Software Engineering is a Bridge

When I was getting my degree in Software Engineering, I took a number of business and economics classes as electives.

In economics, I learned people have needs.

Businesses identify and create products to solve people's needs. Engineers devise and deploy products to solve needs.

We all have needs. One can have a look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a starting point. The most fundamental needs it purports are physiological: food, shelter, water, warmth, etc. Second, there are needs for safety. Third, needs of belonging such as family, friendship, community, teamwork, etc. Fourth: self-esteem. Fifth: self-actualization, or the pursuit of various objectives and one's own growth. A multitude of needs can be derived from Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs alone.

Who creates solutions to these needs? There's a relationship between entrepreneurship and engineering. Entrepreneurs organize economic resources: land, labor and capital, to create products. Engineers create products given various requirements. Requirements derived from both resource constraints, and stakeholder needs.

Here's why I love software engineering: the field encompasses both software and business.

Software Engineering gives you the potential to play the entire orchestra. You can delve into computer science. You can interface with clients, and all kinds of users, across the organization and outside, to discover what the software must do. You can make educated decisions on the technologies the organization uses. Software Engineering delves into development methodologies as well, such as Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, Kanban, Lean, etc.

There are needs to be solved. In the field of software engineering, you, and your team, can create software which can solve those needs.