Profile
Henry Duke
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About Me:
I live in south Somerset and I am a project lead software engineer in the Aerospace and Defence industry – I work on software to support planes and helicopters. Outside of work I train in aerial silks. I’m married with two children.
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My pronouns are:
he/him
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My Work:
As a software engineer, my job is to create applications and programmes that help make other peoples jobs easier, or that make computers do what they need to do. As a project lead, I manage a small team of software engineers working on a specific project.
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Read more
I work as a software engineer for a company called Boeing. Boeing build aeroplanes and helicopters for all sorts of uses, including passenger planes, cargo aircraft and radar planes.
As a software engineer, I build computer programmes and applications which help other people do their jobs. As project lead, I have to work with the people who will be using the software to understand their requirements, and the write an estimate of how much time and effort I think it will take to build it.
Once the customer is happy with the estimate and the proposed solution, the team will build the application. We have daily meetings to keep each other updated on progress and every two weeks we have a deeper look into how the project is going and I provide feedback to the customer. Part of the development process is to carefully review each other’s work, to ensure that bugs are not added to the system.
Finally, when the application is ready, we release it to the customer and I work with them to make sure they are happy with the result.
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My Typical Day:
I’m generally awake around 6am, have breakfast and get some work done before the children wake up. I get to the office for around 9:30 and spend an hour or so in meetings before getting back to writing software. I usually go for a walk at lunch time to stretch my legs and get some fresh air, then its back to the computer until about 3:30 when I head home.
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My Interview
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What did you want to be after you left school?
I had no idea
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Rarely
Who is your favourite singer or band?
I really like 80s rock and 90s dance music
What's your favourite food?
My wife's BBQ chicken pasta bake
Tell us a joke.
How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? None - that is a hardware issue.
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