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Career Crush: What Is It Like to Be a Software Engineer?

• Kelsey Alpaio

And how do you become one?

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

I am fascinated by coding. It’s everywhere! Every single one of the digital experiences we enjoy is the result of code.

• KA Kelsey Alpaio is an Associate Editor at Harvard Business Review. kelseyalpaio

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College Essay Tips for Software Engineering Programs

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Hale Jaeger in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

“why this . . .” essays for software engineering, writing your essay.

For many college applications, you’ll write essays in addition to the Common App personal statement . These prompts will often ask you about what you’re planning on pursuing at the college. This article will give you practical advice for explaining your interest in software engineering. 

Many supplemental essay prompts are quite common, such as “ Why this major? ” and “ Why this school? ” If you’re sure about pursuing software engineering and know which college you want to kick off your career at, you should already know the answers to these questions. 

Certain schools have strong software engineering and computer science programs. If this is the case for your chosen college, it should be easy for you to say that you can identify with their program. You can add that you’re excited to use the specific resources there and how they will help you reach your goal of becoming a software engineer.

When talking about your major, bring up what attracts you to the field. Your eventual salary and career prospects are incentives, but you want to explain what specifically about the study of computer science and engineering makes you excited. Why do you like to learn about it? Maybe you’re fascinated by the inner workings of technology. Perhaps you’re interested in how specific tools on certain websites work. It’s also possible that you want to improve user experience and innovate existing software.

These reasons are a bit less shallow than money. They also get to the heart of why you want to pursue software engineering: you like to build things and solve problems. 

From Abstract to Specific

In general, when writing your essays, you should work on funneling these types of ideas about your major from the abstract to the specific. You can open with a particular anecdote or story to catch the reader’s attention, of course, but try to start with high-level interests. Fundamental things like identifying the inner workings of a website can lead to more niche topics.

Personal Experiences

When writing your essays, make sure you touch on any personal experiences that can help show why this subject is your passion. It can all add to the personal narrative that you’ve been building in your entire application and help make the admissions officers understand you better.

If you had an experience with technology that fascinated you, drew you into the subject, and made you want to learn more, then include that. Be sure to add the important details so the reader can get a good sense of the scene. Another way to go is if you had the opposite experience: you encountered a frustrating piece of technology and were desperate to figure out how to get it working. You realized that you wanted to go into the field to improve software and make people’s lives easier. You can try writing about your interests that way. 

Another way to write your essay is to back up an explanation of your passions with a personal story that will make your essay compelling. Try to draw on an anecdote, and if possible, explain what you’ve accomplished after your initial interest was sparked. 

How did you get involved in coding? If you found technology that was glitching all the time or something that excited you, did this inspire you to figure out how it all worked? Write about how you’ve developed your skills in coding and science and how much you’ve learned about good systems and malfunctioning systems. Then, write about what you want to accomplish and innovate in the field.

Plans for the Future

When you’ve discussed the past and present, you can begin to probe the future. For the sake of narrative, try to include how you’ve grown and what your ultimate ambitions are. If you’re not sure exactly what branch of software engineering you want to go into, that’s fine. You can name a few options, such as game design or mobile design, or you can just talk about how you want to build things and make better technology to improve people’s lives. 

When you’re talking about personal things, you should aim to be specific. Draw on stories when you can, and be honest about what interests you about this subject and what you want to do in the field. This is your chance to explore why you’re looking to go into software engineering, so you should come away from these essays feeling much more confident about your planned course of study.

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111 Software Engineering Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Software engineering is a rapidly growing field that plays a crucial role in the development of technology. As a software engineer, you are constantly challenged to come up with innovative solutions to complex problems. Writing essays on software engineering topics can help you deepen your understanding of key concepts and stay up to date on the latest trends in the industry.

To help you get started, here are 111 software engineering essay topic ideas and examples:

• The impact of artificial intelligence on software engineering
• The role of ethics in software development
• Best practices for software testing
• The importance of cybersecurity in software engineering
• Agile vs. waterfall software development methodologies
• The future of DevOps in software engineering
• The benefits of open-source software development
• The role of data analytics in software engineering
• The challenges of software maintenance and support
• The impact of cloud computing on software engineering
• The role of machine learning in software development
• The importance of code quality in software engineering
• The benefits of continuous integration and continuous deployment
• The role of user experience design in software development
• The challenges of scaling software applications
• The impact of microservices architecture on software engineering
• The role of software architecture in system design
• The benefits of code reviews in software development
• The importance of documentation in software engineering
• The challenges of software project management
• The role of software engineering in the Internet of Things
• The impact of virtual reality on software development
• The benefits of test-driven development
• The challenges of software performance optimization
• The role of software engineering in the healthcare industry
• The impact of mobile computing on software development
• The benefits of using containers in software deployment
• The challenges of software security in the age of data breaches
• The role of software engineering in autonomous vehicles
• The importance of software quality assurance
• The impact of blockchain technology on software development
• The benefits of using design patterns in software engineering
• The challenges of software localization and internationalization
• The role of software engineering in financial services
• The impact of quantum computing on software development
• The benefits of continuous learning in software engineering
• The challenges of legacy system migration
• The role of software engineering in e-commerce
• The importance of software licensing and intellectual property
• The impact of software engineering on sustainability
• The benefits of using agile methodologies in software development
• The challenges of software vendor lock-in
• The role of software engineering in social networking platforms
• The importance of software performance monitoring
• The impact of artificial intelligence on software testing
• The benefits of using version control systems in software development
• The challenges of software configuration management
• The role of software engineering in the gaming industry
• The importance of software metrics and measurement
• The impact of software engineering on smart cities
• The benefits of using continuous deployment in software development
• The challenges of software interoperability and integration
• The role of software engineering in digital transformation
• The importance of software engineering in disaster recovery
• The impact of chatbots on software development
• The benefits of using software frameworks in development
• The challenges of software performance tuning
• The role of software engineering in the education sector
• The importance of software versioning and release management
• The impact of software engineering on the entertainment industry
• The benefits of using software design patterns in development
• The challenges of software usability and accessibility
• The role of software engineering in smart home technology
• The importance of software security auditing
• The impact of software engineering on the automotive industry
• The benefits of using continuous integration in software development
• The challenges of software change management
• The role of software engineering in the travel and hospitality sector
• The importance of software reliability and fault tolerance
• The impact of software engineering on the retail industry
• The benefits of using software modeling and simulation
• The challenges of software project estimation and planning
• The role of software engineering in the aerospace industry
• The importance of software performance profiling
• The impact of software engineering on the energy sector
• The benefits of using software refactoring in development
• The challenges of software deployment automation
• The role of software engineering in the telecommunications industry
• The importance of software scalability and elasticity
• The impact of software engineering on the manufacturing sector
• The benefits of using software prototyping in development
• The challenges of software requirements engineering
• The role of software engineering in the defense industry
• The importance of software fault injection testing
• The impact of software engineering on the agricultural sector
• The benefits of using software code analysis tools in development
• The challenges of software migration and modernization
• The role of software engineering in the transportation industry
• The importance of software performance tuning
• The impact of software engineering on the healthcare industry
• The benefits of using software development environments in development
• The challenges of software quality assurance and testing

These are just a few of the many software engineering topics that you can explore in your essays. Whether you are a student looking to deepen your understanding of software engineering concepts or a professional seeking to stay up to date on industry trends, writing essays on these topics can help you sharpen your skills and knowledge in the field. Happy writing!

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How to Become a Software Engineer

Learn everything you need to know about careers in software engineering and what you can do to enter this in-demand field.

Mary Sharp Emerson

Today’s world revolves around software. Whether you’re viewing an app on your phone, playing a video game, or tracking a workout on your watch, you are using software. As a result, there is increasingly high demand for individuals with the skills to design the software that operates those devices.

Software engineering can be a challenging career path. A successful software engineer must have a strong foundation in mathematics, engineering principles, and programming skills. At the same time, it can be a rewarding career, offering lucrative salaries and job flexibility.

In this guide, we’ll review everything you need to know about how to become a software engineer.

What is Software Engineering?

Software engineering is the science of building software systems, products, and applications. 

Also sometimes called software developers, software engineers design, write, and launch software programs. They may also work on maintaining and creating upgrades for existing software, performing quality assurance (QA) tests, and writing technical documentation.

Software engineering offers significant room for career growth and advancement. As you gain knowledge and experience, you may choose to work on different parts of the software lifecycle. 

Entry level engineers, for example, are usually responsible for writing code or QA testing. More experienced engineers may work with clients to gather requirements and focus on system design. 

Types of Software Engineers 

Software systems interface with nearly every part of a digital device, from the operating system that allows the device to run to the network that connects it to the internet. 

Software engineering roles , therefore, are determined primarily by what the software does and where on a device or network it operates. The most common types of software engineering roles, with the most job flexibility, are:

• Front-end engineer : Responsible for the interface users interact with (sometimes also called web developers )
• Back-end engineer : Responsible for software that sits on a server or network and drives the user interface
• Full stack engineer: Designs and writes software on both the client and server side

Some specializations focus on where the software operates. Mobile app developers , for example, write applications specifically for mobile devices. Embedded systems software engineers develop operating systems that allow hardware to function. QA engineers and DevOps engineers build and support systems at specific points in the software development life cycle.

In some cases, software engineering roles stem from cooperation or overlap with other specialties. 

For example, data engineers and machine learning engineers design software to process and analyze large amounts of data. They often work closely with data scientists and data analysts. Security engineers work closely with cybersecurity professionals to protect software. Cloud engineers work specifically on networks and network applications.

Advantages of Becoming a Software Engineer

There are many advantages to choosing a career in software engineering. 

One of the best reasons to become a software engineer is the satisfaction that comes from building products that people actually use. There’s also the excitement of solving challenging technical problems. 

Here are a few other—more concrete—reasons why you might want to consider software engineering.

It’s In High Demand

The job market for software engineers is strong coming out of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Competition among employers for qualified software engineers is fierce. And these two trends are likely to grow even stronger in the foreseeable future.

According to a report by Hired.com , for example, software engineers received more than twice as many requests for interviews in 2021 as they did in 2020. 

And according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics , the number of jobs for software engineers/developers is expected to grow by 25 percent over the next decade. 

It Brings a Competitive Salary

As demand for software engineers increases, so do the salaries that qualified and experienced professionals can demand. 

In May 2021, the average annual salary for software engineers across the United States was $120,750, according to labor statistics compiled by BLS . 

However, salaries for software engineers can vary greatly depending on education, years of experience, location, and other factors.

According to Indeed.com , the average salary for an engineer with less than a year of experience is almost $88,000. Senior software engineers, with 10 or more years of experience, can expect to earn significantly more than $120,000. 

Its Skills are Highly Portable

Originally, most software roles were limited to tech companies. Now, software engineers can work—quite literally—in any field or industry that involves the development of software. In today’s digital world, that’s nearly every industry. 

More importantly, perhaps, software engineers can apply their knowledge and skills in different fields and industries throughout their careers. 

For example, you may start your career writing code for mobile applications in the banking industry but then move into mobile applications for education, entertainment, or healthcare. Or, you might choose to stay in banking, but turn your skills to designing secure data management software.  

The hard and soft skills underpinning all these roles are similar (although some moves may require upskilling in specific coding languages, for instance), giving you maximum flexibility as you advance your career.

It Offers Flexibility in Scheduling and Location

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hastened the move to hybrid and remote work, software engineering was at the forefront of flexible working arrangements. 

Laptops and secure networks made it possible—and easy—for teams of software developers to collaborate on projects from the comfort of their own homes. For many years, software teams have been composed of engineers and developers working together from different countries and multiple time zones. The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated these trends—and made them a permanent feature of the software engineering career path.

Learn about the Computer Science Master’s Degree Program at Harvard Extension School.

What Skills Will I Need as a Software Engineer?

Software engineers need strong technical and programming skills. They must have foundational knowledge of advanced mathematics, engineering principles, and multiple computer languages.

Soft skills are equally important, however. For software engineers who are interested in moving beyond writing code, strong research, collaboration, and communication skills are a must. 

