Day-to-Day Life of a Software Engineer

A Day in the life of a Software Engineer – Do you dream of pursuing a career in software development? Or perhaps you’re already close to finishing your degree in an internationally accredited engineering program, and you want to know what lies outside the confines of school. You want to have an idea of what the real world offers—especially in your chosen field.

Being a software engineer in the modern world, like many other professions, comes with a myriad of stereotypes. For one, they’re often branded as geeky and unsociable, secluded in their own worlds, eyes constantly riveted to their computer screens. They play online games and love anything science fiction. Oh, and they’re supposed to hate physical activities too.

But stereotypes are just that—stereotypes. Of course, you want to look beyond them, and instead have an inkling on how the lives of software engineers actually are.

And so you might have asked yourself at one point, what does the typical a day in the life of a software engineer look like?

If that’s you, then you’ve come to the right place.

What kind of employee will you be?

It’s hard to pin down how exactly a software engineer’s life will be, as there are some factors that need to be taken into consideration. Will you be working full-time for a large corporation? Or maybe in a smaller company? You can also be a part-timer or you can work from home as a freelancer.

This article will be focusing on how a day in the life of a software engineer looks like while working in the corporate world.

Flexible time

Several companies these days adopt a flextime policy. That is, the employees can choose their own working schedule, as long as their starting and quitting times adhere to the company’s limits (such as logging in between 8 A.M. to 10 A.M., and leaving the office not later than 7 P.M.).

This means that if you perform more efficiently early in the morning, then you have the option of waking up much earlier than the others.

Prepping up

Once you arrive at the office, you normally don’t dive into your tasks right away. You’ll tend to your email first and then skim through some of the news—as you might already know, things go by so swiftly in the technical world. You need to ensure that you’re constantly up-to-date with the latest trends and happenings.

Work!

The first day of the week usually constitutes meetings—either with your team or along with other departments. This will be filled with company updates, as well as the jobs that need to be accomplished.

Every day, you’ll be given tasks by your team leader. In other instances, this will be provided a day or a few days before, so it will be up to you to balance your time.

And then you’ll do your thing as a software engineer—face your computer and code, code, and code. This might be interrupted intermittently by other tasks, such as fixing bugs, handling some technical queries from clients, and so on.

When you’re not coding, there are other things you’ll be dealing with:

• Meeting with designers (who are in charge of the HTML and design of the website). You’ll be responsible for making those websites work.
• More meetings with developers. This is often about the future projects that the team will be doing, which means brainstorming and tons of ideas being. generated.
• Having a break and chilling! Make sure not to stress yourself and have your well-earned rest during your break times.

Key Takeaway 

So you’re close to finishing your degree in an internationally accredited engineering program, and you ask yourself—what comes after?

There’s more to being a software engineer than what the stereotypes claim. In fact, if this is your niche and passion, then you’ll soon find yourself immersed in a very exciting field.