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Software engineers are required in every industry, whether internet-based businesses such as e-commerce, social media, and ads or those you may not think need technical expertise like health, agriculture, and real estate.
However, if you’re thinking of hiring just anyone who can code or put together a website like plumbing, you may be thinking about it the wrong way. In any industry, software engineers with degrees in computer science, math, or a similar field are often the ones creating the core part of the product or business.
Let’s dive deeper into software engineering, what it entails, and why it is important for your business.
The day-to-day of software engineering in business varies based on an engineer’s level, the business needs, and the role requirements. The engineers may be full-stack, front-end, or back-end engineers. However, regardless of the role, a software engineering job generally consists of several core responsibilities:
Generally, projects and tasks are scheduled and executed based on hard deadlines, level of priority, and estimated technical complexity. Business leaders, product managers, and engineers typically collaborate to schedule work for a given week or two based on business needs and engineering estimates of how long the projects or tasks may take to complete.
Even upon reading the task list above, you may think software engineering is straightforward — get a problem and code up a solution. However, software engineering is such a complex discipline that finding a solution is rarely so clear-cut, and finding the best, most maintainable solution is even more difficult.
Software engineers don’t only solve the problem. They have to write readable code that is maintainable by the rest of the team and company. They must write efficient code that performs well and doesn’t make the software clunky and slow. They also have to be able to communicate the logic behind their solution and compromise with designers, product managers, business owners, and other engineers.
A good software engineering team could make the difference between a maintainable, scalable codebase that is easy and accessible to add to or a chaotic mess. This can mean weeks of saved time, freeing engineering resources to work on more exciting features and critical product requirements and fixes. In turn, the business will be able to respond faster, innovate faster, and grow faster.
Most software engineers know the fundamentals of computer science, but outside of that, what you should look for varies by role and codebase. No software engineer knows every single programming language. What matters is their ability to learn and adapt quickly due to their solid foundation and years of experience in building software.
Here are a few things to look for when you hire talent.