A lot of people don't understand why websites and digital platforms crash when they have a lot of traffic. It contests the notion that because software engineering is an exact science once the operation yields the correct result, that result should remain consistent regardless of the number of requests coming in. Let's simplify it with a different scenario. Say you have a responsibility of input the biodata and test scores of 10 students into an excel sheet, sounds easy yes? I'm certain it will be done without errors. Now let's assume you have to repeat that same task for 10,000 students, you'll start feeling a sense of apprehension and that simple task might become difficult due to volume. You will find that after a while, the more students you attend to the more likely you are to make mistakes.
It seems somewhat poetic that the creation is doomed to inherit the flaws of their creator but this is the same trend with machines. To combat this, software engineers spend time improving the quality of their backend code, the capacity of their cloud computing services, and beefing up the security of digital platforms (because some malignant clients intentionally bring down software infrastructures). Because hackers are getting smarter as they continue to exploit weaknesses in technology and we have more people gaining access to the internet on a daily basis the work of a software engineer is never done. The process of growing a digital platform's ability to handle surge in traffic is quite expensive as such the first job of a software engineer in this scenario is to do a threat assessment. A small scale business that isn't running an e-commerce website and simply needs a website to serve as a digital front for the organization doesn't need to invest in cloud computing to handle surges neither do they need to invest in beefing up security beyond the usual because these small platforms are not targets or likely to attract a surge of traffic.
A governmental organization, e-commerce company or corporate giant on the other hand has to invest in all the above in a bid to protect the public interest of the people and the private interest of the entity. Organizations that handle data or collect data and store them are usually targets of hackers or hacktivists, cybersecurity is more of a preventative measure than a cure. No digital platform is impregnable, some are just harder to crack than others. It is as a result of this that even platforms as huge and reliable as Google can become unresponsive in certain cases. A software engineer is a lifelong learner, this helps the engineer to always remain a step ahead and provide immense value to organizations.