Software development is like life. The schedule keeps changing, nothing is set in stone. Requirements changes according to changes in the environment, just like marriage in these modern days.

Software development in the financial industry is even more challenging in a sense. The products are perceived to be highly reliable, because they dealt with money. One of my collegues used to say: if you write the firmware that runs on a router, and if it has bugs that cause you to lose one email, no one really cares. If a financial switch loses one transaction, even if that transaction is only a dollar, a cent, whatever minimal amount that you can think of, EVERYONE cares. It is a big thing.

And here I am today, working in the software engineering side in the financial industry. Sometimes we spent a lot of time to make sure something has to be done right, even if the chances of the bug recurring is minimal. Because in this industry, it is reliability that counts. If you can’t have it perfect, then you better know the cost of damage if the bug does reveal itself. It is like making decisions in every junction of our lives, if you better know the cost if things do not turn out right.