Software development as a profession

A career that has been in existence since the discovery of information technology has now grown, and it is one of the most sought after skills in the 21st century.

With the growing of Internet and e-commerce, it is almost inevitable for a company to have an IT division without a strong technical team with one or more developers.

Since the 1980s, a computer programmer - today known as the software developer - is now a career path taken by many graduates from electrical, electronics, information systems, information technology and computer sciences background. This has been known as a career for those who are good with numbers and are also willing to work long hours.

After working as a software developer within the telecommunications and financial services sectors for more than six years now, I have identified some of the challenges facing software development as a career or profession. Due to the complexity of software development, and for the mere fact that there are many technologies out there written in many languages, there are a variety of developers out there.

Developers are generally categorised by the languages they use. There are many high-level programming languages such as Java, .NET, J2EE, C++, PHP, XML just to mention the few. Today the most sought after developers are developers who use languages such as Java and .NET.

The biggest challenge facing developers is that of the variety of programming languages. I have also learnt that even though developers get certified on technologies such as Java and .Net with certificates such as Sun Certified Java Programmer/Developer/Web Developer or Microsoft Certified Developer, they still find themselves having to deal with systems written in other languages, for example, systems written in C, C++, ABAP and PL/SQL.

With more and more businesses looking at IT to increase their competitive advantage and to cut their operating cost, and with technologies such as services-oriented architectures that enables manual business processes to be automated, and also allowing software to act as a service, it is certain that developers are here to stay. I firmly believe that the time has arrived for us to set standards and procedures for software development in order to benchmark this profession with other professions such as project management and engineering.

Today XML is now a standard, every technology seems to be adopting it, and it is mainly used for integration or data exchange between different systems. I personally think Java as a programming language can also become a standard considering its simplicity, flexibility and capabilities. With the fact that now Oracle has bought Sun Microsystems, I do believe that Oracle can use their resources and collaborate with other organisations such as World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, Software Engineering Institute, British Computer Society and other relevant organisations to make this happen. Of course, the challenge is to force other big vendors such as Microsoft and SAP to adopt Java as a technology for their future products. There might be resistance since these vendors have also made significant investments in developing their own proprietary languages like .NET and ABAP. However, Oracle will also have to give up their PL/SQL language too. I strongly believe that software vendors should have an agreement on this because competition should not be about technologies platforms themselves, but rather about the value they provide to their clients and quality of their solutions. For example, the big four, namely Deloitte, Ernst and Young, Pricewaterhousecoopers and KPMG all provide accounting, financial management, auditing and tax services to their clients, and how one convinces a client that they can do the job is based on creativity, flexibility, cost, professionalism and, of course, quality.

I have learnt that companies will forever have to invest in training new developers when they join their teams, even the ones with extensive experience due to the variety of technologies written in many languages. Each time when a developer joins a new company, he/she spends three to four months trying to understand the systems put in place. This will also reduce a pain that recruitment consultants have to undergo when looking for new developers to join their organisations, because often you find that a developer can only possess one or two critical skills required for the job and usually with your main programming languages such as Java or .Net plus standard languages such as XML and SQL, and the rest of the skills required developers either have to learn on the job or sent to training. This does not only result in cost expenditures that companies incur for their software development teams, but it also has an impact on the delivery of software projects, and it is frustrating to some of the developers.

However, I have also learnt that professional IT organisations, such as the Computer Society of South Africa, Australian Computer Society and the British Computer Society, are now offering professional IT qualifications both technical and business streams. For example, the Computer Society of South Africa is offering the Continuing Professional Education qualification developed by the Australian Computer Society. With the Internet and e-commerce growing, I think a professional software development qualification must be developed using one programming language (ie, currently Java stands out as a language for the future), including Prince2 and SDLC methodologies, business analysis and some soft skills. These computer societies have the power to convince all IT vendors to adopt one programming language as a standard, and in turn they can come up with a professional software development qualification that will be recognised globally.

In a nutshell, companies and the society are realising that technology has changed the way we used to do things, with intelligent systems such as Google, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and e-commerce sites such as Amazon and critical services such as Internet banking and cellphone banking, I have no doubt that professionalising the software development career for future generations will be a worthwhile investment. Obviously this might take time before it is realised.