software engineering

[zapcojake]

Hello, I am considering software engineering as a career. I am curious about what education it takes and what a person could expect to earn and how satisfying a career people who do it find it to be. I would like to get into developing apps for Mac or Linux or both.

[Somenoob]

The required education is mathematics and computer science(i think)

[samjh]

Software engineering is basically the development of software by applying engineering principles and project management methods.

You will need to learn about computer programming, first and foremost. But you will also learn about project management, formal software design (ie. mathematical approaches to designing and "proving" algorithms and software), and quality assurance (testing, use cases, etc).

You may also benefit by taking some basic courses on traditional engineering disciplines, such as civil and mechanical engineering. At my alma mater, software engineering was part of the School of Engineering, and you had to study a common first year with other engineering students. Even later projects involved co-operation with students of other engineering disciplines, such as electrical,computer systems, and mechatronics engineers. I think this made software engineering students to think more broadly about their work than students who only studied IT or computer science. Our program was basically first-year general engineering with computer science stacked on top (you could actually do 3 years of software engineering and optionally graduate with a computer science degree instead of finishing off your engineering degree).

Don't expect to find employment as a software engineer right after graduation. You will probably need to spend some time doing menial programming jobs before you can be considered knowledgeable enough to be a software engineer. Software engineers generally work as architects who design overall software systems, or as project managers or senior programmers. All those roles require several years of industry experience.

[hod139]

You will need a strong background in mathematics and be able to think logically. You should ask a moderator to move this to the programming talk sub-forum. There are some very knowledgeable people there (including a retired CS professor) who can give greater insight to your question.

[zapcojake]

Ok, first how do I ask a mod to move this to the above mentioned sub forum? Second thanks for the good info. I am still curious how satisfied people who do it for a living are?

[hod139]

Ok, first how do I ask a mod to move this to the above mentioned sub forum?

Send a private message to an online mod (you can see all active mods on the bottom of the homepage), asking him or her to move it to the programming talk sub-forum. Clicking on a mod's name will bring you to their profile page, and under contact should be the option to send a private message.

[Tomosaur]

I'm doing Software Development (different from Software Engineering) in university, but I have to take some SE modules too. From what I've done so far - you will learn about project management and design / implementation paradigms. There is some maths involved, but not as much as people like to make out. You need to be able to look at a problem, and build a solution from many different parts. A lot of your time will be spent 'fine tuning' designs.