SWE Consulting

Last year, I worked for the Northeastern University department, specifically the registrar. Their office needed help scheduling final exams. Six other full-stack engineers and I built a product called ExamEngine to automate this process.

This was a SWE consulting class - we were consultants. We approached it as real consultants - learning how to listen before building. We listened to their needs and struggles. The registrar, funny enough, was actually using a heavily manual coordination process to schedule our exams, which was insane. Not only that, they had a problem with exam conflicts. Students and instructors would have double bookings - two exams at the same time. Some students would have more than two exams in a day and even have back-to-back exams (less than a one-hour period in between).

After listening to their problems, we built ExamEngine, a website that automated this workflow. I specifically worked with a graph theory expert, Dr. Hescott, to create the algorithm that generated a conflict-free schedule. It took a lot of iterations on Google Colab, learning libraries like NetworkX and trying to optimize everything.

We finally developed an algorithm that produced zero conflicts in a five-day exam week, reducing conflicts from 200 to zero.

This experience was amazing. Working with people from different backgrounds - frontend, UI/UX, backend, and client liaisons - was eye-opening. SWE consulting is very rewarding; however, it forces you to use every skill you've learned throughout your lifetime.

Social skills, communication, development, explaining ideas, creativity - everything.

That's what makes SWE consulting so hard but so rewarding. You have two main criteria to fulfill: 1) the client's needs and 2) the software's functionality and scalability.

The biggest thing I learned about consulting is the importance of constant communication. Every single day, the first thing I would check was my Discord - check-ins with my teammates, daily stand-ups, and discussions about presentation requirements.

If you are thinking about starting a consulting agency, go for it. Just do your best to sharpen every skill in your toolkit.