Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Developer Or Software Engineer? Can It Influence Your Work?
ctrahey writes "Many of us disregard the impact of our titles on various aspects of our lives, both professional and otherwise. Perhaps it's appropriate to ask two questions about the difference between a couple titles familiar to the Slashdot community: Developer vs Software Engineer. What are the factors to consider in the appropriate use of the titles? And (more interesting to me), what influence might the use of these titles have on the written code? Have you observed a difference in attitudes, priorities, or outlooks in talent as a corollary to their titles?"
Unless you have a degree in Software Engineering, it's both misleading and might be illegal to use the "Software Engineer" title in your country.
A programmer (developer?) writes code that hopefully works. A software engineer writes code that is designed to work.
I like to just say programmer.
Programmer.
Programmer.
Programmer.
I develop software and engineer it. I'd be unable to do either without the other.
Easy.... Use software engineer. It sounds richer so gets more babes ;)
Do you speak it?
I remember we discussed this in University. From what I remember, to be an engineer, you typically have to be registered in your country. To do so, you have to pass a test, including a piece on ethics. It makes sense - you want to make sure the guy you hire to build a bridge knows what he's doing and has the ethics to do it right. Therefore, I'm not sure calling yourself a software engineer is even legal in all countries.
Also makes me wonder, if bridge builders or aerospace engineers require an ethics test, shouldn't the guy who writes the software that guides the rocket also require a similar test?
I am looking forward to seeing how /. parses this question...I'm sure the answers will be beneficial.
As the for question itself, it is posed in a very superficial context. They use a lot of marketing buzzwords and quasi-coder jargon.
They also assume that everyone agrees that those two titles are the only two titles the people who write code have. I know of journalists, animators, artists, scientists and accountants who code **regularly** on a myriad of languages.
Coding is what is in question here. I *love* the idea of *finally* deciding on definitions for these terms across the industry. I do *not* think the context of the question is intellectually rigorous enough to provide that answer...good thought question though!
Thank you Dave Raggett
Software Engineer: can build a flexible, properly designed application architecture and has grown past the schooled "everything fits within some methodology X" phase (i.e. can think outside the box).
Developer: will usually be able to make something that works, and even write quite nice code when given good direction, but can create a mess when given a chance to be a cowboy coder.
Of course, many programmers are somewhere in the middle, usually leaning more towards "engineering" when the deadline is months away and "developing" when the deadline is days away.
Palm trees and 8
I was a "Senior Software Engineer" before I got a promotion, now I'm a "Lead Developer". Aside from providing guidance to other engineers I still do the same job. Personally, I wanted my new title to be "Mr. Manager" instead, but no one seemed to like that idea :(. Seriously, I've worked in states where it's illegal to give someone without an engineering degree the title "Engineer", but I've worked with engineers who didn't finish college and found them every bit as good (sometimes much better) than the ones who didn't.
It doesn't make sense that a software engineer would need a degree in computer science. They are two different domains.
Maybe software tends to be so buggy because it isn't always engineered to be reliable. It's cobbled together in the lab, and if it works in the lab, the assumption is that it will work in the field.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
It would only be illegal if there was a public certification. There is no legislative authority in college program accreditation, or in determining titles. As long as someone is not misrepresenting their resume, there is nothing illegal with any title. I could call an employee "King of England" if I wanted to.
I would argue that a Software Engineer's role encompasses that of a Developer, as they are generally can also be expected to handle design (high and low level), testing (functional, unit, system), along with the writing of code. A Developer tends to fit the image of the guy with the keyboard cranking out code - software engineering is so much more than that. In fact, it is estimated that a Software Engineer will only spend 20% of the time actually writing code - due to the other responsibilities.
"Software is the difference between hardware and reality"
Having been officially both a (senior) software developer and software engineer (at the same time) I prefer a different term entirely: Software Development Craftmaster (and the related Software Development Journey(wo)man and Software Development Apprentice).
I feel it more accurately reflects what I do. There are elements of engineering (in particular the discipline which takes years to develop) combined with high levels of creativity.
Just wish I could claim it legally, but there's no Software Development guild here.
