The Software Engineer within the Business Technology World

As we witness major changes in the world in general and the IT world in particular, re-considering the role of the Software Engineer becomes crucial: how can we address the new challenges for companies and how can we incorporate the new ways to  produce added value and services through IT. Based on Technovison© representation, it is possible to identify  the new “ecosystem” and skills that a Software Engineer has to aquire or develop. Below is a non-exhaustive list of key drivers :

• Design For Digital: Cloud / Social / SMAC it up (Social Mobile Analytics Cloud together) / Business Technology / Rythms and Time To Market
• Invisible Infostructure: “Amazon Software Engineering” / Embracing risk / Things / Orchestration
• Sector-As-A-Service: Software Engineering Vanilla / Enterprise apps store / Elastic business / Process as application
• Thriving On Data: Flows / Real real time / Data Confederation
• Process-On-The-Fly: New forms of processes / No process
• We Collaborate: Social workers / Friend your vending machine
• You Experience: Objects of desire / Sweat the assets / End producer

To take  those important changes into account, Software Engineers will have to play with:

1.  Services Integration & Orchestration:  to be able to work with catalogue driven services, develop IP, address new interfaces, services, architecture components, SaaS to SaaS, SAS to Premises.
2. Real time performance and other Non functional requirements (new forms of security, scalability) due to multi channel services. Software Engineer has to use new model a,d methods in order to design this.
3. ‘Prima Data’: Data is changing the way business is making decisions and the Software Engineer needs to relook at everything that has to do with Data.
4.  Business relationship and way of working: the Software Engineer will change his role and behaviour in his relation with Business primarily in the new fields of SMAC.
5. New ecosystems of delivery: this point requires a brand new mindset when working with third part and within a virtual and distributed team.

The Y Gen is comfortable with these concepts as a consummer but the experience shows that it is not enough. Experimented Software Engineer (Old generation :-)) will have to be aware of and will have to take into account new development environments to take all benefits of the new capabilities. In conclusion All companies have to think about and elaborate new training courses in order:

• to reinforce or develop skills as described previously without forgeting the core and classical ones (Object oriented architecture as a core skill, Quality management as a core skill, Testing (unit) designing, Agile practice, Soft skills Estimation and risk management)
• to leverage capabilities between the different generations of Software Engineers
• to take all benefits of the Business technology opportunities.