And as technologies evolve and advance rapidly, you’ll also need critical thinking skills, the ability to master new technologies quickly, and the flexibility to learn new programming languages.

Knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms

Data structures (ways of organizing data in a virtual system) and algorithms (sequences of steps required to transform an input into the desired output) form the foundation of every software system design. Together, they enable computers to find and retrieve information as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

To design effective software programs, engineers must have thorough knowledge of the different types of data structures. They must also have a strong foundation in mathematics in order to understand—and develop—the required algorithms.

Programming Skills in Multiple Computer Languages

Software engineering requires strong programming and coding skills. Therefore, software engineers must be fluent in multiple computer languages.

Some of the most common computer languages used in software development include:

• Structured Query Language (SQL)
• C / C++ / C#

Not every software developer must know every language. Web developers, for instance, are likely to work primarily in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Engineers working in data are more likely to rely on SQL and Python.

Other computer languages include Rust, Perl, and Go. These languages are newer and less frequently used. However, they are examples of how computer languages evolve quickly. Software engineers must be prepared to learn new languages throughout their careers.

Knowledge of Engineering and Design Principles

Software engineers must have extensive knowledge of design principles used to create software systems. This is especially true for individuals seeking to move from entry-level developer roles into senior positions.

One of the most common design methodologies in software engineering today is object-oriented design (OOD). Object-oriented design helps ensure software programs are flexible, simpler to write, and easier to adapt and maintain over time.

Agile Project Management

While project management skills are not absolutely required to become a software engineer, project management is important for anyone seeking to move into a leadership role. 

Most software development projects are managed through Agile project management. It’s a flexible and iterative approach in which large projects are broken down into small tasks and organized into two-week “sprints”. 

Understanding the software development lifecycle and managing software development projects through Agile is critical for individuals who hope to advance their careers into senior-level roles.

Soft Skills 

Soft skills can be just as important as technical and project management skills for successful software engineers. 

Research skills, critical thinking, and problem solving, for instance, enable engineers to explore different potential design options and select the best one for each project. 

The ability to work collaboratively as part of a team is also critical. Software systems are often large and complex. An individual engineer may work on a single aspect of the system, which must then integrate seamlessly with the rest of the system.

Excellent communication skills enable software engineers to work closely with executives and clients. This is important for gathering requirements, defending design decisions, managing teams of engineers, and coordinating with other teams to create a unified system.

While these skills aren’t necessarily taught in the classroom like technical skills, they are developed over time in both school and the workplace. They can be an important driver in your career path.

Do You Need a Degree to be a Software Engineer? 

Most software engineers in the United States have an undergraduate degree, usually but not always a bachelor of science (BS) degree. Many senior-level engineers and engineers seeking to move into a management role also have a master’s degree. 

It is possible to start your career in software without a formal degree. Undergraduate certificates in coding and web development and coding bootcamps can give you the basic programming skills you need to get an entry level role as a software developer or web developer. 

However, alternate educational paths like these are less likely to offer the foundational math, design principles, and other technical skills you’ll need to advance your career. Moreover, engineers with formal degrees are more likely to have a higher starting salary and advance their careers more quickly.

Degree Requirements

While one or more formal degrees are recommended for a career in software engineering, there are many possible degree pathways. 

A degree in software engineering is, perhaps, the most obvious choice for individuals seeking a career in software. 

However, degrees—both graduate and undergraduate—in computer science, applied mathematics, electrical engineering, and data science, for example, may also lead to successful careers in software engineering. 

A common degree pathway today is an undergraduate degree in a broad field such as computer science, followed by a master’s degree in a more specialized field like software engineering, data science, or cybersecurity depending on your interests and desired career path.

Software Engineering Courses

Most software engineering and computer science degree programs require similar foundational courses.

You’ll be required to demonstrate strong knowledge of math through courses such as linear algebra, calculus, and discrete mathematics. You’ll study today’s most common programming languages and methodologies. And you’ll learn basic knowledge of operating systems, data structures, and algorithms.

If you choose to pursue a degree in software engineering, you’ll take courses focused on advanced data structures , software design principles , and software architecture , for instance. 

You may also choose to specialize in specific applications, such as networks or embedded systems, cybersecurity, machine learning, or even artificial intelligence.  

Is Software Engineering a Difficult Degree to Get?

The coursework required to complete one or more degrees in software engineering can be challenging. 

You may find it easy to master multiple computer languages but struggle with the advanced math courses. Or you may feel at home in the world of algorithms but find you don’t have an eye for front end website design. 

The good news is that most students need help at one or more times throughout their educational journey. And most universities have support structures in place to help you succeed. 

Take advantage of office hours to get extra help from your professors and teaching assistants (TAs). Form study groups with fellow students. Ask if your school has a tutoring program or a resource center where you can make an appointment to get assistance on challenging assignments—most do. 

How Long Does it Take to Get a Software Engineering Degree?

For most students in the United States, the traditional route to an undergraduate degree is attendance at a four-year college or university. If you choose to continue your education full-time, a master’s degree can take an additional two years.

However, this traditional route is by no means the only route to a career in software engineering, or even the best one for many people. 

You may choose to start working immediately after completing your BS, then pursue a master’s degree part-time while continuing to work full-time. In this case, how long it will take to finish your degree will depend on how many classes you take each semester and whether you take time off between semesters.

What is the First Step I Can Take to Become a Software Engineer?

Software engineering can be a rewarding—potentially lucrative—career choice. 

There are many different pathways to take if you choose to pursue software engineering; where you start will depend on your personal background and existing knowledge base.

If you have an undergraduate degree and basic computer programming skills, a master’s degree in computer science offers the specialized knowledge you need to take the next step in your career as a software engineer.

Want to learn more? Ready to get started?

Connect with an enrollment advisor today.

About the Author

Digital Content Producer

Emerson is a Digital Content Producer at Harvard DCE. She is a graduate of Brandeis University and Yale University and started her career as an international affairs analyst. She is an avid triathlete and has completed three Ironman triathlons, as well as the Boston Marathon.

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📚 A curated list of papers for Software Engineers

facundoolano/software-papers

Folders and files, repository files navigation, papers for software engineers.

A curated list of papers that may be of interest to Software Engineering students or professionals. See the sources and selection criteria below.

Von Neumann's First Computer Program. Knuth (1970) . Computer History; Early Programming

• The Education of a Computer. Hopper (1952) .
• Recursive Programming. Dijkstra (1960) .
• Programming Considered as a Human Activity. Dijkstra (1965) .
• Goto Statement Considered Harmful. Dijkstra (1968) .
• Program development by stepwise refinement. Wirth (1971) .
• The Humble Programmer. Dijkstra (1972) .
• Computer Programming as an Art. Knuth (1974) .
• The paradigms of programming. Floyd (1979) .
• Literate Programming. Knuth (1984) .

Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Turing (1950) . Early Artificial Intelligence

• Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation. Wiener (1960) .
• Steps towards Artificial Intelligence. Minsky (1960) .
• ELIZA—a computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine. Weizenbaum (1966) .
• A Theory of the Learnable. Valiant (1984) .

A Method for the Construction of Minimum-Redundancy Codes. Huffman (1952) . Information Theory

• A Universal Algorithm for Sequential Data Compression. Ziv, Lempel (1977) .
• Fifty Years of Shannon Theory. Verdú (1998) .

Engineering a Sort Function. Bentley, McIlroy (1993) . Data Structures; Algorithms

• On the Shortest Spanning Subtree of a Graph and the Traveling Salesman Problem. Kruskal (1956) .
• A Note on Two Problems in Connexion with Graphs. Dijkstra (1959) .
• Quicksort. Hoare (1962) .
• Space/Time Trade-offs in Hash Coding with Allowable Errors. Bloom (1970) .
• The Ubiquitous B-Tree. Comer (1979) .
• Programming pearls: Algorithm design techniques. Bentley (1984) .
• Programming pearls: The back of the envelope. Bentley (1984) .
• Making data structures persistent. Driscoll et al (1986) .

A Design Methodology for Reliable Software Systems. Liskov (1972) . Software Design

• On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules. Parnas (1971) .
• Information Distribution Aspects of Design Methodology. Parnas (1972) .
• Designing Software for Ease of Extension and Contraction. Parnas (1979) .
• Programming as Theory Building. Naur (1985) .
• Software Aging. Parnas (1994) .
• Towards a Theory of Conceptual Design for Software. Jackson (2015) .

Programming with Abstract Data Types. Liskov, Zilles (1974) . Abstract Data Types; Object-Oriented Programming

• The Smalltalk-76 Programming System Design and Implementation. Ingalls (1978) .
• A Theory of Type Polymorphism in Programming. Milner (1978) .
• On understanding types, data abstraction, and polymorphism. Cardelli, Wegner (1985) .
• SELF: The Power of Simplicity. Ungar, Smith (1991) .

Why Functional Programming Matters. Hughes (1990) . Functional Programming

• Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine. McCarthy (1960) .
• The Semantics of Predicate Logic as a Programming Language. Van Emden, Kowalski (1976) .
• Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? Backus (1978) .
• The Semantic Elegance of Applicative Languages. Turner (1981) .
• The essence of functional programming. Wadler (1992) .
• QuickCheck: A Lightweight Tool for Random Testing of Haskell Programs. Claessen, Hughes (2000) .
• Church's Thesis and Functional Programming. Turner (2006) .

An Incremental Approach to Compiler Construction. Ghuloum (2006) . Language Design; Compilers

• The Next 700 Programming Languages. Landin (1966) .
• Programming pearls: little languages. Bentley (1986) .
• The Essence of Compiling with Continuations. Flanagan et al (1993) .
• A Brief History of Just-In-Time. Aycock (2003) .
• LLVM: A Compilation Framework for Lifelong Program Analysis & Transformation. Lattner, Adve (2004) .
• A Unified Theory of Garbage Collection. Bacon, Cheng, Rajan (2004) .
• A Nanopass Framework for Compiler Education. Sarkar, Waddell, Dybvig (2005) .
• Bringing the Web up to Speed with WebAssembly. Haas (2017) .

No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering. Brooks (1987) . Software Engineering; Project Management

• How do committees invent? Conway (1968) .
• Managing the Development of Large Software Systems. Royce (1970) .
• The Mythical Man Month. Brooks (1975) .
• On Building Systems That Will Fail. Corbató (1991) .
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Raymond (1998) .
• Out of the Tar Pit. Moseley, Marks (2006) .

Communicating sequential processes. Hoare (1978) . Concurrency

• Solution Of a Problem in Concurrent Program Control. Dijkstra (1965) .
• Monitors: An operating system structuring concept. Hoare (1974) .
• On the Duality of Operating System Structures. Lauer, Needham (1978) .
• Software Transactional Memory. Shavit, Touitou (1997) .

The UNIX Time- Sharing System. Ritchie, Thompson (1974) . Operating Systems

• An Experimental Time-Sharing System. Corbató, Merwin Daggett, Daley (1962) .
• The Structure of the "THE"-Multiprogramming System. Dijkstra (1968) .
• The nucleus of a multiprogramming system. Hansen (1970) .
• Reflections on Trusting Trust. Thompson (1984) .
• The Design and Implementation of a Log-Structured File System. Rosenblum, Ousterhout (1991) .

A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks. Codd (1970) . Databases

• Granularity of Locks and Degrees of Consistency in a Shared Data Base. Gray et al (1975) .
• Access Path Selection in a Relational Database Management System. Selinger et al (1979) .
• The Transaction Concept: Virtues and Limitations. Gray (1981) .
• The design of POSTGRES. Stonebraker, Rowe (1986) .
• Rules of Thumb in Data Engineering. Gray, Shenay (1999) .

A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication. Cerf, Kahn (1974) . Networking

• Ethernet: Distributed packet switching for local computer networks. Metcalfe, Boggs (1978) .
• End-To-End Arguments in System Design. Saltzer, Reed, Clark (1984) .
• An algorithm for distributed computation of a Spanning Tree in an Extended LAN. Perlman (1985) .
• The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols. Clark (1988) .
• TOR: The second generation onion router. Dingledine et al (2004) .
• Why the Internet only just works. Handley (2006) .
• The Network is Reliable. Bailis, Kingsbury (2014) .

