Abstract
My technical work and STS research are connected primarily through the idea of data, and investigating its implications in the engineering field. Data has become essential in today’s society, and dealing with the data is central to both my technical project and research paper. However, the two works differ in how they explore the implications of data. My technical project focuses on demonstrating the usefulness of data by utilizing it to develop a new product, whereas my STS research focuses on how to make data more secure for an IT company. Therefore, the overarching theme of data remains consistent across both my technical work and my STS research but approaches it from different perspectives.
The technical report focuses on my internship project, which involved developing software that would be used to gather more drivers within an area by using various data. The project involved several steps, such as writing an engineering document to get the project reviewed by peers, implementing the code, and testing the code to ensure its functionality. While working on the project, important computer science concepts were used, including object-oriented programming and agile software development process. Collaboration with other people and teams was also essential throughout the process since it was a cross-team project requiring different tools owned by other teams. The main algorithm for the project utilizes data to improve the model’s accuracy. Ultimately, this project seeks to increase the pool of available drivers in anticipation of potential driver shortages during high-demand periods.
My STS project also focuses on data, but from a different perspective. My research analyzes factors that contributed to Facebook’s 2021 data breach incident. The STS framework of Actor Network Theory is employed to find a more comprehensive explanation for the incident by identifying the different actors involved in the incident. My claim is that the main cause of the incident is the failure of the network that Facebook has built. The research analyzes three crucial actors within the network: the leadership of Facebook, the company’s security engineers, and its users, claiming that each actor failed to execute their roles within the network. The paper explores this idea, utilizing evidence to demonstrate how these actors failed within the network, highlighting the importance of having a strong network with well-functioning actors. The ultimate goal of my research is to suggest a way to enhance data security within IT companies to prevent these incidents from occurring in the future.
Completing both projects has enriched my understanding of essential factors in software engineering. Through the technical project, I have gained valuable experience as a software engineer working on a project with diverse data sets, leading me to realize how frequently data is used within a company and contemplate the importance of data security, influencing me to investigate this topic further in my STS research. Similarly, the STS research helped me realize the importance of a strong network that is formed by various actors in an IT company, leading me to be more mindful and careful of my engineering projects as a future professional software engineer in the industry. In summary, my work on both the technical project and STS research has deepened my understanding of data in engineering and provided me with strategies to approach complex technical projects more securely in the future.
