The software engineering programme, designed and led by Prof. Inmaculada Arnedillo-Sánchez, connects student teams with industry mentors to deliver real-world software projects over a 12-week agile lifecycle. It offers students a genuine insight into modern software delivery, with guidance from experienced mentors throughout.

A total of 11 teams competed in the final. Reaching this stage was an achievement in itself, with 37 teams and over 310 students initially participating, supported by 25 industry partners.

One of our alumni mentors, Ciarán Coady from Microsoft, provided an interesting insight from this year’s SwEng.

"Every year there are different aspects of the program that stand out to me, this year it was certainly the impact of AI. It has been interesting to see how it has impacted the timeline of project development, from initial briefing to MVP, to polished project. That initial MVP stage certainly gets a boost, but the real differentiator I think comes later, as teams pivot, refine and continue developing. The most effective teams showed how they leveraged that fast feedback loop to quickly validate ideas and progress forward, but crucially they used that new found time to focus on more intricate parts of the work they may not have reached in such a short time period. This mindset has always been baked into the SwEng program so it has been interesting to see how new capabilities, tooling and changes in our technologies builds on these same principles again and again”

The Showcase

The afternoon saw a lively, buzz-filled room of students dressed in team-coloured T-shirts now a hallmark of SwEng Day. They engaged with industry guests, fellow students, and staff from SCSS while showcasing their work. Each team was allocated a 10-minute slot to present their work to an industry panel.

Prof Gregory O’Hare, Head of School, noted that many of the industry mentors are alumni of the School who have previously gone through the programme so are themselves a testament to the programs lasting impact and value. He thanked our five-person industry judging panel Ross Mayne, Barbara Hughes, Brenda Mannion, Marco Vicente, and Hugh Reynolds who had the unenviable task of selecting the winners from such a strong field.

Thanks was also extended to all of our industry partners, mentors, and sponsors - Munich RE Automation, Toast, Microsoft and SCSS for their continued support.

Congratulations to the winning teams:

🥇 Group 5 mentored by IBM awarded €2500 by Munich Re Automation Solutions for 1st prize.

🥈 Group 30 mentored by Microsoft awarded €1600 by Toast for runners up prize.

✔️ Group 31 mentored by Nualang awarded €1200 by Microsoft for winning the Public Vote.

♻️ Group 24 mentored by Guidewire Software awarded €1200 by the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin for winning the Sustainability Award.

An incredible showcase of talent, innovation, and teamwork  - well done to everyone involved.