New Directions in Cryptography. Diffie, Hellman (1976) . Cryptography

• A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems. Rivest, Shamir, Adleman (1978) .
• How To Share A Secret. Shamir (1979) .
• A Digital Signature Based on a Conventional Encryption Function. Merkle (1987) .
• The Salsa20 family of stream ciphers. Bernstein (2007) .

Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System. Lamport (1978) . Distributed Systems

• Self-stabilizing systems in spite of distributed control. Dijkstra (1974) .
• The Byzantine Generals Problem. Lamport, Shostak, Pease (1982) .
• Impossibility of Distributed Consensus With One Faulty Process. Fisher, Lynch, Patterson (1985) .
• Implementing Fault-Tolerant Services Using the State Machine Approach: A Tutorial. Schneider (1990) .
• Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance. Castro, Liskov (1999) .
• Paxos made simple. Lamport (2001) .
• Paxos made live - An Engineering Perspective. Chandra, Griesemer, Redstone (2007) .
• In Search of an Understandable Consensus Algorithm. Ongaro, Ousterhout (2014) .

Designing for Usability: Key Principles and What Designers Think. Gould, Lewis (1985) . Human-Computer Interaction; User Interfaces

• As We May Think. Bush (1945) .
• Man-Computer symbiosis. Licklider (1958) .
• Some Thoughts About the Social Implications of Accessible Computing. David, Fano (1965) .
• Tutorials for the First-Time Computer User. Al-Awar, Chapanis, Ford (1981) .
• The star user interface: an overview. Smith, Irby, Kimball (1982) .
• Design Principles for Human-Computer Interfaces. Norman (1983) .
• Human-Computer Interaction: Psychology as a Science of Design. Carroll (1997) .

The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual Web search engine. Brin, Page (1998) . Information Retrieval; World-Wide Web

• A Statistical Interpretation of Term Specificity in Retrieval. Spärck Jones (1972) .
• World-Wide Web: Information Universe. Berners-Lee et al (1992) .
• The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web. Page, Brin, Motwani (1998) .

Dynamo, Amazon’s Highly Available Key-value store. DeCandia et al (2007) . Internet Scale Data Systems

• The Google File System. Ghemawat, Gobioff, Leung (2003) .
• MapReduce: Simplified Data Processing on Large Clusters. Dean, Ghemawat (2004) .
• Bigtable: A Distributed Storage System for Structured Data. Chang et al (2006) .
• ZooKeeper: wait-free coordination for internet scale systems. Hunt et al (2010) .
• The Hadoop Distributed File System. Shvachko et al (2010) .
• Kafka: a Distributed Messaging System for Log Processing. Kreps, Narkhede, Rao (2011) .
• CAP Twelve Years Later: How the "Rules" Have Changed. Brewer (2012) .
• Amazon Aurora: Design Considerations for High Throughput Cloud-Native Relational Databases. Verbitski et al (2017) .

On Designing and Deploying Internet Scale Services. Hamilton (2007) . Operations; Reliability; Fault-tolerance

• Ironies of Automation. Bainbridge (1983) .
• Why do computers stop and what can be done about it? Gray (1985) .
• Recovery Oriented Computing (ROC): Motivation, Definition, Techniques, and Case Studies. Patterson et al (2002) .
• Crash-Only Software. Candea, Fox (2003) .
• Building on Quicksand. Helland, Campbell (2009) .

Thinking Methodically about Performance. Gregg (2012) . Performance

• Performance Anti-Patterns. Smaalders (2006) .
• Thinking Clearly about Performance. Millsap (2010) .

Bitcoin, A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Nakamoto (2008) . Crytpocurrencies

• Ethereum: A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform. Buterin (2014) .

A Few Useful Things to Know About Machine Learning. Domingos (2012) . Machine Learning

• Statistical Modeling: The Two Cultures. Breiman (2001) .
• The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data. Halevy, Norvig, Pereira (2009) .
• ImageNet Classification with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks. Krizhevsky, Sutskever, Hinton (2012) .
• Playing Atari with Deep Reinforcement Learning. Mnih et al (2013) .
• Generative Adversarial Nets. Goodfellow et al (2014) .
• Deep Learning. LeCun, Bengio, Hinton (2015) .
• Attention Is All You Need. Vaswani et al (2017) .
• Von Neumann's First Computer Program. Knuth (1970) .
• Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Turing (1950) .
• A Method for the Construction of Minimum-Redundancy Codes. Huffman (1952) .
• Engineering a Sort Function. Bentley, McIlroy (1993) .
• A Design Methodology for Reliable Software Systems. Liskov (1972) .
• Programming with Abstract Data Types. Liskov, Zilles (1974) .
• Why Functional Programming Matters. Hughes (1990) .
• An Incremental Approach to Compiler Construction. Ghuloum (2006) .
• No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering. Brooks (1987) .
• Communicating sequential processes. Hoare (1978) .
• The UNIX Time- Sharing System. Ritchie, Thompson (1974) .
• A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks. Codd (1970) .
• A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication. Cerf, Kahn (1974) .
• New Directions in Cryptography. Diffie, Hellman (1976) .
• Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System. Lamport (1978) .
• Designing for Usability: Key Principles and What Designers Think. Gould, Lewis (1985) .
• The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual Web search engine. Brin, Page (1998) .
• Dynamo, Amazon’s Highly Available Key-value store. DeCandia et al (2007) .
• On Designing and Deploying Internet Scale Services. Hamilton (2007) .
• Thinking Methodically about Performance. Gregg (2012) .
• Bitcoin, A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Nakamoto (2008) .
• A Few Useful Things to Know About Machine Learning. Domingos (2012) .

This list was inspired by (and draws from) several books and paper collections:

• Papers We Love
• Ideas That Created the Future
• The Innovators
• The morning paper
• Distributed systems for fun and profit
• Readings in Database Systems (the Red Book)
• Fermat's Library
• Classics in Human-Computer Interaction
• Awesome Compilers
• Distributed Consensus Reading List
• The Decade of Deep Learning

A few interesting resources about reading papers from Papers We Love and elsewhere:

• Should I read papers?
• How to Read an Academic Article
• How to Read a Paper. Keshav (2007) .
• Efficient Reading of Papers in Science and Technology. Hanson (1999) .
• On ICSE’s “Most Influential Papers”. Parnas (1995) .

Selection criteria

• The idea is not to include every interesting paper that I come across but rather to keep a representative list that's possible to read from start to finish with a similar level of effort as reading a technical book from cover to cover.
• I tried to include one paper per each major topic and author. Since in the process I found a lot of noteworthy alternatives, related or follow-up papers and I wanted to keep track of those as well, I included them as sublist items.
• The papers shouldn't be too long. For the same reasons as the previous item, I try to avoid papers longer than 20 or 30 pages.
• They should be self-contained and readable enough to be approachable by the casual technical reader.
• They should be freely available online.
• Examples of this are classic works by Von Neumann, Turing and Shannon.
• That being said, where possible I preferred the original paper on each subject over modern updates or survey papers.
• Similarly, I tended to skip more theoretical papers, those focusing on mathematical foundations for Computer Science, electronic aspects of hardware, etc.
• I sorted the list by a mix of relatedness of topics and a vague chronological relevance, such that it makes sense to read it in the suggested order. For example, historical and seminal topics go first, contemporary internet-era developments last, networking precedes distributed systems, etc.

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Essay on Software Engineering | I Want to be Software Engineer

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Software Engineering is the domain that is related with building software, creating solutions, applications etc for daily life. Software Engineering is  of tremendous importance in today’s life. Read the following Essay on Software Engineering, why I love to a software engineering and Importance of Software Engineering for the growth and development of India

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Essay on Software Engineering | Importance of Software Engineering | Why I Love it

I want to be a software engineer because it is a profession that combines my interests in technology, problem solving, and working with people. As a software engineer, I would have the opportunity to work on a variety of projects, using different programming languages and tools. I would also be able to collaborate with other engineers to design and build new applications or improve existing ones.

I Love Software  Engineering

Software engineer, to me, is an art, a creativity and intelligent skills to breath life into the code and build applications to solve the day to day affairs. It is a passion to work with 0s and 1s and give them a meaning which can be understood by the machines as well as humans. In simple terms, it is like being a architect but instead of buildings, we design and construct software. We don’t just write code, we design systems and software that are scalable, constructive and user friendly.

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Importance of Software Engineering these days

To me, the role of software engineering is great. It is expanding into every domain our lives. The fast growth of IT industry has given a tremendous push to the software engineering. It is one of the most challenging, responsible and important job in today’s scenario. I think that every individual should have at least some basic knowledge about software engineering as it will be very useful in our day to day lives.

My Goals as Software Engineer

I want to achieve a lot as a software engineer. I want to be a part of the team that designs and develops new applications. I also want to contribute to improving existing applications. I want to work on projects that are challenging and interesting, and that have a positive impact on people’s lives.

Software engineering can greatly help the growth and development of our country. Firstly, it can help in the area of education. There are many applications and software that can be used to improve the teaching and learning process. Software engineering can also help in the area of governance. There are many applications that can be used to improve the efficiency of government departments.

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The IT industry is one of the biggest employers in our country. Software engineering can help in the development of this industry, and in turn, create more employment opportunities. In conclusion, I would like to say that software engineering is a very important profession, and I am very interested in it. I believe that it has a lot of potential to help our country grow and develop. Thank you.

The Mythical Month Essay on Software Engineering:

Welcome back to our discussion on “The Mythical Man Month”. In the previous section, we talked about the main points of Fred Brooks’ influential essay on software engineering. Now, let’s delve deeper into some interesting background information that will not only add to your knowledge but also give you a better understanding of the concepts discussed in the essay.

Firstly, let’s explore the title of the essay itself. The term “The Mythical Man Month” was coined by author Fred Brooks, who derived it from an old saying – “adding more manpower to a late software project makes it later”. This concept is based on the idea that adding more people to a project will not speed up its completion, but rather slow it down due to communication and coordination issues.

Furthermore, it’s important to note that The Mythical Man Month was published in 1975, a time when software engineering was still a relatively new and evolving field. Brooks’ essay served as a wake-up call for the industry, highlighting the challenges and complexities involved in managing large-scale software projects.

Moving on, let’s take a closer look at some of the key themes discussed in the essay. One of the major points that Brooks emphasizes is the concept of conceptual integrity. According to him, a successful software project requires a unified and consistent design approach, rather than being pieced together by individual components. This idea holds true even today, with many modern software development methodologies emphasizing on integration and collaboration.

Another important aspect highlighted in The Mythical Man Month is the concept of time estimation in software projects. Brooks argues that accurately predicting the time required for a project is incredibly difficult, and even experienced developers tend to underestimate this aspect. This can lead to missed deadlines and an overall delay in project completion.

Overall, The Mythical Man Month remains a must-read for anyone involved in software engineering or project management. Its timeless insights and lessons continue to hold relevance in today’s fast-paced technological landscape. So, if you haven’t already, make sure to add this influential essay to your reading list! So, keep learning and exploring the fascinating world of software engineering. See you in the next section! # Keep Learning! # Happy Coding!

Essay on Importance of Software Engineering:

Software engineering has become an integral part of our daily lives. It is the backbone of modern technology and plays a crucial role in shaping our future. From smartphones to self-driving cars, software engineering has revolutionized the way we live, work, and communicate.

But what exactly is software engineering? In simple terms, it is the application of principles, techniques, and tools to design, develop, and maintain software systems. It involves a systematic and disciplined approach to building high-quality, reliable, and efficient software products.

Software engineering is not just about writing code; it also involves understanding the needs of users, analyzing complex problems, designing solutions, testing for bugs and errors, and continuously improving the software. In today’s fast-paced world where technology is constantly evolving, software engineers are constantly facing new challenges and pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

One of the key benefits of software engineering is its ability to streamline processes and automate tasks. With the use of sophisticated algorithms and programming languages, software engineers can create efficient and accurate systems that save time, reduce errors, and increase productivity. This is especially crucial in industries such as healthcare, finance, and transportation where the stakes are high and accuracy is paramount.

