What does a software engineer does?

Answer 1

A Software Engineer does many things (I know as I was one for 14 years and before that worked with them as a Hardware Technician for 16 years). The main thing that a Software Engineer does is writing documentation for other Engineers and for delivery to the Customer, to describe the software design and explain how the software is installed and used, etc. Roughly at least 2/3s of a Software Engineer's time is spent on that, so writing skills are a very high priority.

Other things a Software Engineer does are:

• present his designs in customer reviews, so public speaking skills are also a high priority
• attend peer reviews, both to present/defend his designs and to critique other's designs
• requirements allocation, derivation, and tracing
• prototyping code to verify possible design options and their practicality
• writing test cases and test procedures
• preliminary design
• detailed design
• writing code
• testing code against the test cases
• fixing code that failed the test cases and updating all documents as needed to match
• keep up with Customer requested requirements changes and updating all documents, test cases, designs, and code as needed
• integrating his code into the system
• repeat anything and everything already completed as needed
• collaborate with Systems Engineers
• collaborate with Hardware Engineers
• support Marketing when needed
• support Manufacturing when needed
• support Test Floor when needed
• get 80 to 100 hours of work done in a week for 40 hours of salary (in many cases)
• somehow find a few minutes here and there to eat and sleep
• forget having much of any life outside work, except when you can take a week or two of vacation
• etc.

Actually I generally enjoyed doing it. For me it was practically the kind of job that I would be willing to pay to do, but they payed me to do it instead.