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Employee spotlight: working as an expert software development engineer
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As part of national coding week 2023, we caught up with Thangakumar A, expert software development engineer, to find out more about life at Optum (formerly EMIS).
Briefly describe your job role
I manage two agile teams and I generally help the teams with solution design, system architecture and decision making with the help of my technical and domain expertise.
Take us through a day in the life of an expert software development engineer
I start the day with a standup meet with the teams I manage, to understand any challenges the team face and help them with solutions and decision making. My role includes performing code reviews, and working on solution design and architecture of future projects.
What do you enjoy most about coding?
I enjoy coding since it gives me an opportunity create something from scratch and see it come to life. It gives immense pleasure seeing that something I have created not only works but also helps other people.
In case of EMIS [now Optum] the software products we create immensely help doctors and patients in UK which gives a satisfaction that it makes people’s life better. One thing I enjoy about coding is you can put on your detective hat whenever you debug issues, sometimes it can take hours or days investigating but when you finally find the solution it gives you great satisfaction. Nothing can beat it!
What’s been your favourite project to work on and why?
My favourite project was developing a video consultation service to allow a GP and patient to have video consultation easily. It was a challenging project and I got to see the benefits of it during the COVID pandemic as many consultations were done online during that period.
Do you have any advice for people who want to get into coding?
My advice would be to enjoy coding and be passionate about it. It lets you use your imagination, critical thinking, common sense, perseverance and other skills and create something unique which will give you job satisfaction. You never get bored, there is always something new and it’s a role in which you’re always learning and developing new skills and knowledge.