Moreover, software engineering has also played a significant role in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship. With the rise of startups and tech companies, there is a growing demand for skilled software engineers who can bring new ideas to life. This not only drives economic growth but also creates job opportunities for individuals with diverse backgrounds.

However, with advancements in technology and increasing reliance on software, the importance of software engineering goes beyond just improving our daily lives. It also has a profound impact on important global issues such as climate change, healthcare, and education. For instance, software engineers are developing applications and programs to analyze and predict weather patterns, manage medical records, and create interactive learning platforms.

In conclusion, software engineering is an essential field that continues to shape our world in countless ways. It not only enhances our daily lives but also contributes to the betterment of society as a whole. As technology continues to advance, the role of software engineering will become even more crucial and we must continue to invest in this field for a brighter future

Short Essay on Future of Software Engineering:

The field of software engineering is constantly evolving and growing, with new technologies and techniques emerging all the time. As we move into the future, it’s important to consider what changes and advancements we can expect in the world of software engineering.

One major trend that we can expect to continue in the future is the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in software development. AI and machine learning are already being used in many areas of software engineering, from automated testing to data analysis and prediction. As these technologies continue to improve, we can expect them to play an even bigger role in the creation and maintenance of software systems.

Another key area of development for the future of software engineering is the increasing focus on user experience (UX). With more and more people using technology in their daily lives, the demand for intuitive, user-friendly software is only going to continue to grow. This means that software engineers will need to prioritize UX design and constantly find ways to improve the user experience of their products.

In addition, there will likely be a shift towards more collaborative and agile methods of software development. As teams become more diverse and distributed, the ability to work together effectively and adapt quickly will become essential. Agile methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban will continue to gain popularity, allowing teams to deliver high-quality software in a timely manner.

Security will also remain a top concern for the future of software engineering. With cyber attacks becoming more sophisticated and common, it’s crucial that software engineers prioritize security measures in their development processes. This may include implementing secure coding practices, conducting regular security audits, and staying up-to-date on the latest security protocols.

Finally, as technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, software engineers will need to constantly adapt and learn new skills in order to stay relevant. Continuous learning and professional development will be key for success in this field.

In conclusion, the future of software engineering is exciting and full of potential. With advancements in AI, UX design, collaboration methods, security measures, and continuous learning, the possibilities are endless. As the demand for efficient and user-friendly software continues to grow, it’s up to software engineers to stay ahead of the curve and shape the future of this ever-evolving field.

Why Study Engineering Essay:

Software engineering is a rapidly growing field that has become increasingly important in today’s technology-driven world. As technology continues to advance at an ever-increasing pace, the need for skilled software engineers also rises. In this short essay, we will discuss some of the key reasons why studying software engineering can be a smart and lucrative choice.

One of the main reasons to study software engineering is the abundance of job opportunities in the field. With the increasing demand for software developers, there is no shortage of job openings and career growth potential in this industry. Whether you are interested in working for a large corporation, a small startup, or even as a freelancer, there are countless opportunities available for software engineers.

Additionally, software engineering offers flexibility in terms of work environment and location. Due to the nature of the work, many software engineers have the option to work remotely or even start their own businesses. This flexibility allows for a better work-life balance and can provide more opportunities for travel and personal growth.

Moreover, studying software engineering can also lead to a highly lucrative career. As technology continues to advance, companies are willing to pay top dollar for skilled software engineers who can design and develop innovative solutions. This means that software engineers often enjoy competitive salaries, as well as opportunities for bonuses and other benefits.

Another compelling reason to study software engineering is the ability to make a tangible impact on the world. In today’s society, technology plays a crucial role in almost every aspect of our lives. By studying software engineering, you have the opportunity to create and develop solutions that can improve people’s lives, whether it be through developing new medical technology or creating a more user-friendly app.

Essay on 10 Reason to Become a Software Engineering:

Are you considering becoming a software engineer but not sure if it’s the right career path for you? With advancements in technology and the ever-growing demand for software development, becoming a software engineer can be a lucrative and fulfilling career choice. In this essay, we will explore 10 reasons why you should consider becoming a software engineer.

Reason #1: High Demand

The demand for software engineers is continuously increasing as technology becomes an integral part of our daily lives. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of software developers is projected to grow 22% from 2019 to 2029, much faster than the average for all occupations. This high demand leads to a stable job market and excellent career opportunities for software engineers.

Reason #2: Lucrative Salary

With high demand comes excellent compensation. Software engineers are one of the highest-paid professionals globally, with an average salary of over $100,000 per year in the United States. This high salary is a reflection of the value and importance placed on software development in today’s society.

Reason #3: Versatile Skills

One of the most attractive aspects of becoming a software engineer is the versatility of skills acquired. As a software engineer, you will learn various programming languages and methodologies that can be applied in different industries. This versatility allows for career growth and mobility, making it an excellent choice for those who enjoy learning new things.

Reason #4: Creativity and Problem-Solving

Software engineering is a highly creative and innovative field. As a software engineer, you will be tasked with finding solutions to complex problems using your creativity and logical thinking skills. This constant challenge keeps the job interesting and allows for personal and professional growth.

Reason #5: Continuous Learning

In today’s rapidly evolving tech industry, learning never stops. Software engineers are constantly updating their skills and keeping up with the latest technologies to stay competitive in the job market. This continuous learning ensures that the work is always engaging and challenging.

Reason #6: Flexibility

Software engineering offers a high level of flexibility, both in terms of work schedule and location. With the rise of remote work opportunities, software engineers can find employment anywhere in the world and have a flexible work schedule that fits their lifestyle.

Reason #7: Impactful Work

Software engineers have the power to make a significant impact on society. From developing life-saving medical software to creating innovative solutions for global issues, software engineering allows individuals to use technology for good and make a positive difference in the world.

Reason #8: Collaboration

Software development is often a collaborative effort, and this fosters a supportive and teamwork-oriented work environment. As a software engineer, you will have the opportunity to work with other talented individuals from diverse backgrounds, creating an open and inclusive workplace.

Reason #9: Constantly Evolving Field

Software engineering is a field that is constantly evolving, making it an exciting career choice for those who enjoy adapting to change and embracing new technologies. With the rise of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and other emerging technologies, software engineering will continue to be a dynamic and cutting-edge field.

Reason #10: Job Satisfaction

Last but not least, becoming a software engineer can lead to high job satisfaction. The ability to continuously learn, solve problems, make an impact, and work in a collaborative environment can result in a fulfilling and rewarding career.

In conclusion, becoming a software engineer has many advantages, including high demand, lucrative salary, versatile skills, creativity and problem-solving opportunities, continuous learning, flexibility, impactful work, collaboration, constantly evolving field, and job satisfaction. If you are passionate about technology and enjoy challenging yourself intellectually while making a difference in the world, then becoming a software engineer may be the perfect career path for you. So don’t hesitate and take the leap into this exciting and growing field! With hard work and dedication, you can achieve success as a software engineer.

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University of Notre Dame

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Software Engineering: The Career or Shortage of the Future?

By Celeste Mannel

Published: October 04, 2023

The defining feature of this age in history is the rapid innovation and technological advancements made in the past century. With the invention of the computer, the human experience was revolutionized, and from the emergence of the computer came the necessity for computer programmers and then computer scientists. These engineers have always been in high demand, as computing was popularly thought as the career of the future, but unfortunately, engineers equipped with the industry’s demanded skills have been in short supply. As the 2018 Gartner Incorporated Emerging Risks Survey reports in 4Q18, senior executives ranked “talent shortage” as their primary concern (Lavelle); and this demand is twofold as well, as tech companies demand these skilled engineers to keep up with exponential technological development, and non-tech companies demand these engineers to ensure they digitize as the rest of the world seems to be doing. Chief Executive Officer of tech recruiting company Hired, Mehul Patel even states that “every company is a tech company now” (qtd. by Liu). While this demand would seem to be a great situation for engineers, the result is the opposite as these engineers do not have the skills necessary to meet the demand. In fact, as the demand increases exponentially, and the skill gap remains, there is a growing rift between the increasing quantity of engineers demanded and the slowly growing number of qualified engineers available. My inquiry investigates the reasons for the growing shortage of engineers and the existing proposed solutions. I dive into the benefits and issues with each solution. This investigation into the shortage of engineers can address issues within the technology industry hiring process and issues within the production of engineers, which will give light to solutions that will increase productivity and efficiency as well as promote intellectual and cultural diversity in the field.

The Increasing Demand for Skilled Engineers

Finding qualified engineers is proving itself increasingly difficult as the cutting edge is developing at groundbreaking rates. The 2020 Google Cloud Whitepaper reports that in 2019, 70% of leaders in technology found hiring as a “top challenge” (“Google Cloud Certification…”). Furthermore, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 411,400 new job openings for 2021-2031 employment growth, meaning employers will be facing a more competitive job market as more advanced positions open requiring skilled candidates (“Employment Projections”). However, not only is finding and hiring these qualified candidates difficult, but companies are also struggling to keep their current employees up to date with the skills the developing market demands. For example, the 2021 Global Knowledge IT Skills and Salary Report, which partnered with major technology companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and IBM, highlights that 76% of tech leaders found large skills gaps among their existing employees (Skillsoft). In short, while it is great for the tech industry to be advancing at such a rate, this development is creating a greater issue if these companies cannot find the required skill to keep up.

As a result of this high demand, a new trend is emerging where employers have resorted to posting about job openings on social media such as Twitter, as Netflix Senior Software Engineer Felipe Barbosa tweeted this September, “My team is hiring! And this position is aimed at less experienced engineers with strong fundamentals and a great attitude!” (Ribeiro Barbosa). Similarly, also this past September, MIT Research Scientist and popular podcast host Lex Fridman posted an announcement on his personal Twitter account, advertising Machine Learning Engineer and Programmer positions for which he is hiring (Fridman). Given that Netflix is ranked 115 th on the Fortune 500, and that Fridman’s podcast currently holds the top spot on Apple Podcasts’ Technology Top Charts, surely such corporations should have no shortage of interested candidates lining up for the opportunity of working with them (Staff; “Lex Fridman Podcast.”). However, as evidenced by both Barbosa and Fridman’s advertising, finding the right engineers is still so difficult, that they will resort to a social media post to find these hires.

The Low Supply of Qualified Engineers

While the demand for engineers increases, the growing shortage can be attributed to a lack of engineers who are qualified and experienced enough to fill the rapidly developing positions. A proposed solution to this is to shift focus from applicants’ credentials and resume fillers to their demonstrated thinking, and this shift can look like increasing the number of technologists and certified applicants hired. The Conference Board non-profit think tank reports finding that employers are “lowering educational requirements and offering more initial job training” in response to the shortage, and in 2013, former UK Prime Minister, and then-London Mayor, Boris Johnson, proposed a “London Visa” that would enable international technologists to work in London and fill the skill gap (“How Employers Combat Labor Shortages”; Flinders). Historically, both technologists and certified applicants are rarely considered for engineering positions, however, many have found that this flaw in the engineering workforce is leaving companies with further unfilled jobs and a loss of perfectly capable and trainable employees.

Increasing Technologists and Certified Applicants Hired

The qualification of “technologist” is often compared negatively to the qualification of “engineer,” with an observable difference in the number of years of education. An engineer is, on an international average, required to take a greater number of years in a training program than a technologist is required to take (Carroll). Similarly, the courses the engineer can expect to take, such as advanced calculus, differential equations, engineering concept creation, and critical thinking, are more advanced than the classes a technologist will take, such as algebra, prealgebra, and engineering principles (“Engineering Technologist vs. Engineer”). However, the most important difference between the two qualifications is the specialization of the graduates. An engineer focuses heavily on the conception of fundamental principles and transforming them into a design, while the technologist understands that design and uses technical skills to implement it (“Engineering Technologist vs. Engineer”). A third category of “technician” exists as a possible qualification as well, however, this position is more technical and less conceptual than the technologist. In other words, the progression from engineer, to technologist, to technician is a spectrum of specialization ranging from the most theoretical to the most hands on. And while each of these positions hold valuable places in the tech workforce, it is the technologist who provides the perfect balance between the conceptual and technical side of the engineering process.