Here in Canada, you have to be a licensed P.Eng to call yourself a software engineer. Even though I have an MSc from an EECS program, I would have to satisfy all the academic requirements of an undergrad engineer, work as a supervised engineer-in-training for between 2-4 years and pass a professional practice exam to qualify.
"Have you observed a difference in attitudes, priorities, or outlooks in talent as a corollary to their titles?"
No. We disregard them.
Whenever I hear the engineering school/degree types get up in arms over it, it just conjurers up all those "realtor" commercials. Developers and Engineers have exactly the same duties. The "lower tier" I would call a coder or programmer -- people who can implement the system, but who can't be trusted to properly design it, which is almost everyone these days, or so it feels like.
Women need to like the job of the guy they’re with. If they don’t like the job, they don’t like the guy. Men know this. Which is why we make up the phony, bogus names for the jobs that we have. “Well, right now, I’m the regional management supervisor. I’m in development, research, consulting...”
Men on the other hand – if they are physically attracted to a woman – are not that concerned with her job. Are we? Men don’t really care. Men’ll just go, “Really? Slaughterhouse? Is that where you work? That sounds interesting. So whaddaya got a big cleaver there? You’re just lopping their heads off? That sounds great! Listen, why don’t you shower up, and we’ll get some burgers and catch a movie.”
Are you licensed by the state? Does your profession have a code of conduct? Are there standardized tests for entering the profession? Is there an accepted body of knowledge?
Sadly, the answer is no to all of these. The person who cuts your hair has more certification than the person who writes pacemaker software.
From TFA in big fucking letters:
Metal Toad Media is a digital strategy agency.
So, what the fuck is a "digital strategy agency"?
Outside of the countries where "Software Engineer" actually has a legal meaning and requirements to claim it (while "Developer", "Programmer", or whatever doesn't), the difference is largely that one sounds better than the other. People like to use "Software Engineer" even if they're in fact nothing of the sort, due to the connotation that comes with it.
It's not hard to find people calling themselves Software Engineers that aren't doing anything resembling engineering, just like it's not hard to find people calling themselves Developers that are really doing software engineering. In the end if you're able to do the job well, nobody gives a damn what you're calling yourself.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
A (Chartered) Engineer is someone trusted by society and the law to get things right using state-of-the-art scientific knowledge. If their solution fails due to not using the "best practise" known at the time then the Engineer responsible is liable for a charge of professional negligence. Eg, A bridge collapses killing people, and it is found that the welding technique chosen by the engineer responsible for the design is outdated and known to be dangerous. That engineer faces a prison sentence for negligence.
The key difference is that an Engineer is held to be a professional, much like a Medical Doctor. They are trusted. Compare and contrast with, say, a Nurse, or a Mechanic. You would trust a mechanic to fix a car, but not to design a roadworthy model.
A professional is someone who is part of a legally recognized professional body which is responsible for setting the relevant standard of work, and who can kick out any member displaying incompetence. The Law generally requires one to hold a license from such a body in order to practise, and getting one always requires proving competencies to the body's requirements.
Ergo "IT Professional" is an oxymoron - there is no such thing. (apart from the Journal itself). Anyone can do IT, no license is required. In fact the only relevant body for setting such licensing standards would be the existing Electrical Engineering bodies.
Yes, the title "Engineer" is getting quite diffuse these days, as is the title "Doctor". But so long as the law makes a distinction, then common language will just have to bow before the law. Remember, ignorance of the law is usually not a valid defense. YMMV, it probably depends where you live, and what your Law says.
The whole issue is complicated by the fact that sales of software licenses have managed to sidestep the most basic consumer protection laws, such that "buyer beware" is the way things are. If a PC crashes, then who does the owner blame? Themselves, for not doing something correctly? The CPU vendor? The motherboard vendor? No, probably whoever they paid for the thing, most likely Dell, Apple or whichever shop they brought it from.
