3017914/how-to-build-a-screenmate-programatically

When a company has a team of 10+ developers, are they usually working on the same codebase (and if so, how do they do it without stepping on each others' toes?) Or do they all kind of stay in their own lanes?

Asked by TM over 9 years ago

In my experience it seems team sizes are best set around 3-6 developers. Anything more get unruley. We use Source Control to help keep from stepping on eachothers toes. It does a pretty good job at helping merge code from develpers into a single code base but conflicts still happen and then you break into a manual merging process. Some source control types include Team Foundation Server, Git, SVN, and Mecurial. They all have their own pro's and cons. My personal favorite are TFS and Mecurial but I have worked with them all.

So the teams may consist of 3-6 developers then 1 - 2 Quality Assurance a Business Analyst and a Project Manager. There can be more or less rolls involved depending on the company and the project. In my experience usually a feature is given to 1-3 developers to work on while the others are working on another set of features which helps limit the exposure to conflicting code but it by no means completely eliminates the conflicts.

To directly address the question about working on the same codebase, technically we work on the same code base but use branches to make a copy of the source code to work on in our own area and once the feature is complete or to a state that is safe to merge back into the main branch the code it merged where other developers have access.

I want to become app developer, applying now to http://themindpark.com/ . What should I write in cover letter to attract their attention?

Asked by julia over 8 years ago