A day in the life of a software engineer

By: Amy Boyington, Edited by: Valerie Black

Published: September 8, 2025

Have you ever wondered, "What does a software engineer do?" as you explore potential career options? We spoke with Valerie Aguilar, a senior software engineer at Motive, to learn more about software engineering, typical duties and necessary skills, and paths for career progression.

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Meet Valerie Aguilar

Valerie Aguilar is a lead software engineer at Motive and co-chair of the Latinx ERG at Motive, Adelante. She has over 15 years of experience in various engineering roles. She's also a mental health advocate and member of NAMI SF.

Insights from a software engineer

A software engineer's day varies, depending on a person's company, the products they use, and their team structure. For example, some roles lean heavily on hands-on coding and product development. Others might be more behind-the-scenes, prioritizing product testing or team development and mentorship.

Still, all software engineers must balance collaboration, ongoing planning, and technical problem-solving. As a senior software engineer, Aguilar blends these components into her daily schedule.

Aguilar's mornings usually start with team status meetings, sometimes with frontend, backend, mobile, and QA engineers, sometimes with smaller, focused groups. She also carves out time for one-on-one meetings with other team engineers.

"Sixty to seventy percent of my day is meetings," she notes, adding that meetings are necessary for Agile planning, which allows her to stay steps ahead on timelines and quality checks.

Other key activities comprise the rest of Aguilar's day, many of which fall into one of three areas:

• Incident response and performance tuning, which involve technical debugging, handling customer issues, and creating long-term prevention solutions.
• Data platform and architecture, through which Aguilar designs and maintains microservices that keep data pipelines scalable, reliable, and high-performing.
• Team leadership and mentorship, in which Aguilar offers constructive feedback and professional development opportunities to her team.

For Aguilar, it's the latter responsibility that's most rewarding.

"If my team can navigate a complex issue in my absence, then I feel like I have done my job well," she says, adding that helping women in the field is especially fulfilling. "As someone who has struggled with imposter syndrome, I understand how challenging the industry can be and really strive to lend a hand to those working their way up the way I did."

Getting into software engineering

Aguilar was inspired to become a software engineer after taking a programming class in high school.

"The idea that I could build something, almost anything, by writing code was so exciting to me," she explains. She pursued a management information systems degree and entered the field as a full-stack engineer, although she eventually found she was more interested in backend work.

A college education can build a strong foundation in programming, systems, and problem-solving, which helped Aguilar launch her career. Still, there are other ways into the field, such as online courses and certificates. These pathways can prepare you for entry-level work and usually require a smaller investment of time and money than a degree, although you may need additional education to enter more advanced roles.

If a leadership position is on your radar, developing the following key skills could boost your success, says Aguilar:

• Strategic communication and alignment: "A lead engineer acts as a bridge between the technical team and the business," says Aguilar. Clear communication is key to explaining technical concepts to stakeholders, aligning management and team members, and keeping projects on track.
• Mentorship and coaching: According to Aguilar, a team's success depends on the success and effectiveness of its leadership. A strong lead actively works toward growing and developing their engineers through constructive feedback, open communication, and consistent teaching and mentorship.
• Technical leadership and vision: Leaders need "the deep technical acumen to make sound architectural decisions and the foresight to see how those choices will impact the system in the long term," says Aguilar. Knowing how to identify and manage technical debt and define a project's technical direction are critical to the team's ability to solve complex problems.

Building these skills takes time, but Aguilar emphasizes that software engineer growth also depends on supportive management.

"If your manager isn't having conversations with you about your career growth or areas for development, it can be challenging to grow, whether you are putting the work in or not," she explains. "Make sure you have someone who supports you."

Software engineers should also become used to adapting as they grow their careers. "What got me here won't get me there" is a mantra Aguilar has had to remind herself of.

"I've had to work really hard to let go of some work and trust my team to take on those responsibilities and learn on their own," says Aguilar. "That frees me up to hone the skills I need at the next level."

Navigating the future of software engineering

The technology industry is always evolving. Changes are necessary to keep technology fresh and adaptable. But as an aspiring software engineer, you might wonder what the future holds for the industry, especially as artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent.

"I see it as a constant evolution," says Aguilar of AI and other emerging technologies. "Engineers will have to adapt and learn to use [this tech] to their advantage."

However, Aguilar does admit that coding skills may become less important as AI develops, but this change could pave the way for engineers with specialized skills, such as in architecture or systems design, to find success.

Staying ahead of industry changes also requires constant education and professional development. Aguilar says that her company offers labs and courses to train engineers on new technologies and encourages them to experiment and explore ideas. She also researches concepts relating to projects she's working on and listens to industry podcasts for continued learning.

As you progress as a software engineer, you might need to choose between one of two paths, which can affect how and what you learn. Some engineers become individual contributors with deep technical expertise who work toward senior or staff-level roles where they become subject matter experts. The people management path emphasizes leadership, strategy, and team development over day-to-day coding.

"A lot of the skills I mentioned are relevant to both, but it comes down to whether you want to stay technical or move toward leading and managing teams," says Aguilar. "I've seen many engineers switch between the two late in their careers, so it's a commitment, but there's always room to try one and switch if you don't like it."