Shouldn't a certain number of crashes just be expected? Yes, BUT: Digital Computers allow for no entropy increase, therefore would be immune to the second law of thermodynamics. Except for physical damage, manufacturing tolerance, radiation damage, and operator error. (most notably, programmer error). Generally the first two are caught early, long before the final customer sees the device, and the third only really applies if the computer is going into space or is to be deployed near a strong radiation source.
The last is really a combination of the user and the programmer. The reason things are the way they are, is that preventing bugs before they surface is essentially impossible. And so computer engineers work down in the details - making only subsystems which they can test to their satisfaction. (eg, your car, your microwave oven, etc - how often do they "crash"? )
So, if you consider yourself a "software engineer", then you'd better be determined to use the most recent techniques, and only the best tools, and you'd better be prepared to take responsibility for any fault in your product... otherwise you're being fraudulent. If you're not prepared to put the effort in to use the very best techniques, then just call yourself a "developer" and be done with it.
Both places I've worked in my 11 years as a professional didn't really distinguish. I have a Computer Science and Engineering degree. I write and design software. I'm in the research and development arm (or the Engineering arm) of the company. It's several ways to say one thing.
Yes, some distinctions can be drawn, like whether you interface with customers, who does the architecture or design, etc., but in general the people I work with are all over the software life cycle, from beginning to end. We do development (of software) and the official job title has always had "Engineer" and sometimes "Development" or "Software" in it.
Terrorist, bomb, al Qaeda, nuclear, yellowcake, kill, assassinate. Carnivore is dead... long live Echelon.
In my opinion, those are just titles my friend and I see no reasons why we should ever consider them anything more.
"Sockets are the standard networking API, also useful for stopping your eyes from falling onto your cheeks" zeromq.org
Will they offer a license for Software Engineer? What state are you in?
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
You could just call yourself "wizard". Like 90% of the population treats either title differently than "wizard" anyway.
Whether I call myself a developer or software engineer will not affect my income. I'm old school (over 40) and I think that people building systems as long as I have tend not to care about titles. I'm not even sure there was a "software engineer" title when I started programming.
What I can say is that people that are coming out of college today calling themselves either tend to not have a clue what they are doing. (Of course there are exceptions, but the truly good people are hard to find.) And don't forget the recent title of "Software (or Data) Architect..." This idiots conceptualize a system, charge a ton of money, and have others build it. When it fails, they blame the developers and/or run to another job.
Then there are "Front End Developers," which are nothing more than a graphic/web designer that knows how to add some horribly written jQuery to a site and changed their name to developer in order to get paid more.
Essentially this whole debate is really about one huge issue: Large Companies are trying to turn the entire development process into something that can be done like an assembly line. They are chopping it up into little pieces so that anyone can perform the same monotonous task. The smaller your piece is, the more people that can focus on that specific area, the more people that can do it, the less you are worth. The less the companies pay, the happier they become. The more pieces there are, the more titles.
Unfortunately, (or fortunately if you really know what you are doing) the development process is not easy to break down into pieces. While certain pieces can be farmed out, the overall system will work best when one person knows how to build the system as a whole and can take the project from the requirements to a working application. (And companies rarely want to pay for these good people.)
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
If I had some plant that was failing at 3:15am and costing me a fortune, I know which I would prefer to have on site.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
What if you just ramble on about .Net and quibble over which IDE is better, all the while saying words like "Scrum" and "Agile"?
Sure you'll get a job, but you won't ever actually produce anything.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
a programmer will code to where it works. an engineer will code to where it works to its best performance(refactoring, algorithm analysis - big theta, etc). will come up with a mathematical solution to bottlenecks.
The salary difference reported by Modis (recruiters mostly working for bigcorps and venture-backed companies) may have more reflection on which job title is preferred by bigcorps (who often pay more) than anything else.
Here's how I've observed some terms used:
- Coder: a person who knows how to bang out some software code; often used disparragingly. cf "Code Monkey"
- Programmer: Any person who makes software for a living. Used mostly when speaking with non-technical people, because they immediately understand what it means.
- Developer: Neutral term for a person who makes software.
- Software Engineer: A developer who favors a heavily-planned approach to making software.
- Software Architect: Someone who designs applications or systems. May be "hands on" and themselves write significant parts of the application; or maybe more of a management role.