Due to these multidisciplinary skills, a technologist can be a great hire for companies. In the podcast Y Combinator episode “Hiring Engineers with Ammon Bartram,” Bartram, cofounder of the hiring program Triplebyte, explains that large technology companies are able to search for employees who are flexible enough to be trained in the specialization of the desired role (Cannon). This idea follows the logic that, while the engineer may have much conceptual knowledge, they might lack the technical knowledge the company needs, because technical demands are advancing at a rate so that an engineer’s technical experience becomes outdated. Therefore, technologists provide the perfect balance for companies to mold into whatever employee they desire. However, technologists’ qualifications are undervalued because of the systemic stigma that the engineer is superior (Carroll). In his paper, Carroll suggests a reorientation of how technology companies perceive technologists and their qualifications, since a flexible employee with problem solving and critical thinking skills is very valuable to a company.

Another proposed solution is that companies begin to recognize and accept applicants with specialized certifications or professional registrations. Several large companies have begun offering free and quick certifications in response to the increasing shortage of engineers, such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and IBM among others, and possible fields include Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, and other fields of the same nature (Leighton; “Microsoft Certifications”). In the previously mentioned interview, Bartram also comments that recently trained engineers, like certified engineers, are likely to be a great match with start-up companies, as these companies’ priorities are to create and implement their project efficiently and rapidly (Cannon). Hiring these applicants is beneficial because since certifications “offer more specific training in a shorter time frame,” there is an elastic supply of certifications and registrations, meaning they can be produced quickly, and graduates are very technical and specialized (Amsler).

The major caveat of increasing hiring of technologists and certified applicants is the risk of overspecialization, which worsens the gap when these employees no longer meet the skill demands. To counter this effect, companies must ensure that training and specialization continue as ongoing process, because if the industry is going to continue developing at this rate, employers must guarantee that their employees are “staying current with trends and technology” (Global Knowledge).

Lack of Representation in Engineering

Another contributing factor to the lack of available engineers is the underrepresentation of minorities in the tech industry. While women of color compose about 40% of the female population in the United States, only 12% of women in the IT sector are of color (“Women and Girls of Color in Computing”). Additionally, a National Science Foundation report found that of all science and engineering workers in 2015, only 28.35% were women, 33% were of color, and 10.4% women of color (National Science Foundation). The issue with this is quite straight forward: there is a portion of the population whose engineering careers and talents are not being maximized; in other words, there is a large number of potential engineers that are not being trained nor hired. Simply looking to these currently marginalized groups when hiring will directly increase the number of engineers in the field because, as NIH Director Francis Collins states, STEM is currently “missing critical contributors to our talent pool” (Collins).

Getting past the historic bias against hiring women and people of color in industries like engineering, there are more concrete reasons as to why minority numbers are so low in this workforce, such as a lack of access to opportunities and a lack of interest and motivation in STEM. In the 2021 Conference on Research in Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology , a study on the role of cultural wealth in hiring explains how, prior to the application process, many minority groups do not have access to the same kind of preparations that others receive. For example, the study recalls that many “computer science professors at Historically Black Institutions [(HBIs)] may lack experience with technical interviews” (Lunn and Ross). This creates a rift in how students from HBIs can compete with other applicants, since minorities are unaware and unprepared for these types of interviews, although they are one of the most crucial elements of modern tech hiring (Bui).

Another display of the lack of adequate preparation for minorities can be seen in the disparity of students taking computer science courses in high school and university; only 23% of all students taking AP Computer Science in 2017 were female (20% were of color), and less than 10% of all computing bachelor’s degrees are held by women of color (“Women and Girls of Color in Computing”). These statistics are important because if applicants wish to meet the skill demanded by hiring companies, preparations must take place starting very young, and a lack of access to these resources, according to the Lunn and Ross’ study in hiring, “unequal divides between those with a greater availability to prepare” (Lunn and Ross).

In addition to a lack of access to preparatory opportunities, minorities are also less likely to fill these engineering roles because of a wrongfully influenced lack of interest and motivation to pursue engineering. The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) report on Engineering Messaging to Tween Girls shows that women are “inclined to hold humanistic values,” indicating that if they are not able to see the effects of engineering on society, they are less likely to pursue these roles (Society of Women Engineers). This idea is corroborated by a study seeking to investigate the idea that men prefer working with things and women with people; the study found that the idea in question does hold true, signifying that these preferences play a large influence in “gendered occupational choices and gender disparity in the STEM fields” (Su). Another reason women and minorities are less likely to show engineering interest is because the field is heavily saturated by men, specifically white men, causing minorities to perceive engineering as a “[non-inclusive] profession” (Society of Women Engineers). If the previous reports are accurate, and minorities are perceiving engineering to be a non-inclusive profession that also holds little societal impact, it makes sense that many of these potential engineers are straying away from the industry.

The loss of prospective engineers due to lack of representation is hurting the industry since the diversity and inclusion benefits the industry for a couple of reasons. Logically, increasing hiring from these applicant pools will directly increase the number of possible candidates, which in turn will increase the number of hires; however, more important is the effect this inclusion can have in the engineering workplace. Engineering Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame Michael Kitz, who has decades of industry experience in companies such as Motorola, Honeywell, and Proctor & Gamble explains that increasing engineering workplace diversity “begins to open up better solutions and better business results” (Kitz). By bringing in diverse hires, technology companies are expanding their horizons to include new perspectives and ideas. This idea is also found in a study published by the Harvard Business Review which reports that “going from having no women in corporate leadership… to a 30 percent female share is associated with a… 15 percent increase in profitability for a typical firm”, indicating that cultural and intellectual diversity is the most beneficial aspect of representation in the engineering field (Noland).

Increasing Representation

There are several approaches in which we can begin to tackle the lack of minority representation in engineering, from early education all the way to the companies who are hiring. In early education, the SWE report found that exposing young girls to engineering in a positive light increases their interest as these efforts “combat [the] negative stereotypes” that deter young girls in the first place; furthermore, this messaging should be diverse and inclusive in its representation of minority racial and ethnic groups to further combat the idea that this field is unwelcoming to these groups (Society of Women Engineers). Such exposure can begin with educators seeking grants so they can fund more classroom technology and integrate more STEM into the curriculum (“Stem Education Grants.”). In addition, incorporating inclusive STEM media and conversations that encourage minorities to pursue STEM are great ways to mitigate the commonly held negative and discouraging perceptions (Society of Women Engineers). Early educators can also join organizations and programs such as Girls who Code , an organization seeking to close the tech gender gap by providing coding clubs for girls across the nation, and contests like Digital Divas , which encourages diversity in young engineers by providing a statewide coding competition for Texas high school girls (“About Us”; Digital Divas 2023).

On the university level, there are numerous scholarship programs available to minorities interested in pursuing a degree in STEM as listed on the North Carolina State University “Funding Opportunities for International, Underrepresented Minority and Disabled Students in STEM” webpage (“Funding Opportunities…”). Lunn and Ross also suggest that educators in universities ensure their students are provided with “increased opportunities for hands on examples and problem solving” to close the preparation gap between minorities and those who are more privileged (Lunn and Ross).

Finally at the corporate level, Luna and Ross suggest companies increase offers of mentorships and internship opportunities to minorities to close their experience gap compared to other applicants. Likewise, Notre Dame Associate Professor Kitz also recalls how companies have made efforts to recruit from minority serving institutions and should increase these efforts to improve their minority representation (Kitz).

While there is a concerning increase in shortage of skilled engineers available to match the growing demand and available jobs, there are several ways to tackle the issue from the supply to the demand end. Issues in finding qualified applicants can be solved by hiring more technologists, who provide flexibility in their ability to be trained and applied as needed, and certified applicants who are very skilled technically and easy to produce. Furthermore, the short supply of skilled engineers caused by the lack of representation in the field can be solved by improving messaging to young girls and POC, increasing awareness of scholarship organizations and inclusive practices in universities, and encouraging companies to play active roles in hiring minority applicants.

Works Cited

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Amsler, Sarah. “IT Certification Vs. Degree: Which Is Better for Your Career?” WhatIs.com, TechTarget, 18 Feb. 2021, https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/IT-certification-vs- degree-Which-is-better-for-your-career.

Bui, Quoctrung, and Claire Cain Miller. “Why Tech Degrees Are Not Putting More Blacks and Hispanics into Tech Jobs.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/upshot/dont-blame-recruiting-pipeline-for-lack-of- diversity-in-tech.html.

Cannon, Craig, host. “#1 – Hiring Engineers with Ammon Bartram.” Y Combinator, Y Combinator, 3 October 2022, https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/hiring-engineers-with- ammon-bartram.

Carroll, Johnson. “Replacing the Hierarchy of Engineering Qualifications and Roles.” 2017 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2017, https://doi.org/10.1109/educon.2017.7942901.

Collins, Francis, and Lawrence Tabak. “Weaving a Richer Tapestry in Biomedical Science.” Science, Science, 19 Aug. 2011, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1211704.

Digital Divas 2023, https://digital-divas.weebly.com/.

“Employment Projections.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://data.bls.gov/projections/occupationProj.

“Engineering Technologist vs. Engineer: What’s the Difference?” Indeed, https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/technologist-to-engineer.

Flinders, Karl. “Computer Science Graduates Struggle to Find Work Despite IT Skills Shortage: TechTarget.” ComputerWeekly.com, TechTarget, 17 Oct. 2013, https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240207378/Computer-science-graduates- struggle-to-find-work-despite-IT-skills-shortage.

“Funding Opportunities for International, Underrepresented Minority and Disabled Students in STEM.” Faculty and Staff Resources, NC State University, https://sciences.ncsu.edu/intranet/funding-opportunities-for-underrepresented-minorities- in-stem/.

Fridman, Lex [@lexfridman]. “I’m hiring translators, overdubbers, video editors, ML engineers, webdevs, assistants, etc.” Twitter, 29 Sep. 2022, https://twitter.com/lexfridman/status/1575580901219524608.

Global Knowledge. “10 Benefits of IT Certification for You (And Your Employer).” Global Knowledge, 29 Oct. 2021, https://www.globalknowledge.com/us-en/resources/resource- library/articles/10-benefits-of-it-certification-for-you-and-your-employer/#gref.

“Google Cloud Certification Impact Report.” Google Services, Google Cloud, https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/2020_googlecloud_certification_impact_ report.pdf.

“How Employers Combat Labor Shortages.” The Conference Board, 2 Dec. 2021, https://www.conference-board.org/topics/labor-shortages.

Kitz, Michael. Interview. Conducted by Celeste Mannel, 11 Oct. 2022.

Lavelle, Justin. “Talent Shortage Now the Top Risk Facing Organizations.” Gartner, 17 Jan. 2019, https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-01-17-gartner-survey- shows-global-talent-shortage-is-now-the-top-emerging-risk-facing-organizations.

Leighton, Mara. “28 Free or Affordable Online Courses Led by the Top US Companies, Including Google, Amazon, IBM, and More.” Reviews, Business Insider, 12 May 2021, https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/learning/online-classes-programs-google-ibm- facebook-amazon-goldman-sachs.

“Lex Fridman Podcast.” Chartable, 11 Dec. 2022, https://chartable.com/podcasts/artificial- intelligence-1434243584.

Liu, Jennifer. “The US Has Nearly 1 Million Open It Jobs-Here's How Much It Can Pay off to Switch Industries into Tech.” CNBC Brand Studio, CNBC, 6 Nov. 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/06/how-switching-careers-to-tech-could-solve-the-us- talent-shortage.html.

Lunn, Stephanie, and Monique Ross. “Ready to Work: Evaluating the Role of Community Cultural Wealth during the Hiring Process in Computing.” 2021 Conference on Research in Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), 2021, https://doi.org/10.1109/respect51740.2021.9620686.

“Microsoft Certifications.” Microsoft Learn , https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/certifications/.

