How to become a Software Engineer? Beginner Guide
Software Engineering is becoming quite predominant due to the fact that technology is being used widely throughout the world. Hence, we are going to discuss How to become a Software Engineer? Beginner Guide.
Whether you want to become a software engineer with or without a degree. This article would help clarify your confusion and pave the way to becoming a software engineer.
What is Software Engineering?
In order to scrutinise Software Engineering to have a better understanding of it. First, we need to understand What is Software?
In today’s world, the software can not be avoided regardless of how hard you try. Because software is everywhere: from your fridge to your mobile phone and computer. One of the prime objectives of Software is to solve problems, to make life easier for us. Hence, Software has become a fundamental part of nearly every device that we use.
Since we have understood what the software is. It’s time to talk about Software Engineering. It is just like typical programming. However, Software Engineer relies upon the principles of Engineering while making software. These Engineering principles are
Requirement Analysis/ Defining Requirements: Analysis conducted to understand the requirements or problem to build an effective software solution.
Development/Innovation: Programming to make the software solution for the requirements.
Testing/Debugging: The program that has been made, will be tested in a hypothetical situation to test whether it satisfied clients’ requirements. If the program does not meet the requirements, it will be debugged/fixed to get to the desired standards.
Documentation: Documenting What is done and How it is done.
Maintenance & Support: Once the program has been made that meets the requirements. It should be maintained and supported to function productively.
These are some generic Engineering principles. Interestingly, they can vary depending on what kind of industry you work for. For instance, a software engineer working for a nuclear plant would certainly have more complex and more principles to follow as compared to someone working in the Farming Business.
Don’t be confused! There is a difference between Software Engineers and Software Developers. While Software Engineers have more responsibilities and engage in a great spectrum of things in making software, Software Developers only program the software. Thus, Software Developers are macro-niche experts, implying that they solely develop or program software instead of defining the requirements and doing documentation etc.
What do Software Engineers do?
In brief, a Software Engineer is a programmer, but with more responsibilities such as Requirement Analysis, Development/Innovation (Programming), Testing/Debugging, Documentation, Maintenance and Support of the software. Besides that, you will also find Software Engineers engaging in tasks that require teamwork, communication and attention to detail.
Software Engineers make programs with Engineering principles.
How long does it take to become a Software Engineer?
There are various factors to consider prior to coming to any kind of conclusion on how long it takes to become a Software Engineer. These factors are: What kind of past experience do you have? Have you learned any skills that can be applied to the Engineering field? Can you program any programming languages?
Undoubtedly, everyone’s response to these types of questions would be different. Hence, there is no precise time in which you become a software engineer. However, roughly becoming a software engineer can take from 5 months to 3 years. That’s because Software Engineering isn’t confined to programming. There are multiple things to learn in Software Engineering such as Software designing, understanding distributed software development, excellent communication skills verbal and written etc.
How to become a Software Engineer? (Step-by-Step)
▸Choose Your Niche
Surprisingly, Software Engineering is an enormous field of engineering. In other words, there are multiple types of Software engineers that serve different purposes with different tools within the industry. For instance, Software Engineers can be Application Security engineers, Software Integration engineers or Full-stack engineers etc.
Hence, it’s quite easy for newbies to get confused when it comes to choosing their niche in Software Engineering. So, the first job of an aspiring software engineer would be to choose the niche he/she wants to go into.
Primarily, there are two ways of becoming a software engineer: Becoming a software engineer with or without a degree. In order to become a software engineer with a degree, you can simply jump into university to get that degree to become a software engineer.
However, if you are thinking of going by yourself. So, you will have to decide what programming languages you are going to learn. Report from HackerRank shows the most in-demand programming languages:
▸Learning to program
Once you have decided to learn a specific programming language, it’s time to start digging ways to quickly and effectively comprehend everything necessary. Fortunately, there are lots of Free sources available for aspiring learners such as W3Schools that come with a well-structured syllabus for the users that can go through to learn to become Intermediate-level programmers. Report from HackerRank shows how people learn to code:
Whilst, it’s true that there are various aspects of software engineering that have to be learned in order to become a Software engineer. But, we can’t deny the fact that Programming is the most important one among them.
▸Gain Engineering-Based Complementary Skills
Defining user requirements, documenting each and everything that is done, testing and maintaining the software system are also as important as learning to program is. Youtube and online educational websites would be great friends of yours while learning them.
As we have talked earlier about various skills that might sound obvious, but they are required in the Software Engineering industry. For example, communication skills that will ensure that you understand and explain everything in crystal clear words. Because, when it comes to programming, you can’t baffle. Secondly, written communication skills are very important due to the fact that the majority of companies work on network-based software development systems, which means you will be in touch with fellow colleagues over emails or WhatsApp.
▸Gaining Experience and Building Portfolio
Lastly, it’s very important to make portfolios. In fact, portfolio matters more than degrees do. Because it can show your abilities through the practical work that you have done and how far have you come with the programming language?
Don’t be a perfectionist in building portfolios, save each and every single program that you made to show your progress.
Portfolios can be created in many ways. For instance, login in to GitHub to build a portfolio or do programming challenges on HackerRank.
Advice for Aspiring Programmers
There are a few pieces of advice that Programmers should follow for their smooth learning journey:
Don’t learn multiple programming languages at the same time: it will confuse you as a student, all programming languages have syntax that looks the same. Secondly, programming languages are quite hard, you will burn out while attempting to learn multiple languages at the same time.
Don’t make notes, practice: there is only one way to learn to program and that is to practice it.
Struggle with it: There is a saying “No Pain No Gain” often heard among gym guys. The moral of the story is if you are attempting to learn a programming language whilst making easy programs and finding yourself convinced that you will learn anything. No, you won’t. Struggling is the sign of learning or encountering something you have never experienced before.
Conclusion
Software Engineering is a vast industry within itself. Hence, it is important to be much more than a typical programmer in order to shine in the industry. The life of a Software engineer is quite interesting as compared to a Software Developer.
Certainly, Learning to program can be challenging. But, it’s possible. Regardless of which background you come from, you can become a software engineer.