Most of the positions I've held had the official title of "Software Engineer" or "Senior Software Engineer". It implies a certain "rigor" relative to "Software Developer". That said, the implication is frequently extremely illusory. I've never done anything approaching "engineering" in these positions and often I'm not even that "senior" with respect to the technologies I'm working with. If you can write your own title, though, I'd go with "Software Engineer" if only because it sounds better and might get you more looks when applying for jobs in the future.
I am a developer when telling other developers what I do.
I am a Software Engineer when giving my role to other non-developers.
Realistically, the two are interchangeable, and snobbish people tend to use "Software Engineer" when talking with other developers (or when on interviews).
Software Development as an industry is not really in a place you can really have "Software Engineers", at least not in ways that any real company besides NASA would use them as engineers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because it pisses off the stick-up-their-ass Professional Engineers who think they own the word, which existed long before their little guilds got formed. The original engineers were military engineers. Next came the general meaning of the term, then the train drivers and the steam engine operators. The PEs are johnny come latelies from the 20th century -- and where Professional Engineering starts, innovation ends.
I believe the only state in the US which demands a P.E. from a Software Engineer is Texas. The utterly "reasonable" requirements? A C.S., engineering, or other degree accepted by their board, 16 years experience, references from 9 people including 5 P.E.s, and a bunch of other educational credentials. Screw that.
There is a reason people laugh and mock people who call themselves Software Engineers outside of the IT World. They are fluff titles. Even at its best, Computers Engineering is just a subset of Electrical Engineering focused on the designs of hardware from the CPU/GPU/DSP, etc., and their interaction with Software.
Whether it is Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Biomechanical [Applied ME with Biology], Civil, Structural, Materials Science Engineering disciplines are grounded in mutable laws of engineering extended from the laws of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, through all applicable languages of Mathematics Disciplines.
Bill Joy has long wished for Software Engineering to become factual by taking cues from Mechanical Engineering [though since he never has been a Mechanical Engineer I doubt he realizes how impractical that wish will ever be], due to the innate Art behind Computer Programming, Computer Architecture, Computer Software Design, etc.
In order for Software Engineering to be a recognized Engineering Discipline via ABET one would expect them to take Thermodynamics/Thermodynamic Systems, Dynamic Systems, Materials Science Engineering, Finite Element Analysis and more where one applies the various electives to writing Software applications to apply said disciplines--the exact reality all Engineering disciplines due for zero credit or recognition.
You want an Engineering Degree, then get one. You want a Computer Science degree and it's several specialties than get one. Stop pretending they are equivalent. None of my former CS majors ever compared our CS degree curriculum to my Mechanical Engineering curriculum. Mechanical Engineering is a very broad and deep curriculum now with several areas including Tribology, MEMS, Robotics [Applied Kinematics with EE/ME control systems], along with their many other tracks in Machine Design, Fracture Mechanics, Dynamic Systems, Heat Transfer Disciplines, etc].
Stop calling yourselves Software Engineers. You aren't designing solutions that adhere to Computer Science Laws. You are designing to Best Practices, Design Patterns, all centered around Semantics/Linguistics/Discrete mathematics, applied logic and other Art disciplines. Embrace the Art. Stop pawning yourselves off as Engineers.
The Engineer in Training Exam provided by every state in the United States is a comprehensive exam [8 hours] over your past 5 years that allows one to reduce the time it takes [under a Principle Engineer (Often mistaken as Professional Engineer)] to then qualify and apply to become a P.E., from 12 years under a P.E., licensed and bonded down to 4 years.
The lack of understanding the IT World has for the parent worlds of Engineering is staggering.
edit: Computers Engineering -> Computer Engineering. mutable laws -> immutable laws.
When building a bridge to take a 10 ton load, you better use 15 ton beams just in case one is under spec. When building a circuit to switch at 10 MHz, use components designed for 12 MHz just in case one is under spec. It's called "tolerances" and is the underpinning of all engineering, and is a great idea for those fields where once it is built the requirements generally stop changing.
