Computers

Software engineering is a very broad profession with many different types of work you can do, each with their own opportunities and challenges, but have you ever wondered what those opportunities are? Perhaps you’ve feel your work isn’t challenging you enough, or your not motivated but what you do.

A picture of a woman working writing code.

Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash

In this article, I want to take you though some of the different places software engineering can take you, and what the opportunities, challenges and rewards are for each of them. Hopefully by the end you will be more equipped to understand the challenges and opportunities available to you and how you can shape your career choices around what excites you.

Front End & Back End?

You’re probably familiar with the split into “frontend” and “backend” engineering, you’ve possibly seen somebody exclusivity describe themselves as a frontend / backend engineer.

Separations like this are a good start, and we tend to think we have a pretty good handle on what they mean, but I don’t think they tell the whole storey. This separation makes the assumption that each of these categories is a fundamentally different role. However, the core challenge and activities in all of these roles is the same; you’re using your creative human brain to find solutions to problems and convert those solutions into code.

Or as a former manager of mine put it…

A post-it note reading "Design spec = Use C# to build epic s**t (secure, scalable, blah, blah...profit!)"

The biggest difference between front and back end development sits in two areas: The tools used to do your job and the problems you will be solving. Let’s dig into each of those a little deeper to see how they can effect the work you do.

Tools

No matter what you do, you probably use some kind tools, and those tools will be highly specialised to the task you are doing. For a mechanic these tools may looks like wrenches, screwdrivers or diagnostic devices. But for a software engineer these are more like the programming language, operating system, development frameworks and even development methodologies.

But here’s the thing: You are not your tools.

These tools exist to help you get your job done and may be different depending on what that job is. You shouldn’t allow yourself to become limited or defined by the tools you use. You chose them, you learned how to use them, but they are but an artefact of the problem you are solving not the definition of what you do.

The Problems Being Solved

The other difference is the actual problems you are trying to solve – the challenges you are facing on a daily basis. I’ve heard a lot of engineers over the years talk about how they don’t feel like their project is providing them with “real challenges”.

A image of a man and a woman working together on a computer

Photo by heylagostechie on Unsplash

For developers who work on the front end, this can often sound something like “all I do is call and API and render it on the screen; I don’t do any ‘real engineering’”. Whereas on the other side it can sound like “All I do is manipulate data and pass it to the UI; I’m too far from the real code that the user sees”.

Often when feeling this way, there is challenge available to them – but it’s not challenge that excites them, it’s not work that motivates them to get out of bed in the morning and go to work.

If this sounds sounds like you, perhaps you too are not solving challenges that motivate you. Understanding what challenges are available in different roles and knowing which ones inspire you most will empower you to make the right next move in your career (weather that be a new job, or a discussion with your manager to ask for different activities).

The Challenge Spectrum

So, it seems that a traditional frontend vs backend definition is not enough to articulate the different choices you can make to position yourself in a place to solve exciting problems and do your best work. Instead, I want to introduce you to the Challenge Spectrum.

The Challenge Spectrum spans from data & platform challenges to human & interaction challenges, taking in all possible roles you can occupy along the way, all of them as just important as the others. At several points along the spectrum, Ive annotated some example challenges you may face at that location.

Like a lot of people, I’ve found that my TV viewing habits have moved away from broadcast TV and towards streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. I decided it was time to have a cold hard look at how much I was spending on my TV subscription and take the brave first step to becoming a cord cutter – I phoned my Inernet Service Provider and cancelled.

My ISP sent me a fantastically designed self-assembly box in the post to mail the set top box back to them. As I packed it away, I thought that I wanted to still have access to live TV – just without being tied down in an expensive contract. I considered a few Freeview (a free DVB-T service in the UK) boxes, but it would be much more fun to build something myself. So that’s what I did.

For my TV, I wanted the following features:

Watch live TV
Watch a live broadcast while recoding another (or record two at once)
Schedule recurring recordings for all episodes in a series
Stream Recordings to an iPad on the same network

Hardware

For the hardware of my TV recorder, I used a 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 – this should be powerful enough to handle recording and playback of video files. Its super small and easily connects to my hifi using HDMI. During early testing, the Raspberry Pi got extremely hot, and while I never observed any stability issues or slowdowns, I installed a passive heat sink on it to help out.

To actually tune to the broadcast, I used a Hauppauge WinTV-dual HD TV tuner connected with a small USB cable. This includes two DVT-T and two DVB-C tuners in a convenient stick form factor. In the box with the tuner, there was a small antenna to use when you’re on the go. I left this in the box and plugged the tuner directly into my roof antenna to get a better signal.

