As is the case with any professional career, if one only focuses on the didactic and refuses to venture beyond the academics to seek hands-on experience, they are doomed to fail. Wanting to find out more about the industry that is soon to be my lifelong career, I interviewed Mr. Phan, a senior software developer at a local software company. No recordings or photos were taken, as per the request of Mr. Phan.

     When asked about his job and responsibilities, Mr. Phan replied with a rather unsurprising answer: he codes. As a software developer, he said, it is his primary job to sit at his desk and code almost every single day. However, he added that “coding” is just a hypernym term used to describe multiple different tasks related to programming. When he is given a fresh task, for instance a new feature, he has to interpret this request and draw up a rough developing plan for the most efficient coding progress possible. Only once he has finished brainstorming, which usually takes half a day, would he begin to write the first line of code. Then, a cycle, which he humorously dubbed “development hell”, of coding and debugging begins. He asserted that for a single feature, this cycle could last days, weeks or even months to be completed, depends on the number of sub-features required for the scope of the project. 
     An admirable characteristic of Mr. Phan is that he is what one may call a “fullstack developer”, a person who could take care of both the frontend and backend need in software development. This means aside from the usual duty of programming, he also designs user interface elements for his given task. He proclaimed that this enables him to better control both the look and functionality of the feature, allowing the program to both be pleasing on the eye and maintain good performance and efficiency.

Capability of a full stack developer

     The difference between Mr. Phan and most software developers, is that he is in a senior position, and this expands his capacity into managing other staff assigned to his team. On a daily basis, apart from coding, he has to give instructions to and answer questions from junior developers as well as properly manage his team in order to deliver their allocated task on time. As the team leader, he is to report to the general project manager, and in certain cases, he would meet with the clients directly to discuss the feasibility of their requests. “It is not the most dynamic job in terms of socialising”, he said, “most of the time you only strictly interact with others for work, so for some people who prefer more friendly conversations, this might be a downside that should be taken into consideration before they opt for this line of work.”

     Once asked about the aspect of work that he spends the most time on, Mr. Phan again redirected my attention to the programming aspect of the job. “For a developer, coding is as essential as breathing and drinking”, he reiterated. 70% of the time he spent on work hours is for coding and debugging, reviewing his team member’s work, and refining details to optimise the software or feature.

     Rigorous time allocation aside, Mr. Phan also provided me with the challenges he faces on the job. Interestingly, the first thing he mentions is the unrealistic requests and expectations of customers. He exclaimed: “I feel as though some customers perceive us as gods, able to carry out any given task, regardless of the practicality of the request!”. In many circumstances, upper management would agree to very ambitious ideas, forcing him and his team to find original technical solutions to implement these ideas. However, management also tends to impose impossible deadlines, forcing Mr. Phan’s crew to work overtime and enter “Crunch time”. “I love thinking of new solutions to problems, but when we are forced into periods of crunching, it’s a nightmare”, he said dauntingly, “your mind is always thinking about coding and the problem, when you’re eating, resting or even sleeping until you complete the project or burn out”. While this seems like a perpetually stressful job, he also told me about very interesting traits of this line of work: “When it comes to software development, there will be periods that you would have to crunch 24/7, but when there are no active projects, you are basically receiving your paycheck for free, doing practically nothing, so things do tend to balance out in the end.”

Crunching culture could have adverse effects on developers. [1]

     Mr. Phan was a very open and knowledgable person, thanks to him I have gained many valuable insights about the industry. This interview was very educational and helped further fuelled my passion for the field.  

References

[1] D. Arguello, “How Crunch Affects the Lives of Game Developers,” Digital Trends, 21-Oct-2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/how-crunch-affects-game-developers/. [Accessed: 20-Dec-2020].