An Interview with a Software Engineer: Personal Impressions

Before going into interviewing Adam Kiel I have no idea what I should expect. I do not have any background with what it is like to be a Software Engineer except what I have learned so far in the Software Engineering Freshman Seminar class I am taking now. I especially do not know what it is like to work as a software engineer daily. I am excited and nervous to find out and see if Software Engineering is something I really want to do for the rest of my life. I will go into the interview with a positive outlook that not every Software Engineers work style is not the same and will vary, based on the company. Within this report, I summarize the information gained through a formal interview with Adam Kiel on his profession as a Software Engineer.

Surprisingly Adam Kiel was very willing to be interviewed for what it is like to be a Software Engineer and rather eager to. He responded to my questions quite quickly and concisely like he knew exactly just how to answer each question and chose his words wisely. Adam said he works for Granular in Johnston, Iowa which is just outside of Des Monies, a growing metropolitan area, where their engineering teams are focused primarily on there agronomy product, Encirca, as well as customer success teams supporting all of their products. He has been there for a little over four months and lives just two blocks from where he works, which is very convenient.

He went on and started to describe all the previous work he has done so far, and surprisingly, he has done a lot for being 23 years old. He was a Student Developer for Iowa State University’s Book Store where he worked on several websites to maintain the bookstore. Mostly he worked on getting their pages compatible with their content management systems. As well as, working on-site analytics for e-commerce and other technical needs. Then he went on to being a Software Engineering Intern for Herzog Technologies where he was on a team that developed a data gathering program that is now being used by their Geographic Information Systems team. The desktop application he’s developed from scratch allowed the team to gather more accurate data. He had to coordinate with the team in order to create and build a GPS and Camera integrations. What also was really interesting to me was how at a hackathon he led a team in creating a chrome extension, Rate ISU, that is similar to RateMyProfessor but for his college only and allows students to view the professors rating as they are enrolling in classes.

Next, he moved on to his current job at Granular Inc. and his experience there so far. Granular Inc. is a software solutions company focused on the precision for agriculture. He is very passionate about his work, especially in how they are trying to make farming more efficient and profitable while still perceiving and enhancing the value of farmland. Even though he is fairly new to the company he knows the company’s goal and mission and recognizes how the work he is doing is helping others succeed. It was noticeable how much he enjoys working here just by the fluidity and excitement he talked with as I asked him about the company.

After explaining to me what his company does, he went on to explain his part in the company and what he does there. He holds a position as a software developer and works mostly on the front end design of their web application, as well as, their non-maintaining legacy systems. He also is helping with moving towards microservices in python hosted on lambdas or otherwise known as a map and filter in Python. They are trying to focus on building single-function modules with well-defined interfaces and operations. This will make changes to the application and is ideal for messaging enabled, being autonomously developed, and independently deployed. Currently at Granular all the infrastructure is held in Amazon Web Services (AWS) and they use cloud front and terraform to maintain it.

His project team is on average six to twelve people, but right now he has five developers, two Quality Assurance (QA’s), one delivery lead, one product lead, and one manager. Right now he is working on moving their data processors from .NET 4.7.2 to .NET Core. In other words, right now they are using an app that uses third-party .NET libraries or NuGet packages which are not available for .NET Core. They are trying to switch to .NET Core because they need cross-platform, targeting microservices, using Docker containers, and need high-performance and scalable systems. He is also working on building a company-wide feature that manages whenever something is flagged. This part is what he enjoys the most as he is creating a flags app he has to learn Kubernetes, which is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Kubernetes takes groups of containers that make up the application into logical units for easy management and discovery.

Some of the languages, technologies, and tools he uses are AWS, – Runscope, Jenkins, Gitlab – Python, JavaScript, Transport Stream, Java, C#, and terraform. It is fascinating all the different types of languages and technologies he uses and how I am learning Python right now which can help me in the end.

A typical day for Adam is going to work, checking his emails and making sure the systems are green. Then, he goes to get coffee or monster, begins to program, stretches his legs, continues to program, has an occasional meeting, then eats the company provided lunch and snacks. After that, he continues to program and peer program, and then heads home for the day. In order to do his job, the skills Adam believes are most important is being able to problem solve, to efficiently be able to debug, the ability to document and communicate clearly, and have the eagerness to contribute to his team and company.

Adam had a lot of opinions about what would be important for me to consider in pursuing a career in this field ethically. First and foremost, he told me to make sure my code is well documented and to give credit if I use someone else’s code. Also, he told me to make sure that I check the patents for an idea I might have because someone else may have a patent for it already. Lastly, if I was ever questioning if whether the logistics to a problem are being ethically solved that I should definitely take the time to make sure it is in the end. When asked what he likes most about his job, he mentioned that he loves to program and that is what he does all day. He also likes how his company takes care of him providing lunch and snacks for him every day. Adam does recognize the downfalls of his job such as, how there is no on-boarding where new employees acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors in order to become effective organizational members. So the process of integrating new employees into the company is not as good as it could be. He also does not like how there is no trial by fire for learning and improving apps, where they test the ability to perform well under pressure.

To conclude, after this interview, I realize that I have made the right choice by choosing Software Engineering as my major. Looking more into the role as a Software Engineer I was able to see various of different aspects that come with different types of jobs. By Adam’s previous work experience I was able to see the variation between jobs for Software Engineers where they are constantly learning new things. It is very interesting how you can always learn more and have to stay updated with the new programming updates in order to solve problems a company you work at may face, and efficiently do so.

I also was able to see and recognize the downfalls between different jobs and companies and how some might not have a good way of transitioning new employees into their company. Before I was worried that I might get bored with being a Software Engineer but now I see just how you get new projects to work on and get to learn different stuff that makes every day different. After all, it seems as though most companies take care of their employees as Adam gets lunch and snacks throughout the day and can take vacation days whenever as long as it is not an excessive amount. Companies value Software Engineers as workers and treat them accordingly, which is nice of them to do. This interview has just helped me justify that I made that right choice becoming a Software Engineer and resolved any worries I may have had beforehand.