Is software Engineering boring?

Basically as the title says? Say after 1 year of it, does it get boring?

Basically software engineering is a challenging and difficult subject which has excellent career prospects. If you are not excited about it now you are not going to enjoy it (or even get to grips with it) at all.

Its a bit like asking whether you should be a Premier League Footballer or a Typhoon pilot (or would it be boring?) If that what you want to be and you can get through the challenges - then its great - if you are not 100% into it then you haven't got a chance!

Reply 2

Stefanb

Original post by El estudiante

I've never done it before, I'm only just starting university so I was just hoping for some perspectives!

Reply 3

didgeridoo12uk

i quite like writing software, find it really interesting to do as a hobby. HOWEVER i'd hate to do it as a job simply because it involves sitting at a computer all day

Reply 4

El estudiante

Original post by Stefanb

I've never done it before, I'm only just starting university so I was just hoping for some perspectives!

Well - if you like solving problems and sitting down and really getting to grips with difficult things then there is a lot of money and fun in software engineering :smile:

. If that sounds nerdy then you probably need to think of something else.

Reply 5

fat_hobbit

Original post by Stefanb

Basically as the title says? Say after 1 year of it, does it get boring?

If you like programming, then it is for you.

As for degree level, you are better off studying computing science over software engineering.

Reply 6

ThePants999

Try it as a hobby, that's the best way to discover whether you'll like it as a job.

My take is that it never gets boring. You're using the same basic tools and techniques repeatedly, true, but you're solving different problems every time, such that it never feels like you're doing the same thing twice.

Reply 7

delegator

More interesting than "computer science"

Reply 8

djshine88

Software engineering is challenging.

The worst bit about it all is the fact that a very small bit can affect THE ENTIRE SCRIPT!

for example - notice that there are two brackets { and [...use them wrong, and the script doesn't work.

It's also quite repetitive depending what you're working in...especially HTML.

I would say - if you love computers and love being creative/solving problems/making useful tools to help people (apps etc) then go for it.

I'm going for Software engineering this year... i hated software for ages, but have grown to kinda like it, and i was originally set as a Hardware engineer.

The easiest i'd have to say to learn is HTML, Javascript, CSS... the hardest and most challenging to date that i have seen is C#/C++ ...

I personally think software is a tad boring, but if you work with a great company - you could make great stuff...as well as the pay is outstanding!!!!

Reply 9

Stefanb

I mean do software engineers spend most of their time coding or are there big breaks to the coding? What sorta pay are we talking (UK wise)? Where could you progress from software engineer?

Reply 10

J_90

Original post by Stefanb

I mean do software engineers spend most of their time coding or are there big breaks to the coding?

That's the job. Pay varies massively, check out some job sites for examples.

Reply 11

J_90

Original post by djshine88

The easiest i'd have to say to learn is HTML, Javascript, CSS... the hardest and most challenging to date that i have seen is C#/C++ ...

HTML and CSS aren't programming languages. C++ and C# aren't hard languages compared to Lisp, Haskell, Fortran for example. These would make you go insane, they're awful!

Reply 12

ch0llima

There's no point in doing a Software Engineering degree, seeing as easily 90+% of Computer Science graduates end up in programming and software engineering/development roles anyway. If you really want to widen your prospects, you need to do postgraduate study or some certifications and work experience in other areas.

To answer the question properly, in my experience the pay and prospects generally aren't that great because there are so many programmers and software architects in the workforce, so they can get away with paying relatively little - a Development Manager or Senior Developer at a reasonable sized company will earn about £50k max, whereas a Solutions Architect, Project Manager or Network Manager can easily earn £75k+ with more perks. This is a direct consequence of what I said above.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 13

ThePants999

Original post by Stefanb

I mean do software engineers spend most of their time coding or are there big breaks to the coding? What sorta pay are we talking (UK wise)?

Depends on the role. Developers at my firm are typically responsible for entire projects, so they'll have some degree of involvement in requirements definition, functional specification, system-, high- and low-level designs, coding, unit testing, functional verification testing, live testing, documentation, tools development - plenty of stuff. But the coding's the best bit :smile:

We pay a £30k graduate starting salary.

Reply 14

J_90

Original post by ThePants999

We pay a £30k graduate starting salary.

That's the highest graduate salary I've seen for a programmer. What area is this?

Reply 15

ThePants999

Original post by J_90

That's the highest graduate salary I've seen for a programmer. What area is this?

In my case, London outskirts: http://www.metaswitch.com/company/dirlon.aspx But we'd pay the same to new starters in our Chester, Coventry or Edinburgh offices.

Reply 16

J_90

Original post by ThePants999

In my case, London outskirts: http://www.metaswitch.com/company/dirlon.aspx But we'd pay the same to new starters in our Chester, Coventry or Edinburgh offices.

Ah ok. I'm 10 mins away from Chester, so I know all the usual salary rates for all the different software positions here from looking on jobsites everyday, but can't say I've seen too many over £24K for graduates. What language(s) does your company use out of interest?

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 17

Stefanb

Original post by ThePants999

In my case, London outskirts: http://www.metaswitch.com/company/dirlon.aspx But we'd pay the same to new starters in our Chester, Coventry or Edinburgh offices.

What do you guys typically look for in a graduate? I.e grades, uni etc?

Reply 18

ThePants999

Original post by J_90

What language(s) does your company use out of interest?

Depends on which product you're working on. Most commonly either C or Java, but there's C++, C#, Python, Ruby, Perl, Lua and god knows what else in use somewhere here.

Original post by Stefanb

What do you guys typically look for in a graduate? I.e grades, uni etc?