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Software Engineer
Designs, develops, and maintains software applications and systems.
Did you know?
Ada Lovelace is often called the first computer programmer: in 1843 she published a program for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, which was never built.
How subjects help
- Mathematics: Work out how much slower a program will run as the amount of data it handles grows.
- Computer Science: Write and organise code so an app stays fast and easy to fix as it gets bigger.
- Logic: Trace every if and else in the code to find the one case that makes an app crash.
- Statistics: Read usage data to find which features people use most and where an app slows down.
A famous name
Ada Lovelace: Wrote what is seen as the first published computer program in 1843, for Babbage's Analytical Engine.
Try it yourself: Debug a sandwich robot
- Write step-by-step instructions for making a pretend sandwich, using two books as the bread.
- Your robot must do exactly what the words say, nothing more. "Put jam on bread" might mean the jar goes on the bread!
- Every time something goes wrong, that is a bug. Fix that line and run it again.
- How many fixes did it take until the robot got it right first time?
Computers follow instructions literally, so writing clear steps and fixing bugs is a big part of a programmer's work.
Also try: Run a mini survey.
Known for it in
USA, Switzerland, Israel, Germany, Canada