National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. 2017. Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2017. Special Report NSF 17-310. Arlington, VA. Available at www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/.

Noland, Marcus, and Tyler Moran. “Study: Firms with More Women in the C-Suite Are More Profitable.” Peterson Institute for International Economics, Harvard Business Review, 20 Apr. 2021, https://www.piie.com/commentary/op-eds/study-firms-more-women-c-suite- are-more-profitable.

Ribeiro Barbosa, Felipe [@felipernb]. “My team is hiring! And this position is aimed at less experienced engineers with strong fundamentals and a great attitude!” Twitter, 26 Sept. 2022, https://twitter.com/felipernb/status/1574517256846917632.

Skillsoft, Global Knowledge 2021 IT Skills and Salary Report . https://www.globalknowledge.com/us-en/content/salary-report/it-skills-and-salary- report/

Society of Women Engineers, Engineering Messaging to Tween Girls . Feb. 2018, https://swe.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SWE-Literature-Review-2018.pdf

Staff, Fortune. “Netflix: 2022 Fortune 500.” Fortune, Fortune, 1 Aug. 2022, https://fortune.com/company/netflix/fortune500/.

“Stem Education Grants.” Next Wave STEM, https://nextwavestem.com/stem-grants-for- teachers.

Su, Rong, et al. “Men and Things, Women and People: A Meta-Analysis of Sex Differences in Interests.” Psychological Bulletin, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19883140/.

“Women and Girls of Color in Computing.” Arizona State University. https://www.wocin computing.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/WOCinComputingDataBrief.pdf

Celeste Mannel

Celeste Mannel is from Dallas, Texas studying Computer Science with a hopeful minor in Engineering Corporate Practice. Celeste plans to pursue a career in the tech industry where she can collaborate with teams and develop at the forefront of technology. Inspired by her Argentinian mother who works in the tech industry, and as a Latina woman in computer science herself, Celeste was led by her curiosity in women and minorities in STEM and how they can solve the engineering shortage facing the industry. This essay “Software Engineering: The Career or Shortage of the Future?” addresses the increasing shortage of engineers available to satisfy the growing industry demand, and it argues for solutions that will increase productivity and efficiency as well as promote intellectual and cultural diversity in the field. Celeste would like to thank Professor Whitney James for her feedback and encouragement, Professor Michael Kitz for participating in an interview and sharing his perspective from within the industry, and her mother Hilda Sanz Mannel for her inspiration and constant support.

Essay on My Dream Job Software Engineer

Students are often asked to write an essay on My Dream Job Software Engineer in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on My Dream Job Software Engineer

Introduction.

My dream job is to become a Software Engineer. This role involves creating, testing, and improving computer software.

Why Software Engineering?

I am drawn to software engineering because of my love for computers and problem-solving. This job allows me to use both these interests.

What I’ll Do

As a software engineer, I’ll design and develop software applications. It’s exciting to create something that people use daily.

Software Engineers have a significant impact on society. They create tools that help people in their everyday lives.

Becoming a Software Engineer is my dream job because it combines my interests and can positively impact the world.

250 Words Essay on My Dream Job Software Engineer

Every individual aspires to pursue a career that fulfills their dreams and passions. My dream job is to become a Software Engineer. This career choice blends my interest in technology and problem-solving, ultimately leading to the creation of innovative solutions.

Software Engineering is not merely about coding; it’s about making a difference in the world. It’s the backbone of every industry, from healthcare to finance, from education to entertainment. The ability to develop software that can transform lives and industries is what draws me towards this profession.

The Role of a Software Engineer

Software Engineers are the architects of the digital world. They design, develop, and maintain software systems, ensuring their efficiency and effectiveness. They also troubleshoot problems and devise software solutions that are user-friendly and meet the needs of clients and consumers.

The Impact of Software Engineering

The impact of Software Engineering is profound and far-reaching. It enables businesses to operate more efficiently, governments to provide better services, and individuals to enhance their daily lives. Software Engineers are at the forefront of technological advancements, driving innovation and progress.

In conclusion, my dream job as a Software Engineer is fueled by the desire to solve complex problems and contribute to the technological advancement of society. This profession offers endless learning opportunities and the ability to make a significant impact on the world. It’s a career that is challenging, rewarding, and constantly evolving, making it an ideal choice for me.

500 Words Essay on My Dream Job Software Engineer

The world of technology is fascinating, a realm where innovation and creativity meet to solve complex problems. It is here that my dream job lies – as a software engineer. This dream is not merely born out of the allure of the tech industry’s dynamism, but from the profound impact software engineering can have on society and the potential it holds for personal growth and fulfillment.

The Attraction of Software Engineering

Software engineering is the art of applying engineering principles to the design, development, maintenance, testing, and evaluation of software and systems that make computers or anything containing software work. The allure of this profession to me lies in its perfect blend of creativity and logic. It requires one to think outside the box and devise innovative solutions, while also demanding a logical, systematic approach to problem-solving.

The Impact on Society

Software engineers are the architects of the digital world. They build systems that power everything from global financial markets to personal fitness apps. They are the unseen force that enables us to connect, create, and collaborate in ways we could not have imagined a few decades ago. The impact of their work on society is immeasurable, and being part of this transformative force is a significant motivator for me.

Personal Growth and Fulfillment

Software engineering is a field that promotes continuous learning and personal growth. The rapidly changing technology landscape means that there is always something new to learn, a challenge to overcome, or a problem to solve. This constant evolution provides an opportunity for lifelong learning and the development of a wide range of skills, from technical competencies to teamwork and communication abilities.

Challenges and Opportunities

Software engineering, like any other profession, comes with its challenges. The pressure to deliver within tight deadlines, the need to constantly update skills in line with technological advancements, and the complexity of problems to be solved can be daunting. However, these challenges are also opportunities for growth. They push a software engineer to strive for excellence, adapt to changes, and develop resilience.

My dream job as a software engineer is not just about coding or designing systems. It is about being part of a community that is shaping the future, pushing the boundaries of what is possible, and using technology to create a positive impact on society. The journey towards becoming a software engineer will undoubtedly be challenging, but the rewards – both personal and professional – make it a dream worth pursuing.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Identifying Non-Technical Skill Gaps in Software Engineering Education: What Experts Expect But Students Don’t Learn

As the importance of non-technical skills in the software engineering industry increases, the skill sets of graduates match less and less with industry expectations. A growing body of research exists that attempts to identify this skill gap. However, only few so far explicitly compare opinions of the industry with what is currently being taught in academia. By aggregating data from three previous works, we identify the three biggest non-technical skill gaps between industry and academia for the field of software engineering: devoting oneself to continuous learning , being creative by approaching a problem from different angles , and thinking in a solution-oriented way by favoring outcome over ego . Eight follow-up interviews were conducted to further explore how the industry perceives these skill gaps, yielding 26 sub-themes grouped into six bigger themes: stimulating continuous learning , stimulating creativity , creative techniques , addressing the gap in education , skill requirements in industry , and the industry selection process . With this work, we hope to inspire educators to give the necessary attention to the uncovered skills, further mitigating the gap between the industry and the academic world.

Opportunities and Challenges in Code Search Tools

Code search is a core software engineering task. Effective code search tools can help developers substantially improve their software development efficiency and effectiveness. In recent years, many code search studies have leveraged different techniques, such as deep learning and information retrieval approaches, to retrieve expected code from a large-scale codebase. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive comparative summary of existing code search approaches. To understand the research trends in existing code search studies, we systematically reviewed 81 relevant studies. We investigated the publication trends of code search studies, analyzed key components, such as codebase, query, and modeling technique used to build code search tools, and classified existing tools into focusing on supporting seven different search tasks. Based on our findings, we identified a set of outstanding challenges in existing studies and a research roadmap for future code search research.

Psychometrics in Behavioral Software Engineering: A Methodological Introduction with Guidelines

A meaningful and deep understanding of the human aspects of software engineering (SE) requires psychological constructs to be considered. Psychology theory can facilitate the systematic and sound development as well as the adoption of instruments (e.g., psychological tests, questionnaires) to assess these constructs. In particular, to ensure high quality, the psychometric properties of instruments need evaluation. In this article, we provide an introduction to psychometric theory for the evaluation of measurement instruments for SE researchers. We present guidelines that enable using existing instruments and developing new ones adequately. We conducted a comprehensive review of the psychology literature framed by the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. We detail activities used when operationalizing new psychological constructs, such as item pooling, item review, pilot testing, item analysis, factor analysis, statistical property of items, reliability, validity, and fairness in testing and test bias. We provide an openly available example of a psychometric evaluation based on our guideline. We hope to encourage a culture change in SE research towards the adoption of established methods from psychology. To improve the quality of behavioral research in SE, studies focusing on introducing, validating, and then using psychometric instruments need to be more common.

Towards an Anatomy of Software Craftsmanship

Context: The concept of software craftsmanship has early roots in computing, and in 2009, the Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship was formulated as a reaction to how the Agile methods were practiced and taught. But software craftsmanship has seldom been studied from a software engineering perspective. Objective: The objective of this article is to systematize an anatomy of software craftsmanship through literature studies and a longitudinal case study. Method: We performed a snowballing literature review based on an initial set of nine papers, resulting in 18 papers and 11 books. We also performed a case study following seven years of software development of a product for the financial market, eliciting qualitative, and quantitative results. We used thematic coding to synthesize the results into categories. Results: The resulting anatomy is centered around four themes, containing 17 principles and 47 hierarchical practices connected to the principles. We present the identified practices based on the experiences gathered from the case study, triangulating with the literature results. Conclusion: We provide our systematically derived anatomy of software craftsmanship with the goal of inspiring more research into the principles and practices of software craftsmanship and how these relate to other principles within software engineering in general.

On the Reproducibility and Replicability of Deep Learning in Software Engineering

Context: Deep learning (DL) techniques have gained significant popularity among software engineering (SE) researchers in recent years. This is because they can often solve many SE challenges without enormous manual feature engineering effort and complex domain knowledge. Objective: Although many DL studies have reported substantial advantages over other state-of-the-art models on effectiveness, they often ignore two factors: (1) reproducibility —whether the reported experimental results can be obtained by other researchers using authors’ artifacts (i.e., source code and datasets) with the same experimental setup; and (2) replicability —whether the reported experimental result can be obtained by other researchers using their re-implemented artifacts with a different experimental setup. We observed that DL studies commonly overlook these two factors and declare them as minor threats or leave them for future work. This is mainly due to high model complexity with many manually set parameters and the time-consuming optimization process, unlike classical supervised machine learning (ML) methods (e.g., random forest). This study aims to investigate the urgency and importance of reproducibility and replicability for DL studies on SE tasks. Method: In this study, we conducted a literature review on 147 DL studies recently published in 20 SE venues and 20 AI (Artificial Intelligence) venues to investigate these issues. We also re-ran four representative DL models in SE to investigate important factors that may strongly affect the reproducibility and replicability of a study. Results: Our statistics show the urgency of investigating these two factors in SE, where only 10.2% of the studies investigate any research question to show that their models can address at least one issue of replicability and/or reproducibility. More than 62.6% of the studies do not even share high-quality source code or complete data to support the reproducibility of their complex models. Meanwhile, our experimental results show the importance of reproducibility and replicability, where the reported performance of a DL model could not be reproduced for an unstable optimization process. Replicability could be substantially compromised if the model training is not convergent, or if performance is sensitive to the size of vocabulary and testing data. Conclusion: It is urgent for the SE community to provide a long-lasting link to a high-quality reproduction package, enhance DL-based solution stability and convergence, and avoid performance sensitivity on different sampled data.

Predictive Software Engineering: Transform Custom Software Development into Effective Business Solutions

The paper examines the principles of the Predictive Software Engineering (PSE) framework. The authors examine how PSE enables custom software development companies to offer transparent services and products while staying within the intended budget and a guaranteed budget. The paper will cover all 7 principles of PSE: (1) Meaningful Customer Care, (2) Transparent End-to-End Control, (3) Proven Productivity, (4) Efficient Distributed Teams, (5) Disciplined Agile Delivery Process, (6) Measurable Quality Management and Technical Debt Reduction, and (7) Sound Human Development.

