Initially, I thought that I was going to shadow a software engineer and that would be it but it didn’t turn out that way. I didn’t get my professional’s job title until the last week of the actual date and I was completely surprised that the job that I was shadowing was a director position of the software team. It included some of the positions that I wanted to shadow or learn more about, like the manager/director role and how much organization is needed for it. I went into this career day almost blind of what specifically this company did. |
Now, I have learned a great deal about this company and almost all of the intricacies that this career holds. Throughout the day, the director, Nik, which was also my professional, had a total of 4 surprise meetings on a day that was supposed to be clear. This gives me a lot of insight about this job and what it holds in store for me. Another detail that I thought was really interesting was the constant traveling that was needed to communicate with people in other departments, a huge part of the director role.
For the interview portion of career day, the person that I was shadowing took the lead and answered some of the very basic questions like what the company does and how long he’s been working there. Nik Devereaux has been working at Viasat for 15 years and has changed many positions. Viasat provides internet through satellites and is the leading researcher in the business. His work began as crafting and creating software for the company and since then, has changed positions within the company. After working as a software engineer for 5 years, he got promoted to the position he’s work at right now, the Director of Software Engineering. That’s his story about his time in the company but it extends even further than that towards his early college days.
Nik, just like the rest of us, didn’t know what he wanted to do later in life. His father worked in engineering but it never really dawned on him that engineering should be the profession that he wants to do. It wasn’t until the end of community college that he found where he wanted to direct his life towards, software engineering. To him, software engineering was like a puzzle waiting to solved, it felt like it described him as a person and that’s when it clicked with him. He then pursued classes in software and computer sciences.
Overall, during the shadowing process, I got to experience the role of a manager and the intricacies that are included in the job as well as got to see some software programs that Nik produced during his time as a software engineer and the project that he’s working on right now. These diverse roles really made me see that work is really serious and that the engineers at Viasat all really enjoyed their job. One of the major aspects of the work there is that engineering is also changing, especially software. That means engineers have to adapt to the new changes by learning new concepts.
For the interview portion of career day, the person that I was shadowing took the lead and answered some of the very basic questions like what the company does and how long he’s been working there. Nik Devereaux has been working at Viasat for 15 years and has changed many positions. Viasat provides internet through satellites and is the leading researcher in the business. His work began as crafting and creating software for the company and since then, has changed positions within the company. After working as a software engineer for 5 years, he got promoted to the position he’s work at right now, the Director of Software Engineering. That’s his story about his time in the company but it extends even further than that towards his early college days.
Nik, just like the rest of us, didn’t know what he wanted to do later in life. His father worked in engineering but it never really dawned on him that engineering should be the profession that he wants to do. It wasn’t until the end of community college that he found where he wanted to direct his life towards, software engineering. To him, software engineering was like a puzzle waiting to solved, it felt like it described him as a person and that’s when it clicked with him. He then pursued classes in software and computer sciences.
Overall, during the shadowing process, I got to experience the role of a manager and the intricacies that are included in the job as well as got to see some software programs that Nik produced during his time as a software engineer and the project that he’s working on right now. These diverse roles really made me see that work is really serious and that the engineers at Viasat all really enjoyed their job. One of the major aspects of the work there is that engineering is also changing, especially software. That means engineers have to adapt to the new changes by learning new concepts.
I can picture myself working in this profession as last year, I conducted my career day with a software engineer. There are so many things to learn and do as a software engineer and a project manager. Along with the continuous growth of software programs, I really like how this career conducts itself. This also gives me future insight if I want to pursue a role as a director or manager as I personally saw first hand the work that they have to do.
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