we're good to go okay how much math is really needed to become a software engineer do you
really need to be a math wiz in order to become one this is a question that has been asked over
and over again and i really want to share with you my perspective as someone who is
a software engineer but took a different path and i'll be very honest during school especially
in high school math was not my strongest subject okay let's just dive right into it
i'm going to save you the trouble of even having to watch this entire video although wait i really
hope you do there's a lot of valuable information that i have in it but i want to give it right off
right off the top of the video you the answer is do you have to be a math wiz a math pro
in order to become a software engineer the answer is no you don't is math important in
software engineering the answer is yes and no kind of i'm going to stay neutral on that one and i'll
explain to you why later on in this video now i always have to add a disclaimer for these kind of
videos because there's always people who have very strong opinions which is great i like to remain
in the middle and neutral to just provide you the facts and proper information but my disclaimer is
that yes there are always exceptions to the rule so this is based off of my experience talking
to colleagues in the industry friends in the industry and of course there are some software
engineers that use math on a day-to-day basis which we will get into but for the most part we
don't need to be a math pro let's start off by talking about what software engineering really is
software engineering is kind of a broad term when you think about it there is a lot of roles
that can be housed under software engineering a lot of specialty positions that you can get into
with software engineering skills i really want to first talk about what exactly software engineering
is because without having an understanding of what software engineering is we can't really get into
the math question okay let's go to our favorite tool we always use which is
google and search simply is what is software engineering well one of the answers that comes
up right away is software engineering is defined as a process of analyzing user requirements and
then designing building and testing software application which will satisfy those requirements
okay within this definition i feel like there are quite a few roles already that were listed from
testing software okay that would be qa to uh analyzing user requirements maybe that would
be ui ux maybe that would be a business analyst and designing that would be designer so as you
can see already it's quite a broad term with many different roles that can be housed under it
so now that we have a sense of what exactly software engineering is it's essentially building
let's put it in one sentence software engineers build stuff okay that might be too simple but
getting to the point of software engineering is a broad term and there are lots of roles
under it lots of different specialties from game development to mobile development web um maybe
you want to be more on the security team different things like that of course these roles have their
unique and specific names as well but oftentimes you go to school for software engineering you
self-teach software engineering whatever your path is and then you kind of narrow down into
different roles before we get into it though make sure to hit that subscribe button for
more tech and coding related videos shout out to some of these subscribers here thank you for your
questions comments feedback and most importantly your support and love okay now that we have that
covered where did this question even come from if math isn't really required as a software engineer
on average why is this question so popular this is something that i was thinking the other day
is why do people always ask this question if it's not a huge factor in becoming a software engineer
to be a pro at math and i think it really comes from the fact of not math as a skill itself but
what skills math gives you let me explain typically not always but typically people who
are good at math are very logical thinkers good at problem solving good at breaking down problems
those are the skills that are used in software engineering you need in software engineering
to have logic you need to be able to break down problems you need to be able to see something as
a whole and then break it down into pieces but also see the big picture a lot of these skills
are taught with and you gain if you are good at math or someone who enjoys to do math now that
doesn't mean if you aren't good at math you can't pick up these skills someone once phrased it to me
really really well i thought that learning how to code and getting into software engineering you are
training your brain to think in an entirely new way and if you haven't really used your
muscles for that way of thinking for the math and the science and different things like that before
it's going to take you a bit of extra time to train your brain to think in these ways it doesn't
mean that if you are bad at math you can't become a great software engineer it just may take you
a bit longer to kind of get those muscles to the point that they are ready or what's the word just
keep on working them and they will get strong as well whereas someone who maybe is already amazing
at math that learns coding and becomes a software engineer maybe it'll be much easier for them
because they already have those problem solving skills uh just applying it to a different format
okay and that brings me to my next question is why is logic important why is being a logical thinker
or having these skill sets important in software engineering how is it really used and my answer to
that is being a logical thinker and being able to really utilize strong problem solving skills will
help you because essentially when you're coding you're talking to a computer that's all you're
doing this computer does not have emotions well yet anyways probably in the future they will but
um this computer doesn't have emotions it cannot think for itself once again yet anyways and it
needs you to tell it what to do what program to build and this isn't done with a wishy-washy oh
i would like to have this but maybe this it's done with a matter-of-fact way whereas this if i type
this it will produce this if i put in this it will output this and it's simple it's black and white
there's obviously a lot of gray areas in software engineering but at the end of the day if you build
something with a certain specific code you know what output you will get and with that comes
logic it comes thinking of okay more in a clarity sense and thinking in a problem-solving sense that
you know what you out what you input you will get outputted and sometimes if you don't have that
logical side to you and you try and do it you can get maybe too emotional or to thinking why isn't
this working i don't see the results happening and at the end of the day it's as simple as you put
something in you receive something out i don't know if that makes sense to you i hope it does
that was how i really thought of it and with problem solving it's so important because when
you're working on a defect when you're working on a bug sometimes when you look at the big picture
it is so intimidating and you don't know how you will ever start breaking it down you need to
be a good problem solver that you can see really explain what the problem is and break it down once
again all these skills can be learned even if you are not a strong person in math it just might take
you a bit longer okay i hope you found this video very valuable and helpful as to do you need to be
a math pro or have strong math skills to become a software engineer at the end of the day not a
lot of math is required in software engineering on my day-to-day basis i do both front-end and
back-end right now i'm doing more front-end work but i don't use math on a day-to-day but i do use
logic and problem solving every single day make sure to give this video a thumbs up hit that
subscribe button and also leave in the comments other videos you want to see thanks everyone
you