Software Engineer
(Male, Age 37) from Orange, CA
This is a REAL-LIFE job profile written by a Male aged 37 who works as a Software Engineer in Orange, CA. We have removed all names and personal information in order to protect privacy. This professional kindly spent a bit of their time to complete one of our job profile surveys so that prospective job seekers like you could read their insights. Please excuse any punctuation or grammatical errors in this profile.
At a Glance
Current Job
Basic data on your current job
| Job Title | Software Engineer |
|---|---|
| Salary | $90,000 |
| Other Compensation | None Set |
| Hours/Week | 45 |
| Company Size | (not answered) |
| Location | Orange, CA |
| Years Experience | 1 year |
Career Ratings
Opinions on your CAREER overall (i.e. not just your current job)
| Years in Career | 0 |
|---|---|
| Education | (not answered) |
| Income Rating | 0 / 10 |
| Interest Rating | 0 / 10 |
| Work-Life Rating | 0 / 10 |
| Fulfilment Rating | 0 / 10 |
Current job Q&A
Describe the type of organization you work for.
My employer is a web hosting web site solution provider for Real Estate Agents. We provide them with a standard Real Estate web site that comes with some default custom content geared towards prespective home buyers. The real estate agents can control the look, feel and content of their site.
Describe your job role and responsibilities.
Maintain and develop the Classic 40 and Virtual Office web applications.
Please list an additional benefits (beyond compensation) that you receive.
401K, Medical, Dental, Vision, Insurance, Vacation, Sicktime, Holidays.
Do you feel you are under/over or well/fairly compensated at your current position?
Under
Does your job entail you working with others on a daily basis? Is this something you like/dislike about your job? Please explain.
My job requires me to work in a team environment. I like to work in a team environment because we can help each other out during analysis and design. Also, during development, we throw questions and ideas at each other regarding performance and best practices. Working in a team environment makes each and everyone of the team members much stronger.
Do you work collaboratively with supervisors/managers?
Yes
Do you work collaboratively with your co-workers?
Yes
Describe your work location (e.g., office, home, theatre, in the field) and what you like/dislike about working in it.
Office, second floor, Orange County california with a view of the hills. I love it because we can take a look out the window and relax a bit before going back to work.
Please rate each of the following aspects of your current job on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest/best):
Income: 3
Benefits: 7
Hours: 6
Co-Workers: 1
Supervisors: 2
Job Title: 8
Level of Responsibility: 5
The Actual Work: 4
A day in the life of…
Please describe a typical workday for you in your current job:
| 5am to 6am | |
| 6am to 7am | |
| 7am to 8am | Getting ready for work. I get a call from my boss. We are going to be deploying the latest version of our applications next Thursday. It is now Tuesday. The deployment is a go. |
| 8am to 9am | Arrive to work. Get coffee. Check my email. I do a full get from our source code database to make sure I have the latest code in my personal computer to ensure that the code that I write will work with existing code that was checked in the day before. I build and compile the application. |
| 9am to 10am | Meeting time. We need to discuss the steps that we are going to take for deployment. We need to outline the Deployment activities and layout a back up or roll back plan if things do not go as expected. It is decided that Shai and myself need to test the deployment on a test server and report to the boss how things went with our “dry run”. It is decided that two other team members will brainstorm regarding the Roll back plan if the deployment plan fails. |
| 10am to 11am | We spend the next two hours backing up the production database. We Restore it into the test system. We then run a program called sql compare to compare our newly restored copy of the production datbase with our development database. |
| 11am to 12pm | Next, We identify all of the stored procedures, tables, indexes, etc that we are going to need to migrate to the real production dB during deployment. We then export the sql script that we are going to run as part of our deployment. We next identify any data that has changed between the databases (not customer data, but system data). We then create a script to run in the production database. We run everything. Then, we start testing on the test machine. |
| 12pm to 1pm | Time for lunch. Mexican today. I love southern california. |
| 1pm to 2pm | We spend the next our testing. Identifying things that we have missed. Testing all of the new functionality and some of the old functionality to make sure that we have not introduced any bugs there. |
| 2pm to 3pm | All testing is done. We encountered some things that we had not anticipated before during testing. In application development, if something does not go wrong during testing, we get worried. Very worried. Something always goes not according to plan. We now start formulation a deployment plan with all of the tasks that will be necessary in the correct order. |