Also included with the WinTV stick was a credit card sized infrared remote control to use with the included WinTV software. As I already had a Logitech Harmony setup, I chose not to add an IR receiver to the Pi – instead I set up the Raspberry Pi as if it were a Windows machine in the Harmony app and connected to it using Bluetooth. This works really well – when I switch to the TV, the Harmony connects as a Bluetooth keyboard and I have full remote control (including text input).

Rather than buying a very expensive SD card to store all the recordings, I wanted to use an external hard drive. As performance was not a massive issue, an SSD was not needed and I already had a spare 500GB mechanical drive spare. I bought an Amazon Basics Hard Drive enclosure and connected this via USB to the Pi. This was problematic though, as both the Raspberry Pi and the external hard drive are quite power hungry and exceeded the total power draw of the power supply. This caused the device to struggle to boot up with the hard drive ticking and the Pi logging a lot of low voltage errors.

To fix this, I added a powered 7 port USB hub, that can supply enough power for the hard drive. I power the Raspberry Pi off this, too, so the whole system only has one power connection in the wall.

Finally, I took this whole arrangement and tied it together as one unit using zip ties. It is currently hidden out of sight behind the TV. Going forwards, I want to build this into a more attractive case. I considered 3D printing something, but it is too large for my print volume, so I’m currently on the lookout for a broken set top box that I can remove the innards and replace with this device. I haven’t found anything that meets my needs yet, but I do have a broken original Xbox in the garage that is a tempting idea.

Software

With the hardware built, it was time to move on to the software. For this project there was no need to custom write anything, as there are already some excellent open source projects in the community.

For the management of the TV side of the device – responsible for tuning to live TV and scheduling & playing recordings – I used Tvheadend. Tvheadend can be installed on any device on the network, as it is controled though a simple API and supplies the live TV or recoding as a video steam. In my case, I installed it on the same Raspberry Pi that I connected to the TV, and accessed it though localhost.

The advantage of Tvheadend working in this way is that you can also make use of the iPad app to stream both live TV and recordings. I use this so I can watch recordings in the kitchen while cooking – which is probably my favorite feature.

As a front end for the system I used Kodi – installed via the LibreELEC Raspberry Pi image.

Previously known as Xbox Media Centre, due to its heritage running on original Xboxs, Kodi provides a friendly and easy to use TV sized interface. From the addon repository, I added the Tvheadend plugin that lets me control the Tvheadend service though Kodi.

Review

Building your own TV recorder this way is not for the faint hearted. While it seems like a simple job of putting all of the pieces together and pressing the power button, it has involved some in-depth configuration and an awful lot of deeply frustrating troubleshooting. Here’s a rundown of some of the headaches along the way:

Tvheadend has a lot of options – Setting up authentication can be a little confusing, as can the DVR configuration. While it does have documentation, I frequently found it to be stale – referring to buttons or options that had moved or no longer available. Often figuring something out can involve some searching and reading forums.
The sound kept breaking – I’d boot up and watch a TV show, no problem – then I’d come back later and there would be no sound until I rebooted. Eventually I tracked this down to a configuration option on the Raspbery Pi, where it does not output a HDMI signal until it detects a connected device. I changed this to force output even if no device is connected (or it is off) and I’ve had no issues since.
The TV kept turning itself on for no reason – I’d be minding my own business, and the TV would turn on all by itself. To resolve this, I disabled the HDMI CEC plugin for Kodi.

Sometimes there would be artifacts at the top of the screen – Some TV shows had a black line at the top of the screen that flickers during playback. I think this is related to how subtitles are encoded on SD TV and subtitles, but to resolve the irritation for me, I set a 1 pixel overscan on the picture so I couldn’t see it.
Live pause doesn’t work – Or more specifically, after pausing when you press play again, playback fails and you have to restart playback. I’m still investigating this; I’ll update ether article if I find a fix.
Tvheadend doesn’t always start on bootup – I ran into a lot of issues where Tvheadend would not boot properly and no TV sources woud be available. I resolved this by adding a delay in the Kodi config before it attempts to start the Tvheadend service – this allows everything to get ready first.

Wrap Up

Generally, I’m pretty happy with my TV recorder – with the streaming options and the apps, it provides features that are only available on much more expensive subscription services. Tinkering with the settings to get it to work, while a little frustrating, provided a few evenings of entertainment during lockdown (although when you sit down to watch a movie and end up fiddling with your config for an hour instead, “entertainment” may be a generous description).

I already had some of the parts available to make this, but if you were to buy everything needed from scratch, this isn’t a cheap way of getting a TV setup – you can get pre-made set top boxes for less. But they don’t have as many features and where is the fun in just plugging it in and watching TV?

Feedback

I hope my little writeup of how I made my TV recorder was interesting, if you have any feedback or have tried something similar, drop me a comment or a tweet on Twitter.

Andy Bradford

Finding Your Happy Place: Demystifying the Challenges in Frontend and Backend Development and How You Fit In