By Jose Ignacio Gamez
When an employer seeks a professional with the profile necessary to lead a project implementing quality assurance procedures or continuous improvement, what are the chances that a software engineer will appear on the short list of candidates? Even if the position is in the information technology department, a software engineer may not seem to be an obvious choice.
Job seekers and hiring professionals alike, however, can benefit by learning to recognize the broad and valuable skill set a software engineer offers.
What a Software Engineer Is
Software engineers obtain real-world information—that is, customer requirements—and translate them into several levels of specifications. These levels go from everyday language that is comprehensible enough for customers to be involved with the project one hundred percent, to source code for programmers.
In that last sentence, what if the words source code and programmers were instead quality assurance procedures and personnel? Suddenly, the skills of a software engineer would start to sound a little more familiar to those in the quality profession.
What a Software Engineer Is Not
Knowing that there is fierce competition for every open position, the software engineer who is in the job market must confront an occupational public relations issue. A software engineer is indeed a computer engineer, and computer engineers are supposed to operate in a pretty limited area. In fact, a computer engineer may be the only profession in which the tool is mistaken for the professional.
If you are a computer engineer, you probably find yourself asked questions like, How can I fix my printer? Or, even better, Can you help me set up my brand new iPhone?
If you have no answer, you will be confronted with a follow-up question that makes your perceived place clear: Wait – you are a computer engineer, aren’t you?
The biggest tragedy of mistaking the tool for the professional and focusing attention on the computer or the technological gadgets is that of missing a fundamental characteristic of a computer engineer: a strong capability for information management, including correct treatment and safe storage. Within the computer engineer profile, the major information management specialist is the software engineer, who continually applies two key criteria in conducting information systems development:
Any quality professional will agree that these principles might easily govern any procedure of quality or continuous improvement.
Since software engineers are specialists in translation, positioning themselves for new job opportunities and appropriate recognition in their current roles should be a routine exercise.
Software engineers possess a number of skills that have broad value for many different types of organizations:
In short, software engineers are professionals highly qualified in information management. Definitively, they, like all quality assurance or continuous improvement professionals, contribute to the attainment of basics like reductions in costs, resources optimization, work conditions improvement, and personnel involvement. Since they gather, analyze, and communicate the information that is crucial to results, they play a key role in organizational success.
If you currently have a software engineer on your team, or if you have an opportunity to bring one aboard, forget for at least a moment about the tools he or she can use. Instead, talk to the quality and information management pro.
And if you happen to be a software engineer looking for better opportunities, you may want to assess whether you are effectively communicating the full value you have to offer.
Jose Ignacio Gamez is a computer systems management technical engineer graduate from the University of Malaga (UMA), a software engineer, and a quality assurance consultant. He is a senior member of ASQ.