Software—A New Open Access Journal on Software Engineering

Software (ISSN: 2674-113X) [...]

Improving bioinformatics software quality through incorporation of software engineering practices

Background Bioinformatics software is developed for collecting, analyzing, integrating, and interpreting life science datasets that are often enormous. Bioinformatics engineers often lack the software engineering skills necessary for developing robust, maintainable, reusable software. This study presents review and discussion of the findings and efforts made to improve the quality of bioinformatics software. Methodology A systematic review was conducted of related literature that identifies core software engineering concepts for improving bioinformatics software development: requirements gathering, documentation, testing, and integration. The findings are presented with the aim of illuminating trends within the research that could lead to viable solutions to the struggles faced by bioinformatics engineers when developing scientific software. Results The findings suggest that bioinformatics engineers could significantly benefit from the incorporation of software engineering principles into their development efforts. This leads to suggestion of both cultural changes within bioinformatics research communities as well as adoption of software engineering disciplines into the formal education of bioinformatics engineers. Open management of scientific bioinformatics development projects can result in improved software quality through collaboration amongst both bioinformatics engineers and software engineers. Conclusions While strides have been made both in identification and solution of issues of particular import to bioinformatics software development, there is still room for improvement in terms of shifts in both the formal education of bioinformatics engineers as well as the culture and approaches of managing scientific bioinformatics research and development efforts.

Inter-team communication in large-scale co-located software engineering: a case study

AbstractLarge-scale software engineering is a collaborative effort where teams need to communicate to develop software products. Managers face the challenge of how to organise work to facilitate necessary communication between teams and individuals. This includes a range of decisions from distributing work over teams located in multiple buildings and sites, through work processes and tools for coordinating work, to softer issues including ensuring well-functioning teams. In this case study, we focus on inter-team communication by considering geographical, cognitive and psychological distances between teams, and factors and strategies that can affect this communication. Data was collected for ten test teams within a large development organisation, in two main phases: (1) measuring cognitive and psychological distance between teams using interactive posters, and (2) five focus group sessions where the obtained distance measurements were discussed. We present ten factors and five strategies, and how these relate to inter-team communication. We see three types of arenas that facilitate inter-team communication, namely physical, virtual and organisational arenas. Our findings can support managers in assessing and improving communication within large development organisations. In addition, the findings can provide insights into factors that may explain the challenges of scaling development organisations, in particular agile organisations that place a large emphasis on direct communication over written documentation.

Aligning Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence With Transdisciplinary

Study examined AI and SE transdisciplinarity to find ways of aligning them to enable development of AI-SE transdisciplinary theory. Literature review and analysis method was used. The findings are AI and SE transdisciplinarity is tacit with islands within and between them that can be linked to accelerate their transdisciplinary orientation by codification, internally developing and externally borrowing and adapting transdisciplinary theories. Lack of theory has been identified as the major barrier toward towards maturing the two disciplines as engineering disciplines. Creating AI and SE transdisciplinary theory would contribute to maturing AI and SE engineering disciplines.  Implications of study are transdisciplinary theory can support mode 2 and 3 AI and SE innovations; provide an alternative for maturing two disciplines as engineering disciplines. Study’s originality it’s first in SE, AI or their intersections.

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Software Engineering Career Information Essay

Purpose of the report.

This report seeks to impart information to the company’s CEO, Ms. Geraldine Schliermacher, and other consultants in the company regarding software engineering career, its educational requirements, relevance concerning market requirements, placement opportunities, and other aspects that might be of interest to both the aforementioned parties or any other party that might be interested in pursuing this field as their career choice (Nuseibeh & Finkelstein, 2006).

Definition of Software Engineering

Software Engineering is a field in engineering that requires the practitioner to apply the principles of engineering in the design and development of software products. Essentially, these principles are applied during various stages in the production of software products. A software engineer, therefore, is an individual who has undergone all the necessary training requirements and has been duly certified to practice their trade as a software engineer. Besides, software engineers have to be registered with the relevant bodies (Finkelstein, Kramer & Goedicke, 2010).

Education Requirements

For one to qualify as a software engineer, they must attain undergraduate certification in any of the major information technology-related courses that include computer science, information systems analysis, or information technology (Runeson, 2012). Traditionally, most of the practitioners were only certified in the three aforementioned courses. However, new developments in the education curriculum have seen an introduction of software engineering as an independent course and currently, there are quite a good number of practitioners who have been certified in their undergraduate degree programs.

Occupation information

Software engineering is one of the most marketable careers. This is attributable to the fact that the pace with which the world is embracing technology is still very high. Furthermore, most organizations have at least some form of Computer or Information Technology department in their organizational structure. This increased uptake in technology means that many organizations require efficient technological solutions in the form of software and other resources to achieve their organizational objectives. Consequently, many software companies whose business models are based on the provision of these solutions have been developed in many parts of the world (Finkelstein et.al., 2009).

Personality Types

Software engineering essentially involves problem-solving whereby the engineers find ways of solving their clients’ problems through the use of appropriate software applications. A career in such a field, therefore, requires individuals with competent inter-personal skills because the software engineers will spend most of their time interacting with the client in an attempt to enhance their understanding of the problem (Nuseibeh, Kramer & Finkelstein, 2008).

Placement Opportunities

A software engineer can get employment in any of the software development companies and be involved in the actual development of various software products. Also, they can be employed by any other organization to provide in-house troubleshooting services within their IT departments. This scenario makes software engineers some of the best-paid professionals in the market. Almost every organization, whether small, medium, or large scale, employs the use of computers in carrying out their functions and, therefore, they will require the services of a software engineer from time to time (Beck & Andres, 2004).

Learning institutions can also make arrangements with engineering industries where students can join after getting their education. Assessment is necessary during attachments and placement opportunities to ensure that students have mastered the necessary skills. Placement and attachment opportunities are vital since students learn a lot.

Beck, K., & Andres, C. (2004). Extreme programming explained: embrace change . New York: Addison-Wesley Professional.

Finkelstein, A. C., Gabbay, D., Hunter, A., Kramer, J., & Nuseibeh, B. (2009). Inconsistency handling in multiperspective specifications. Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on , 20 (8), 569-578.

Finkelstein, A., Kramer, J., & Goedicke, M. (2010). Viewpoint oriented software development . London: University of London, Imperial College of Science and Technology, Department of Computing.

Nuseibeh, B., & Finkelstein, A. (2006). Viewpoints: A vehicle for method and tool integration. New York: International Workshop.

Nuseibeh, B., Kramer, J., & Finkelstein, A. (2008). A framework for expressing the relationships between multiple views in requirements specification. Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on , 20 (10), 760-773.

Runeson, P., Host, M., Rainer, A., & Regnell, B. (2012). Case study research in software engineering: Guidelines and examples . New York: Wiley.

Colleges offering software engineering course in the US

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Stanford University.
• Princeton University.
• Rochester Institute of Technology.
• Clarkson University.
• Milwaukee School of Engineering.
• Mississippi State University.
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Software Engineering

My encounter with the subject of Software Engineering was largely a positive experience and this encompasses both the academic aspect as well as the non-academic areas touching on the students in the class and the overall connections I established with them on human level. However, the following comprise of the key areas that summarize what I consider to be the essential elements in engaging with the subject:1- What we mean by software engineering and why it Is so critical? Software Engineering is concerned with employing principals of Engineering in general, and also making use of the directives of agreed ethics documented in order to produce reliable software that assists the endeavors of society for the betterment of their lives. To achieve such goals, the production of software that delivers the required functionality is the essence of the argument for it collectively brings together a team of professionals supporting the professional software development.Above all, Software Engineering is a unique discipline of study that in many aspects adheres to the principles of Engineering, but on its own merits differs a lot. For instance once a civil engineer constructs a bridge, the faults and errors are irreversible, but with the beauty of Software Engineering is such that there is a room for correction and reversing mistakes before or after implementation phase. I think this is one powerful attribute that Software Engineering enjoys in comparison to other Engineering specializations.2- I have learned that software not only can cause damage to software and but also could kill human as well. There are a number of incidents that demonstrate how serious software can be dangerous when producing in wrong way without testing . For instance, Therac-25 , was radiation treatment device that used in the medical treatment intended for cancer patients, and it was designed by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) collaborated with CGR France. That device is being used as prime example and classic a case study of failure in field of software engineering. Indeed, What happens is that this machine killed 6 patients, who had been received Over radiation doses because of software bugs. On other hand, this machine helps a lot of patient to be cured ;however because the software was not reliable at certain time , it was not being tested , and code review was not being conducted in the Software development.

If the software principles had been adopted in that classic case, patients would not have been killed by Therac-25 system. In the context of the question itself, there is a correlation between the theoretical material of the subject and the observations one has to make in dealing with the development of appropriate solutions to mitigate aspects of our lives.To a large extent one must find ways to overcome obstacles to the progression of producing real solutions applicable to our desired goals, and in the long protracted process of doing so, it becomes essential to see, observe, learn and live by the experience. This is the main pre-occupation I have with Software Engineering in its multi-facets, for it embodies the experience of many professional software developers seeking a common solution to a common problem.I can recall using some of the principles of Software Engineering in adopting a particular given solution solely to enrich it till such a stage of perfection is reached. Consider the use-case diagram exercises. Even though there are multiple interpretations open to choosing a particular path of producing a certain prototype, yet, it opens to a room for adding new or removing existing unwanted features, this itself is what life entails in the pursuit of the perfect solution. A theory is only applicable for adoption if it can be used in the real world, otherwise it dies.There are extensive theories open for exploration in Software Engineering, and given that the core of it all is about Software Development, we expect in most cases to have a practical understanding in the sense that abstract theories are brought to life through the construction and implementation of its own dictates such that it mimics the intended functionality.The implications of it, is such that, the ethical aspects of adopting the theory must be considered in ways that are in-line with the guidelines of safety, and the fulfillment of the needs of the user. There are catastrophic examples of software failures causing deaths and injuries not considered carefully during the early stages of development, and without testing it and exhausting it beyond doubt, the developers should not release it for consumer consumption.Just as ethics are significant in numerous fields of our life, they are ,also, so critical in area of software engineering as well. In fact, in software engineering is very straight forward and very clear as well , though definitions of ethics are extremely subjective. One credible explanation is that both the IEEE Computers and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) have initiated something , which is called code ethics. In addition to that, it is set of instructions that developers must both follow and obey and then It is meant to maintain qualified practices in software engineering fields. The constant change swinging from perfection to excellence is an ever present scenario of what many Software Engineers encounter in their day to day activities, therefore, improvements is an endeavor that cannot be ignored, and proper documentation is to be kept if a professional practice in formulating general approach to what might work best is to be looked at in continuing with this paradigm.

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The layoffs are here for those who chose to 'learn to code'

• Software engineers have overwhelmingly faced layoffs this year, per data from Revelio Labs.
• Coders made up 14% of employees at tech companies, but represented 20% of layoffs in 2023.
• It's a big shift from data from late last year, which showed recruiters were overwhelmingly cut.

Coding jobs have long been equated with job security in the tech industry. But for those who chose to "learn to code," Vox reported the wave of layoffs in 2023 is challenging that notion.

Software engineers may be some of the first employees to go amid widespread tech industry layoffs , according to data from Revelio Labs, a company that compiles publicly available-workforce data.

Related stories

Of the estimated 170,000 layoffs across the tech industry this year, software engineers represented nearly 20% of cuts, despite making up 14% of employees, per data from Revelio Labs.

That's a big shift from what the data showed in the fall of 2022 , Reyhan Ayas, a senior economist at Revelio Labs, told Insider.

"Earlier layoffs were focused on future hiring. Recruiters and HR were overrepresented in those earlier layoffs," said Ayas, who led the recent study. For these findings, Revelio pulled data from layoffs.fyi and Parachute List last Thursday.

"If we look at 2023 layoffs, it's software engineers who have overtaken recruiters in layoffs," Ayas told Insider.

