Software has become the prime requisite for a business to sustain itself in a competitive world. According to a report by Market Research Future, the global software engineering market is expected to witness a massive 11.72% CAGR during the forecast period of 2018 to 2027. As per the report, multiple factors play a crucial role in the growth of the software engineering market. Some of these factors include growing dependencies on electronic devices for business and penetration of automation in almost every sector of the business vertical. So what is software engineering, and why is it essential for companies? Let’s have a look!
What is software engineering?
Software engineering is analyzing the user’s requirements and then designing, building, and testing the software application. The end goal of this entire practice is to ensure that every client’s requirement is met and the software functions as per the expectation of the customer.
However, this is not the only definition of software engineering. Let’s look at some more definitions of this practice.
According to IEEE, software engineering is defined as the systematic and disciplined approach to designing a computable software application and supports seamless development and operation.
On the other hand, Fritz Bauer defines software engineering as establishing and using standard engineering principles that help businesses obtain reliable, economical, and efficient software on real machines.
Since now the concept of software engineering is clear, let’s look at the various processes involved in this field of software development.
Software engineering processes
Software engineering encompasses various activities such as initial customer concept inception, software production, and maintenance. Let’s dig deep into the multiple stages involved in software engineering.
Customer requirement understanding
The step is, also known as requirement collection, is all about communicating with customers before developing the software. The stage is typically conducted by a business analyst (B.A.) or product analyst. In this step, the BA produces a Customer Requirement Specification (CRS) document from a customer’s perspective.
Requirement analysis
In the stage of requirement analysis, the feasibility of the project is explored. This is done by examining the project’s financial, operational, technical, and time management aspects. The stage is handled by project managers, business analysts, software architects, developers, and finance managers. Notably, this stage plays a crucial role in the project’s progress.
Designing
Once the project moves forward from the analysis stage, it’s time to create the software’s blueprint, schema, and standard document. Architects and senior developers produce a high-level design of the architecture and a low-level design. The low-level design is developed to describe how every software component should work. This helps the developers to code the component smoothly.
Developing, testing, and installation
In this stage, the software developers implement the design and write the code for the software. Once various teams develop the code, it is integrated to produce a single product. Post integration, the testing team tests the product with multiple scenarios and checks whether the software meets the expected specifications. If it does not, the developers debug the software and repeat the process. Finally, when all the bugs have been removed, the release engineer deploys the software on the server.
Maintenance
Maintenance is the application of each of the previous steps to the existing modules in the software to modify or add new features, depending on what the customer needs.
Importance of software engineering
Changing business culture has propelled the demand for new software in organizations. Recent events of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have given rise to the need for automated software complementing the work-from-home culture. Therefore it is correct to say that this is an era of software. But, being an organization head, one might think about why software is essential or why software engineering is important? Let’s look at some factors showcasing the importance of software engineering in today’s business environment.
Complexity reduction
Software engineering and software engineers can reduce the complexity of the project. As it is common in custom software development companies, most software is complex to develop. This is because the project can be classified into several smaller components, and each component can be worked upon independently. Moreover, these sub-projects can be allocated to a particular team, reducing the complex software development process.
Software cost reduction
Since software development is a complex and time-consuming process, it requires much hard work. This is the reason that software engineers and developers are paid handsome salaries. There is a lot of work that requires skilled professionals to write many lines of code for developing the software. However, with the help of software engineering, the development process can be reduced because of the planned approach by the developers. This allows the developers to remove the unnecessary procedures, resulting in reduced software development and production costs.
Handling big projects
Big projects cannot be completed in just a few days. They take days or months to be deployment-ready. However, larger projects require many resources, time, and cost management. The documentation involved in software engineering allows businesses to keep these big projects smooth and hassle-free.
Trends in the software engineering market
Software engineering has become one of the most sought jobs today. The reason for this propulsion is the demand for new software and the dynamic requirements of the clients. However, software engineering is not a stagnant practice. It adopts and let’s go of some trends. So what’s trending in software engineering today? Let’s find out:
Low-code and no-code software development
This code might seem a bit confusing! After all, coding is the very basis of software engineering and development. However, software development has become increasingly complex, and the race for delivering software at a faster rate never slows down. As a result of this race, the software engineers and developers are under constant pressure, making new developers reluctant to enter such high-pressure environments. For this reason, low-code and no-code products have gained popularity in the software engineering field.
Big data security
Software engineering has evolved to cater to the big data requirements from data collection to storing and analyzing. With the growing scrutiny on bug data by the customers, regulatory institutions, and governments, the security of all the data has become the top-most priority of the organizations. As a result of this need, the organizations are propelled to integrate security as a fundamental element in software engineering.
Reliance on artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence or AI has already become a significant component of most software. From a simple computer vision application to enterprise-scale predictive analytics, all these features include AI. Software engineering now focuses on integrating these technologies into the project, making them automated and easier to use for the customers.
Conclusion
The software has become an integral part of the business environment today. To cater to the growing demand for new software, organizations invest massive amounts of time and money in hiring a software engineer. Looking at the demand, software engineering is expected to remain a trending job in the coming years.
