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What does a software engineer do?

What does a software engineer do? And what are some ways that teens can try at the beginning to become one?

  • Becoming a top software engineer is my dream, my goal, or my life i would say! So what really does a software engineer do? What can I do now ( age 14) to train myself to become a top software engineer when i grow up? Any suggestion or websites?????

  • Answer:

    Well, good for you. But as a software engineer, I can tell you a thing or two. "Software Engineering" can be a whole lot of fun, when you get the chance to do it. Unfortunately, in the real world, you rarely get to do the real thing. Most often there already is an existing mess of software, and you're tasked with making modifications to it or fixing bugs. That's not so much engineering, it's more like patching leaky pipes. And nowadays, you rarely get to write actual code that does anything directly, you're usually just calling system API's and hooking the output of one API to another. That's not so much engineering, as it is doing sewer plumbing. Worse yet, you often have to work with a group, and you have to write very dumbed-down code that everybody in the group can understand. Or you have to work using some silly design patterns that were in vogue a few years ago, but are clumsy and unhelpful. Once in a while though, you get to actually write some new bit of code, code where you have to devise some clever algorithm, code that you can streamline and optimize, now THAT can be fun. So go ahead and enjoy software engineering, just realize that in the real world, you're more of a sewer-worker than an engineer.

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Stay with your dream. Learn all you can, keep your record, (legal, educational, & medical ) clean. Strive to stay at the top of your class, and you will be successful.....Ancient H. is right, and for the most part every top job is exactly like that...but there is always that one, that special one... Gates, Jobs, that is out there! So keep going and God's speed.

usmc

Ummm, thanxxxxxx for the info. However I luvvvvv software engineering. It has been given great priority in this new generation. And im sure I will be glad to becom eo ne too!

gwen7

Thanks! great Encouraging!

gwen7

Have you done any programming so far to help you decide if it's something you really enjoy and have the aptitude to perform the job? Luckily there are many ways you can explore programming for free. One of the first things you should do is pick a language to study. Java or C# is probably a good starting point. C++ is still very popular but could be considered an advanced language. For Java, a popular development environment is Netbeans found at https://netbeans.org. You will definitely want to use this or a development environment like it for writing and debugging your code. For C#, a popular free development environment is Visual Studio Express found at http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/products/visual-studio-express-for-windows-desktop for writing and debugging your code. There are many sources you can use to learn the language of your choice. You can get books from the library, there are videos on the internet for days, bookstores have great books, Books24x7 (which is free through some libraries, Safari online, and more. The best thing to do at this point is to dive into the topic to determine if it is really enjoyable to you. If you have any more questions, please let me know.

robmo

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