Software engineering the sum of many parts

By ADAM GIFFORD


Ask Hayden Melton to tell you about the bachelor of software engineering degree he has just completed and he says, "Break that down into smaller parts and I'll try to answer". There it is, software engineering in a nutshell.

Melton chose to study at Auckland University's engineering school rather than at the computer science or management science and information systems departments because of the focus on professional development and the chance for professional accreditation.

"I could have done a degree through computer science, but I would not have been so prepared for process-centric jobs," Melton says.

Melton walked out of his four-year degree into a job with health software maker Orion. "During the course I worked for engineering companies, and decided I would rather work for a software house - the pay is better, the conditions are better - and when I looked at Orion's website I saw they have international customers, so there will be opportunities for travel," he says.

He is in the first class of 50 to graduate from the degree.

Degree director Professor John Grundy says most of the graduates who are not going on to further study have found software-related jobs around Auckland, indicating the degree is meeting a market demand.

"As opposed to other IT graduates, it is a professional engineering qualification so the focus is on quality and developing a range of software design and development skills," Grundy says.

"We expect many will head towards project management and project leader roles fairly quickly."

Lecturers are drawn from computer sciences and electrical engineering, with a range of other engineering and professional development papers also included.

Grundy says because it is an engineering degree - first-year students get an overview of the entire engineering field, from civil to chemical - the course emphasises process and engineering rigour.

It focuses on the new Extreme programming methodology, which emphasises a disciplined approach to code building and constant testing through the programming process.

While most assignments use the java and J2EE programming environments, students are also exposed to some Microsoft.net and C-Sharp. "Auckland University has a philosophy of lifelong learning," Grundy says. "There are always new tools, new methods, new concepts coming at high frequency, so our graduates need to be able to learn very quickly and apply what they learn.

"We give some training, but our emphasis is to be able to move very quickly to evaluate what is there."

Graduate Hamish Graham is experiencing just that in his new job at Olympic Software in Khyber Pass, which sells and develops Microsoft-oriented solutions.

Olympic is putting Hamish through the Microsoft Certified System Developer (MCSD) certification, something which attracted him to the job.

"I thought it would be a good qualification to add to my degree," Graham says.

He says the degree itself should be a sound foundation for the job because of its practical orientation.

"In terms of coding and software, there was a continued emphasis on quality assurance, maintainability and testability, so it had a more professional flavour than the other computing option."

Olympic technical director Jeff Williams says Graham was hired because of his high grades and structured approach to the software industry.

"We are a Microsoft Gold partner, but we also do some Java work, so we were after someone who could learn the process and branch into both sides," Williams says.

"If there had been more balance on the course between the Microsoft and Java worlds it would be more benefit to us, but that did not stop us from employing these guys, because we can see they can learn from the base they have."

Grundy says there is no way any course can meet the needs of all employers, so "my philosophy is these skills have to be transferable. The students must be able to adapt to the situations they find themselves in."

Next year 70 students should graduate, and about 100 are expected to start from the 550 students in the general engineering intake. Most of the students are New Zealand residents, although there is a small number of full fee-paying overseas students.

Students have to do at least 800 hours work experience before they graduate, which gives them a head start finding jobs.

Grundy says now it has its first crop of graduates, the course will seek full accreditation for them from the Institute of Professional Engineers, which will increase their chances of getting jobs with major engineering firms worldwide.

"The big attraction of software development as an IT career is people can learn heaps about different disciplines and build IT systems to support them," he says. "While they have domain knowledge about IT, that has to be applied to everything, so they could be building financial systems, manufacturing, scientific, resource management applications."