Let’s start by defining software engineering. Software engineers, for the most part, focus more on the best processes and methodologies to employ in the production of high-quality software. That is, software engineers focus more on the application of techniques that ensure the successful completion of a high-quality product. Computer science, on the other hand, is more concern with theory and focus less on the implementation of best practices. For example, they are ones who perform research to develop programming languages or find solutions to algorithmic problems. Studying the different processes and methodologies are important mainly because of how software is produced in the industry.
The industrial production of software tends to follow a software process which ensures that the final product is maintainable, dependable and usable. Simultaneously satisfying these conditions can be difficult during to a host of results hence the need for software engineers. From choosing the right programming language and algorithms to considering group dynamic, availability of resources and satisfaction of customers are only a few issues software engineers must consider for each project.
In the industry software is developed in teams, hence group dynamic plays an important role. To ensure a smooth build, it is of utmost importance that all the developers have a similar understanding of what the project is about. Outside of a team, there is no need to wonder about the most efficient way to manage group dynamics.
Availability of resources is another problem that affects the development of software. Resources, in this case, may refer to processing speed, size of memory or even the budget allocated for the completion of the project just to t name a few. Issues like these, help to determine how suitable a solution may be for a given problem. Some have even argued that this is what helps to differentiate a software engineer for all the other related fields.
With that being said, engineers from all the other related fields can and in most cases perform the same duties as software engineers.
Probably the most differentiating thing between a software engineer and all the other related field is that they spend extensive among of time studying how to design programs that are more maintainable. In other words, software engineers develop systems that can easily change over time, which is important in today’s society considering the rate at which changes occur and the cost of developing new systems.
Finally, as noted before, software engineers apply best practices to develop the most suitable and efficient solution to a given problem. Computer science, on the other hand, is more focus on theory. At the end of the day, they are both important and better yet their role overlap a lot.

this article has been retrieved from https://medium.com/student-software-engineer/why-is-software-engineering-important-and-why-is-it-different-from-computer-science-262c0fa2933f