What is better? Software Engineering or UI/UX Engineering?

Adeesha Ashinshana Mahalekam
3 min readMay 10, 2021

Do you trouble with how to choose one of these?’ This is not an easy question, but it’s not hard too. Because it depends on you. Why’s that?

Let’s see! 😃

What are the main things that you have to follow in these two areas?
As a software engineer, you must have to improve,

  • Creative problem-solving skills
  • Good understanding of OOP concepts
  • Knowledge of algorithms and data structures
  • Troubleshooting software issues and debugging a large codebase
  • Investigating and using new technologies where relevant
  • Improving system quality by identifying issues and common patterns, and developing standard operating procedures
  • Converting the visual diagrams onto the programming codes.

As a UI/UX engineer, you must have,

  • Good knowledge of UI/UX design principles
  • Plan and implement creative new designs
  • Optimize existing user interface designs
  • Create prototypes for new product ideas
  • Some coding knowledge with frontend designing
  • Some knowledge of Usability Factors in Human Computer Interaction
  • Investigating and using new technologies where relevant.

The common skills for both software engineering and UI/UX engineering are problem-solving and adapt to the latest technologies. If you’re more of a “visual creative person” and wish to solve visual problems try Ux. Software engineering is more about fixing and debugging than it’s about creating. It doesn’t mean software engineers don’t create, just that debugging is the heart of software engineering and you gotta love it.😉

The industry needs lots of software engineers for a couple of Ux/UI engineers. The transition from programming to Ux is relatively easy. Because most software engineers have at least basic knowledge about the implementation of the UI/UX part. Every software engineer doesn’t have visual creativity and every UI/UX engineer doesn’t have deep knowledge about programming also. Only a few people have that both talent and they can survive in the industry definitely.

The above statement doesn’t mean that UI/UX engineering is very easy. Because you must have an understanding of main concepts and fundamentals, and good practices in UI/UX engineering as well as software engineering. But all of these sounds like ‘too much theory’ to you, and all you are looking for is how to get into Tech, there are no more options! So you should have improved at least one skill (But nowadays it’s very hard to survive with only one field skill because there is a huge competition in the job market and most of the time the multi-talented persons can survive!) with tech field.

From my experience, there is no best field between these two areas. You still need to explore the fields before you decide to select or reject anyone of them. Because in the beginning, you may have no ideas about your potential or your skills. So with practice, you can improve your skills.

Stop worrying about what is the best, explore these areas on your own to identify what you are looking for.😉 Then start practice and seek knowledge to improve your potential and skills. It will automatically walk you to the path which suits you most.

Good luck! 😊

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Adeesha Ashinshana Mahalekam

Undergraduate (University of Sri Jayewardenepura) , Trainee Software Engineer (99x)