Industry Jargon: Engineering and Development
This one might not be as obvious as it sounds. It is easy to talk about building products, but rather difficult to actually do. Turns out, there’s actual science in Computer Science. Thankfully, a whole lot of smart people have developed ways to not only build great things but build them efficiently and reliably. We can quickly get in the weeds talking about how things are built (test-driven development, pair programming, decoupled architecture, software development life cycle), or what’s used to build them (message broker, data store, Xcode, Kotlin, noSQL), but nevermind all that. The important takeaway is that we are grateful to be able to stand on the shoulders of technology giants and produce things that are—essentially—magic.
And just like the construction and manufacturing industries that fuelled economic growth when mom and dad were growing up, it’s digital products that fuel today’s growth. Instead of steel, heavy machinery, concrete, and glass, our version of the Industrial Revolution involves software, mobile apps, websites, virtual and augmented reality and data. Unlike past economies, our products have the opportunity to benefit humanity faster, and at a larger scale than ever possible. Digital products can open borders, spread ideas, enable economic prosperity, entertain, and profoundly impact our daily lives.
While that’s a few too many words for mom and dad on a phone call, it boils down to this: Through hard work, we figure out people’s needs and our client’s goals, bring them alive with crazy and fun ideation, and get our digital products and experiences in people’s hands. And that is a pretty fun thing to tell the parents.
