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My name is Alex Finley-Kelly, and I am a Senior Software Engineer at a company based in Boston called ButcherBox. We are a B-Corp certified company that aims to help transform the meat industry by giving customers access to humanely raised meat products of all kinds (beef, pork, fish, lamb - you name it!). I currently work remotely and live in Orlando, Florida with my wife and 2 pets. In our free time, we enjoy visiting our local theme parks and exploring different restaurants in the area!
What are the education or qualification requirements for this career?
What are the education or qualification requirements for this career?
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Describe your typical day.
Describe your typical day.
I work remotely, so I typically log onto my work computer around 9 AM and look at my team’s project board to get a feel for the state of things. I then catch up on any emails or Pull Request reviews I left from the day before.
I attend a morning stand up where each developer gives a brief update on what they worked on previously, what they plan to work on today, as well as any discussions that they would like to have that is blocking them on any work.
Some days I could have a “refinement” meeting where we refine any future work which helps my product manager plan our team’s roadmap but other days I will start working on my own tickets which can include anything from bug fixes, investigation into future projects, or my personal favorite, when I get to code to build something new.
What types of coursework or concepts did you study to prepare for this career?
What types of coursework or concepts did you study to prepare for this career?
IoT (Internet of Things) and Java I & Java II were the most impactful. Taking it upon myself to complete personal projects (YouTube Tutorials are great for this) really helped elevate my skills as well.
How are you seeing your career changing?
How are you seeing your career changing?
There are many more people entering the job market with the same degree, hoping to get into software engineering. I have saw many newer grads going into different technology related fields like DevOps, System Administration, and Help Desk Engineering because of this.
How are you using artificial intelligence?
How are you using artificial intelligence?
I use GitHub Co-Pilot almost daily. I typically try to write the code myself for the first time and then ask for refactor suggestions. It’s important to understand the logic you are creating so just copy and pasting from AI can be very dangerous. Take for example, if the code you push to production breaks, but it was written by AI with little understanding, it will take longer to fix it and explain to others why it is breaking. AI does not have the same understanding of edge cases that can exist for a business case that humans do, and it is important to remember that!
What are the three most important skills for your career?
What are the three most important skills for your career?
Communication
Teamwork
Reading Comprehension
What is one of the biggest surprises about your career?
What is one of the biggest surprises about your career?
How much teamwork it takes to build good software. There are many different players in a professional setting: stakeholders, project managers, scrum masters, and other software engineers. It is important to know how to effectively communicate and work with each other to excel.
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