A Day in the Life of a Software Engineering Manager

Demand for Software Engineers only continues to grow as 2021 progresses. As ITJobsWatch notes, demand for candidates with Software Engineering skills has leapt +7 places in the rankings of top IT jobs in demand over the past 6 months alone (sitting 12th in the overall rankings).

To learn more, we spoke to Bevynne Maharaj, Software Engineering Manager at A Vision Software, a digital transformation consultancy and engineering company delivering applications, data, security and infrastructure services.

Introduction to Bevynne

With 15 years of hands-on experience, Bevynne has developed in-depth knowledge and expertise in Software Engineering. From mentoring teams through software analysis, through to design, development, testing and support, Bevynne has experience of delivering projects to various sectors with a focus on quality and customer value.

1. What have you been working on over the past year?

One of the latest projects that we have worked on is an integration project for a payment system. Here, there was a direct integration into a central bank for payments to other banks. We deliver payment solutions across Africa to enable digital transformation in the banking sector. Recently we have been utilizing User Experience (UX) designed software for clients, delivered in a cloud computing capacity, using an agile approach. We are currently researching Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technology to further enhance our experience and products to our clients.

2. What does ‘Agile’ mean to you?

Agile, for our organization, is being able to work closely with our clients in a collaborative way while understanding the change of software requirements. We are adaptable, with our clients’ needs. We work alongside our clients from project initiation, through the product lifecycle, through to delivery and support. We are partners in every way. We found that we can deliver faster and achieve the highest quality software while closing requirement gaps sooner this way. It means adaptability to the business and to the experience.

3. What Cloud Computing Platforms have been most in demand over the past year?

Personally, I have seen a huge movement towards Amazon Web Service (AWS). However, our clients generally have a preference with the platforms they want to use. We often guide our clients in choosing their Cloud Computing Platforms. For example, some of our clients choose a hybrid model, where we privately host their cloud platforms such as OpenShift. This is a managed service, whilst others go for a Public Cloud environment such as AWS or Microsoft Azure.

4. Day to day, do you use a variety of programming languages?

It really depends on our clients’ requirements. Many of our clients either use a .NET or Java stack. As mentioned previously, we are adaptable with our clients’ needs. We have a substantial number of engineers in our network and can quickly put teams together with the desired technology stack. Recently, we have used Java, Angular and JavaScript from a programming language point-of-view to create and enterprise software system. However, it depends purely on the client and what they their needs are.

5. What advice would you give to a Graduate Software Engineer?

I would advise them to start with a core language like Java, C# or .NET, something object orientated. It is always good to have a core language in your toolbox as well as a scripting language such as JavaScript, Angular or React, then add on with a database language, such as SQL. This way, you have a full stack technology set, in terms of software engineering.

7. What books, podcasts or articles have you read/ are you reading that you would recommend to your team?

I mostly read online to keep up with the latest technology trends. Primarily around AI and the Blockchain technology, as these are the newest technology that I am interested in.

8. What does ‘scalability’ mean to you, or how do you begin a scalable development?

Everything that we design and build for our clients’ needs to be scalable. Some products that we release, would initially have a relatively small traffic throughput. However, as time goes on and the user base increases, in line with your increasing transactions and flow, the system would be required to scale. This way, it will then manage the higher traffic throughput; this is an instantaneous system function.

What is nice about the cloud platforms that we provide is they are micro-service based. We can scale each service as required by increasing the instances of each microservice. We can scale them to any number depending on how many transactions are being processed through that service. Scalability is a fundamental requirement and forms part of our architectural design.

Looking for a new job in cloud computing? Check out Xcede’s latest permanent and contract software engineer job vacancies around the world.