Choosing software engineering is a smart thing to do if you want to get a well-paid job. A recent survey suggests that 3 out of 4 new science and engineering jobs in the US will be in computing related areas and that 27% of these new jobs will be in software engineering, compared to 16% in all other engineering disciplines put together.
What this means is that, as software engineers, we will have an increasing influence on engineering in general. We therefore have to be prepared to think about systems and not just software and throw off both the blinkered ‘geek in a cubicle’ and the ‘anal process tyrant’ image that is all too often the stereotype for software engineers.
Thoughts on software and systems engineering 