| 3pm to 4pm | Time to meet with the boss to present our findings. We spend an hour explaining to him our findings and tentative plan. He identifies a couple of items that we were not aware of that change the plan a bit. Instead of going back to our desks to work the plan out, the boss invites us to do it in his office so that he can assist us and to make sure that we have accounted for everything. This is good as one more brain is always welcomed. |
| 4pm to 5pm | Shai and I go back to our desks. We have written a plan. I now need to formulate an email and send it to the rest of the team and ask for feedback. This feedback will be incorporated into the plan the next day. Email is formulated and sent. Feedback starts to trickle in. Good stuff. |
| 5pm to 6pm | Time to finish up some of the code that will be going in on Thursday. As of today, Tuesday, we all need to check in all of our code that will be deoployed by the end of the day. I know its going to take me at least 2 hours to complete so I am going home. |
| 6pm to 7pm | Driving Home, eating some dinner. |
| 7pm to 8pm | Back to the computer, this time my laptop from my home office ( the dinning room) in my condo. For the next three hours I finish my code. |
| 8pm to 9pm | Next I test my code. Make sure all is working. I also take a break to watch survivor fiji. I love that show. |
| 9pm to 10pm | I do a final build. Test once again. All is good. I check in my code to source control. I know it will be built and deployed to our staging server on Wednesday at 8am with our automated build. The business will now have all day Wed to test the new functionality. If the encounter no deviations, they will accept. The deployment will be go ( and it was ). |
| 10pm to 11pm | n/a |
| 11pm to 12am | n/a |
Table of Contents
How you got your job
How did you get your current job?
Referral
What was the application process?
I knew the Director of Development as he was my boss before. He hired me.
Did you have to interview for your current job? If yes, what did the interview process entail?
No, see above.
If you can remember, what questions were you asked during the interview?
None, see above.
Do you feel your employer properly prepared you for your job? Explain.
N/A
Was there training for your current position? If yes, what did it entail?
No training.
Do you feel your educational background prepared you for your job? Explain.
Yes. In order for me to attain the level of knowledge that meets the position requirements I needed to go to school to learn not only Computer Science stuff , but English, Math, Politics, etc. The more educated a person is, the more that perosn is likely to fit into any work environment. Definately, Computer Science classes are a must, even if you do not take any of the other requirements for graduation.
If applicable, do you feel your internship experience helped you prepare for your job?
N/A
If someone wanted to go about getting a job similar to yours, what would you recommend for him or her to do?
Take some college classes to get you started with visual basic programming, microsoft access programming and SQL Server (database concepts). After getting some idea of simple programming, go to the internet and download all of the free Microsoft Development tools. Next you need to buy books and read a little bit everyday in the subjects ( programming language, etc) that you have choosen to learn. Next, go to the internet and download open source code to start getting an idea of how things work in a development project. Once you have some basic programming and database knowledge start applying for entry jobs. Continue taking college courses while you find a job. When your level of knowledge that you aquire from college and on your own meets the requirements of an opening with some company, you will be hired and you will be on your way.
What skills do you think a person should have if they want to pursue a position like yours?
Math skills. Analitical skills. Person must be able to think logically. Person must be patient. Person must be committed to continues learning as technology changes fast.
Do you feel that you need a certain level of education or training to be successful in your job?
No
What advice would you give to someone who was about to start work in your position/ line of work?
Work hard. Go the extra mile. Continue doing the “butt time”. Butt Time means that in order to learn and be a good developer and system engineer you need to sit your butt down and work hard to learn and produce.
Long-term career plans
Is your current employment part of your overall career plan? Why or why not?
Yes, I have always had a goal of becoming a senior web developer.
What are your current career goals?
To attain certain and unquestionable senior engineer status and to start my own consulting firm one day.
Is there anything else you would like to share about your career?
The computer science field is of high demand. There are not enough Database developers, Architects and Software Engineers out there. The demand will be steady through 2020, if not longer. Get into it!
Prior work history
Please list your most recent jobs prior to this current job:
| Title | Length | Salary | Description | |
| Prior Job 1 | Software Engineer | 1YR | 90000 | Web Development. |
| Prior Job 2 | Systems Analyst-Developer | 3 YR | 95000 | Systems Analysis and development. |
Educational background
Please list your educational background:
High School GPA:3.3
| GPA | School | Degree | |
| College (Undergraduate) or Technical/Vocational |
3.5 | Santa Ana College | AA Computer Science |
| Graduate or Professional (Masters or Doctorate) |
n/a | N/A | n/a |
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