What is IT Engineering?

One day, I was having coffee with my friend. In between two gossip sessions, she asked me a question: “ what is your job exactly? I never understood it. “

I simply answered her “I’m an IT Engineer”. She then looked at me and said “ah, you’re part of the people who are in the basement and who give mouses? Why did you complete 5 years of studies then?”. Needless to say I was at that moment very surprised, and shocked by her answer. But what surprised me even more is the thought that it was not the first time someone had a misconception about my work.

That’s when I got the idea to write an article to explain to people what is the real job of an IT engineer which is way more complex than just giving accessories.

Indeed, a lot of people assume that IT persons are the wizards in the basement of the enterprise who are behind a screen, just installing windows OS and making sure computers work smoothly. To an extent, they might be right, but there is much more to the vocation than just installing a firewall and updating the OS.

Understanding the different roles of an IT engineering

First, let’s start by differentiating the different roles of an IT engineer. IT engineers can specialize in either software development or hardware engineering. The former includes computer programming and smartphone applications, and the latter includes physical product design.

IT engineers are high-level IT personnel who design, install, and maintain a company’s information system (IS). They are responsible for selecting, configuring, troubleshooting high complexity bugs and securing hardware, software, and networking systems to meet the needs of the internal/external customer, also to respect the policy and the good practices to be totally ISO with certain safety standards. Long story short, our main mission is to sustain/support the evolution of the tech stack of the company.

Hardware computer engineering is the design, development, testing and production of physical computer systems, while a software computer engineer designs, develops and tests computer software applications. Those specializing in hardware computer engineering require a good understanding of how the physical parts of a computer fit together. Software computer engineers typically have expert knowledge of computer network operating and control systems to fix internal bugs, rather than physical issues.

Finally, these two IT profiles complement each other, allowing a company to have robust equipment and the proper tools, safely tested for users.”

Why are IT teams necessary in a company?

Whereas 50 years ago, human organizations relied on mechanical tools to achieve their work. Nowadays, IT tools are the medium by which we work. Think about what a work day would look like if you had no efficient computers, automatic process,phones,internet connection or tools to work on : you simply would not get very far! A Company without an efficient and secure Information system is like a car without tires.

Organizations hire IT engineers:

• To monitor and secure existing computer systems used by staff and stakeholders to share information, maintain data, and maximize work efficiency.
• Not only do IT engineers manage these IT systems, but they also plan and design new functions and programs, making employee’s lives easier by automating some processes for the business such as finance,people, design or marketing.
• They are the ones who provide users/employees with applications that will help them to work every day, by setting up a unique password for all your applications, by automatically managing your licenses, your accesses to different tools, by managing data, by giving the good access to right people (think about data leak ;) ) , by automating every process that could help employees to be more efficient at work.
• To maintain the Information system of the whole company by securing, designing, managing storages, resolving complex bugs, making IS high available, implementing automatic processes, connecting the whole infrastructure in an efficient way..

What are the unique qualities of an IT engineer?

An IT Engineer must be aware of every new technology on the market, and He/She has to learn, understand and deal with them. So even if you haven’t done specific studies, you need to have a mindset where you’re eager to learn. I think all IT engineers have one strength that other jobs may not have, is that we are all self-taught.

At school we are not learning how to solve bugs. We are learning the main fundamentals of computer science whether it is in security, network or development. And then the bug differs from one problem to another and this is where the genius of an IT engineer comes in. Sometimes he/she will have to play the role of a security engineer and a developer at the same time. This is versatility (so when we say that during an interview, yes we are not lying ;) )

What differentiates us from other functions? It is our way of thinking and our enthusiasm to find the right solutions with the tools we have in our hands (like a carpenter who has to deal with the pieces of wood he has left and the tools he has in his hands).

So, to summarize, the important thing to remember is that IT is a key element of a company’s growth. We work every day to provide each user with good tools to work and be more and more efficient at your daily job. Like marketing, finance or HR, our objective is to help the company evolve and run smoother.