It's a job for lovers of maths and problems

It's oh, so quiet in the open plan office. Hidden behind the five-foot high dividing screens, young people are sitting in their separate units, expertly moving their mice over and back. It's all very mysterious. Are they lost in cyber-space? Drugged? Having a spiritual experience?

No. These are software engineers, absorbed in what they're doing. They are analysing problems, dealing in images, numbers and codes, using a language that is international, and using the left-hand side of their brain. It's all about the challenge of solving electronic riddles.

Anne Kinsella sits at her PC, teasing and testing the latest Iona product in development. Iona Technologies is situated in a large complex of offices on Shelbourne Road in Ballsbridge, Dublin.

"There's huge scope here," she says. "There are 350 people here. They also have officers in Australia, in the US and you'd have a small amount of exchange between different offices. There's plenty to do."

Kinsella explains that she works at a computer "pretty much most of the day." It's a job for lovers of maths. It's for those who want to use their powers of deduction and reasoning. It has an addictive allure for anyone who loves to analyse, organise and handle problems in a world that operates on an electronic plane.

"The technologies you're working with do tend to change a lot," she says. "It means that you get quite a bit of variety. And you're being challenged all the time.

"At the moment I'm doing testing. You're pretty much writing code, testing it, working as part of a team. Most of your time is spent at the PC.

"I'm still learning. There are tons of languages. Ten years ago the C++ language wasn't really used. It's really only in the past five or six years that C++ has come in and Java is the latest."

C++, Kinsella explains, is a whole different way of thinking compared to C. "C++ would be based on the whole idea of object-oriented programming, whereas the C programme was procedural-based. So the whole way of thinking about a prolem is going to be quite different.

Maths was her favourite subject at school. After completing the Leaving Cert at Scoil Carmel, an all-girls school in Limerick city, she went on to the University of Limerick to study electronic engineering, a four-year degree programme. By third year she had decided to take the computer engineering option.

She graduated in 1992 with an honours degree. At graduation, she recalls, there were seven girls among the 130 electronic engineering graduates.

During her time at UL, Kinsella spent two terms working in Amdahl in Swords, Co Dublin, as part of her work experience. "We were testing main frames." Then, "after college I started a masters in computer software." She graduated with an M Eng in 1996.

Her first job was with Irish Medical Systems, based in Glenageary, Co Dublin, where she was involved in a research project funded by the EU, which developed systems for use mainly in hospitals. She worked for three years here.

She moved to Iona Technologies a year ago - "to get access to new languages, new systems, new people. You can see that there's huge movement going on in Ireland. There are so many software companies here. There's huge opportunity for people to move about. There's always that scope to move.

"At the moment people are just moving around within the industry. There's a shortage of people at the moment, there is so much going on."

In Iona, she says, there is great diversity. "We're in development. We're working on the next new release of product."

In the software business, you have to be willing to learn new skills, languages. "You have to be fairly flexible and like problem-solving. If you're debugging a programme, you have to be sort of analytical, taking each problem step by step. It's very satisfying - if you come up against a problem, you go and solve it."

There won't be much contact with other people, she explains, "if you're in pure development." But, she adds, there are plenty of areas within the industry for people who want to have interaction with their colleagues.

"I enjoy my work. There'll be days that will be mundane when I'm doing repetitive tasks but there's always the feeling that there's so much opportunity out there and that there's a lot you can get involved in."