This shift also signals a change in focus for company layoffs, Ayas said. While layoffs were previously focused on the future of hiring, by targeting engineers, companies are now focusing layoffs on current business priorities and product priorities, she said.

This research builds on data Revelio published with Insider's Aki Ito last September, which found that recruiters were overrepresented in layoffs by nearly 8%, compared to other positions. Then, software engineers were overrepresented in layoffs by nearly 4%.

Since then, Revelio's new data suggests that nearly 5% of tech company layoffs impacted recruiters — the position that saw the most layoffs after software engineers.

Recently laid-off workers searching for highly-skilled, high-paying positions may also face greater difficulty navigating new jobs. After being laid off from Twitter , a former Twitter engineer told CNN that the current job market in the tech industry was "hot garbage."

What started as a wave of layoffs in the tech industry has now rippled to the finance and media industries as well. Just last week, Lyft announced it would cut more than 30% of its workforce — which makes up 1,200 jobs. A day earlier, BuzzFeed said it would lay off 15% of its workforce and shutter its BuzzFeed News division.

Watch: How tech layoffs could affect the economy

• Main content

NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012.

After some inventive sleuthing, the mission team can — for the first time in five months — check the health and status of the most distant human-made object in existence.

For the first time since November , NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).

Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023, even though mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally. In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed that the issue was tied to one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers, called the flight data subsystem (FDS). The FDS is responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it’s sent to Earth.

After receiving data about the health and status of Voyager 1 for the first time in five months, members of the Voyager flight team celebrate in a conference room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on April 20.

The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory — including some of the FDS computer’s software code — isn’t working. The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety.

So they devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole. Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the FDS memory needed to be updated as well.

The team started by singling out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data. They sent it to its new location in the FDS memory on April 18. A radio signal takes about 22 ½ hours to reach Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and another 22 ½ hours for a signal to come back to Earth. When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft.

Get the Latest News from the Final Frontier

During the coming weeks, the team will relocate and adjust the other affected portions of the FDS software. These include the portions that will start returning science data.

Voyager 2 continues to operate normally. Launched over 46 years ago , the twin Voyager spacecraft are the longest-running and most distant spacecraft in history. Before the start of their interstellar exploration, both probes flew by Saturn and Jupiter, and Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune.

Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

626-808-2469

[email protected]

IBM Careers

• Français Canadien

2024 Summer Intern: Software Engineer- 6 months internship

• San Jose, US
• Software Engineering

Apply now Introduction At IBM, work is more than a job – it’s a calling: To build. To design. To code. To consult. To think along with clients and sell. To make markets. To invent. To collaborate. Not just to do something better, but to attempt things you’ve never thought possible. Are you ready to lead in this new era of technology and solve some of the world’s most challenging problems? If so, lets talk. Your Role and Responsibilities Start and end dates for this internship are during summer 2024 (6 months)

When working in this abstract, fast pace and continuously changing tech world, resilience, commitment, and curiosity serve as the foundation for success as an IBM Developer.

You will participate in many aspects of the software development lifecycle, such as design, code implementation, testing, and support. You will work to create software that is of high quality and meets our clients’ needs. You will also have the opportunity to become a contributor within Open Source communities across multiple disciplines.

In your role, you will be supported by mentors and coaches who will encourage you to challenge the norm, investigate ideas outside of your role, and come up with creative solutions resulting in ground-breaking impact for the wider business, our external clients, & their customers. Our culture of flexibility and freedom are pillars that embrace long-term career growth and learning opportunities in an environment that highlights your unique skills and experience.

Location: San Jose, CA

Required Technical and Professional Expertise

• Basic knowledge in Python, Ruby, SQL and/or Go
• Understanding of HTML, CSS
• Knowledge of fundamentals of QA methodology

Preferred Technical and Professional Expertise

• Minimum 3 months experience in programming in SQL
• Minimum 3 months experience working with debugging and troubleshooting

Want to know what it’s like to be an IBMer?

About business unit, your life @ ibm.

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

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Being you @ ibm.

IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

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Get To Know Our Team Chad Senior Software Engineer

Hi, everyone! Wynn here again. Welcome back to another Xbox Insider Team interview. Today’s chat is with Chad—the very first of our incredible Xbox Insider engineers. How’s it going, Chad?

Doing pretty well, Wynn.

Glad to hear it! Well, let’s jump right in.

Tell the community a little bit about how you joined the Xbox Insider team.

Yeah, so, I joined the team ten years ago. Probably like a month or two after everything initially launched.

Oh, wow. So, you’re pretty OG on the team?

I’m the longest-serving engineer, and I think only Leland has me beat on overall tenure for the team.

That’s really impressive man. You must’ve seen a lot in your time here.

Haha. It’s been a journey. I’ve seen the program evolve from a little applet, where we just had a few visible rings, to where it is now, with a fully blown hub app and multiple different types of flighting. It’s been really rewarding to be part of that transformation.

Let’s talk more about that transformation. How have you seen things change over the years?

In the beginning, the program was a kind of scratch group of different people all trying to just get things working and stood up. We had the flight dashboard setup, but we realized really quickly that we needed an actual app for people to access. So, we worked to build that out. Then when Todd took over, he was really focused on the outward expansion of the program. Game flights, app flights, better infrastructure for all that, Todd pushed a bunch of those initiatives forward. Now, with Brad’s leadership we’ve been working on a lot of the crystallization of process and harmonization aspects.

I love hearing about this kind of history. I didn’t think about it initially, but I guess you’ve worked under everyone who has led the program.

Yup! I’ve seen every manager, every leader, every re-org, etc. that’s happened throughout the years.

Well—since you’ve been here for so long—what’s your favorite moment from your work or like something you’ve worked on that you’re the most proud of?

Hmm. That’s a great question. I think I have two different answers. To answer the “what I’ve worked on part”, it’s really the feedback system as a whole. There’s probably not a single thing in that codebase I haven’t touched over the years, and I’ve been building that from the ground up all the way to now.

But the favorite moment portion is definitely something that’s not related to the work I do at all. Before the lockdowns started, we had these holiday parties every year. Just a small thing with the flight team, a white elephant type deal. The cast may have changed somewhat, but there was also a static core throughout the years. So, there’s this series of cherished memories that I have with all of my teammates from each of those parties that I hold dear.

I’m torn between being mind blown about the feedback reveal and being moved by the holiday party anecdote. I wonder if there’s any way we could start that back up.

It would be cool to see them come back in some form.

Well, we’ve seen what you’ve worked on in the past. Do you have any updates about what you’re currently working on that you can share with the Xbox Insider community?

Lemme think if there’s anything I can talk about publicly. The nature of engineering work isn’t always the most flashy or interesting to everyone, but we are doing a lot of upcoming modernization work on the backend for all things XIP.

Okay. I can get behind that. Sprucing up the infrastructure?

Yeah, exactly. Tech progresses pretty quickly, so you always want to make sure you’re doing things as efficiently as possible. With some of these changes, it’ll end up freeing up our engineering team to work on more “fun” projects later in the year.

That sounds awesome! Looking forward to seeing how that turns out.

Okay, let’s move on to the more rapid-fire style questions. What’s your favorite video game or one that’s impacted your life the most?

This is slightly tangential from the question, but as far as a game that impacted my life, the first thing that comes to mind is a teacher I had in high school. I grew up in a more rural area where we didn’t have many AP classes at the time. I had a particularly cool computer science teacher who saw potential in myself and a handful of other students. He hand-crafted multiple years’ worth of computer-related courses specifically for us. He showed us everything: computer history, visual logic and visual basic, some computer animation and modeling. A lot of the classes were designed around us creating little apps and games. That memory: those games I built with that teacher and my classmates, are what I remember the most.

That might be the best answer that isn’t quite an answer to this question I’ve gotten yet. I’m incredibly glad you shared that. I think a lot of people had that one teacher in high school that really connected with them in a meaningful way.

Definitely. I don’t think I’d be where I am today without those experiences in those formative years.

Agreed. Let’s try a little lighter fare. Favorite album?

Renaissance by Beyoncé has been a go-to for a while now. I’m a bit of a house-head and I’ve always loved the Queen Bee, so that album has really been firing on all cylinders for me.

I know purely from my wife’s excitement that the next album in that trilogy is dropping soon.

Yeah, it comes out at the end of the month, but it’s actually a country album instead of a more dance/electronic one. [Note: This interview was conducted prior to the album’s release.]

Haha. It seems I’m far out of the loop when it comes to Beyoncé. I’m like, “The same person who did Single Ladies is doing house and country?”

The Queen Bee has range.

Truly. Let’s move onto the screen. Any favorite shows or movies you like to rewatch?

Avatar: The Last Airbender I can literally watch any time, start to finish. For movies, I’m a Miyazaki guy, and Spirited Away is my favorite.

Oh, you and Austin should do a simultaneous rewatch of ATLA. You can start a podcast!

That’s not a bad idea. Lemme write that down.

I’ll be the first subscriber.

Okay, do you have any hobbies outside of the realm of entertainment media?

I love travelling with my partner and my friends. I’ve actually been to Antarctica before. But traveling is too cliché, right?

Let me just check my notes here. Nope. We don’t have a single other person who says they’ve been to Antarctica.

Haha. I guess it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime things even though I do hope I get to go back someday.

I wish we had a little more time to dive into that because I’m so curious about what that was like. Anything else besides being an actual literal globetrotter ?

I’ve gone to Burning Man for the past nine years and I spend a decent amount of time working on projects for that.

The environmental dichotomy of Antarctica and Burning Man being your answers is truly perfect.

Well, any last thoughts for our Xbox Insiders before we wrap?

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has ever submitted feedback through the program. Whether it was system related, a game flight, or just a one-off, we really do look at all of that and it’s extremely important for what we do as a team. We really can’t thank everyone enough.

I can cheers to that! Chad, thank you so much for stopping back to chat with everyone.

The pleasure’s mine, Wynn!

Xbox Insiders, be sure to be on the lookout for more content all throughout February including more interviews from the team, a trip down memory lane, and so much more. All of our 10th Anniversary content can be found on our Hub Page .

Until next time! Wy\nn/

Voyager 1 had a problem. Here's how NASA fixed it from 15 billion miles away.

Working from more than 15 billion miles away, NASA engineers have solved a computer problem aboard Voyager 1 , allowing the probe to send readable data five months after a chip error made its transmissions impossible to decipher.

Voyager 1, along with its sister craft, Voyager 2, are  robotic probes  that were launched in 1977. Voyager 1 reached interstellar space in 2012. It's now 15.1 billion miles away, the farthest from Earth a human-made object has ever traveled.

Learn more: Closer look at Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 .

Voyager 2 entered interstellar space − the space between the stars, starting at abou t 11 billion miles from our sun − in 2018. It's now 12.7 billion miles away.

Voyager 1's computer glitch garbled the science and engineering data the craft sends to Earth, which rendered it unreadable. That started on Nov. 14, 2023.

How did engineers fix Voyager's problem?

Engineers from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory discovered a single computer chip inside the spacecraft’s Flight Data Subsystem – which collects science and engineering information and transmits it to Earth – had malfunctioned.

Can't see our graphics? Click here .

The chip stored part of the Flight Data Subsystem's memory and software code. Engineers could still receive data from Voyager 1, but it was scrambled.

The chip could not be repaired. Instead, engineers moved software code from the chip into a different part of the subsystem's memory system.

The code was too large to to be stored in a single location in the spacecraft. Engineers divided the code into sections and stored them in different places within the subsystem. The code sections were adjusted to make sure they worked as a whole.

Engineers tested the fix by moving a code that transmits data about the spacecraft. They were rewarded with a transmission from Voyager that contained readable data about the craft's status.

All that took time. Voyager is moving about 38,000 mph. Because it's so far away, it takes 22.5 hours for a radio signal to reach Voyager. It takes another 22.5 hours for the spacecraft’s reply to reach antenna networks on Earth.

What happens next?

Engineers will reposition and synchronize the other parts of the code. That should allow Voyager 1 to start sending readable data on what it finds as it moves farther away from Earth.

SOURCE USA TODAY Network reporting and research; NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology; Reuters