Software Engineers are responsible for designing and developing effective software solutions to meet the requirements of their client. Most Software Engineers will specialise in a certain area, such as web development or database architecture, with ‘software engineer’ being a rather generic umbrella term.
A Software Engineer tends to be involved throughout the entire process of a project and could be responsible for working on anything from databases and operating systems to web applications and content management systems.
There are many layers to software engineering, such as choosing the most appropriate programming language for the job and identify any development frameworks which can be exploited to speed up the process. Cross-platform integration is also an area that may need to be explored throughout software engineering, such as how solutions can be used across different platforms. Once these areas have been explored, the bulk of the software system coding will be conducted.
During the development phase, Software Engineers will conduct automated unit testing. This is known as test-driven development (TDD), and involves programming and testing in parallel, helping to improve the efficiency of the whole process. Once this stage is complete, more rigorous tests are undertaken. This includes functional testing to ensure everything works properly and user acceptance testing (UAT) to make sure the product fulfils all necessary user requirements. A Software Engineer may also be required to perform further integration testing to make sure that the new or updated product fits correctly with all other systems.
Once the product has been developed and implemented, a Software Engineer will also be responsible for detecting and fixing bugs, and working on ways to improve the performance of the product. Finally, they might work alongside a technical author to put together user manuals and other technical documentation.