Except in software engineering. Tolerances in software are called "fudge factors" or "heuristics", and they always result in unmaintainable spaghetti as requirements constantly change over time.
I use the term "Software Developer" for myself because I refuse to "engineer" software; i.e. build crap. My most recent contract involved fixing problems in embedded systems code written by an EE major. Total nightmare - no unit tests, no code comments to speak off, mysterious algorithms with no explanation as to where they came from, references to "see datasheet" for the component that was used three board revisions ago but not any more, and so on. The circuit? An absolutely beautiful example of balancing requirements and managing tolerances. But the code to run the circuit was rubbish that would get stamped "go back and do that again" by the code reviewers in any software development shop.
The ironic thing is that the term "Software Engineer" was coined to give developers the air of professionalism. Perhaps the engineers could learn something about professionalism from the developers instead? Like how to design a system that won't fail the minute the requirements change.
To me, a programmer is anyone who just sits down and bangs out code, with no concern for architecture, coding standards, best practices, etc...
A Software Engineer is someone who plans, designs, follows best practices, coding standards, etc... They care about error handing, usability, reliability, and maintainability.
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
I'm not one, but I think that software engineers use formalized approaches (Requirements Elicitation, etc.) to not only solve immediate problems, but also recursively improve those processes so that they're always benefitting from what they've done in the past, making them more responsive and nimble.
Also, and this is just something I've noticed: I see a lot of people identifying themselves as "Java developers" or "C++ developers" or giving some other specific language(s) in their title. I don't remember offhand any software engineer doing this. I would expect software engineers to be conversant in multiple languages and frameworks, and be comfortable in learning new ones (or even creating their own as needed), so that they can pick the right tool for the job at hand.
Get off my launchpad!
I'd like to be called Software Guru or Evangelist.
I remember at one job I had to call up HR once and ask them what my title was. But it did gradually dawn on me that you don't want to be a title step lower than people who are equally or less skilled than you are. It does affect how others see you in the company and ultimately may affect your salary and promotion prospects, although I don't believe my own career has been derailed much by not caring.
I have a degree in electronics. In the UK. Unfortunately it doesn't get professional status as things like law do. Nobody cares what institution you are affiliated to. I am more a software person now - C++ and maybe c#. I'd prefer microcode to x86 assembler. Java seems to be getting worse than VB6. I say I play with computers for a living, or just I write software.
It's a meaningless as "guru" or "architect" since it really has as little to do as engineering as building houses or running a cult.
I've had endless arguments here with "software engineers" that can't even grasp the high school level concept of polar co-ordinates (among other things expected of someone before they even enrol in a course), so whatever it is there is a million miles between it and any sort of engineering.
That's what I do. I wrote my first line of code in 1982 and I have the carpal tunnel to show it 30 years later. Now get the fuck off my lawn
No sooner do I get over one, then you put a better one right next to me. Bastards.
I tend to personally refer to myself as "programmer" or "software dev(eloper)", but it really depends on the employer. Some companies hire their devs as "programmer" or "programmer/analyst", some use "software developer" or even something like ".net developer", while others do use "software engineer". Some states do not allow the improper use of "engineer", while others do (my current one allows it, and my company refers to me as such). And then, there's also the can o' worms known as "software architect", which is high-falutin' synonym for "tech lead", IMO.
Thanks for all the feedback so far; I'm quite happy about the quality of this discussion. Avoiding for now the perhaps unavoidable consideration of legality, I'm interested in hearing about the influence the title decision might have on how the talent actually performs their work. To what degree does the choice influence the technical culture? How do the roles contrast when both are present on a team in cultural and technical terms where you work? If I'm being frank about the question, it goes like this: Will a young developer start to think about their work more robustly if I tell them that that we are grooming them for Software Engineering vs. Software Development?
...is Rock Star
is what I went with. Has a nice TLA.
In my area the jobs are looking for "software engineers" when they mean developers. To get past HR drones the resumes need to reflect this. They could call the role turbo monkey chicken designer and I would claim that title as well (provided I was qualified for it of course).
well IT sysadmin / network / desktop / work should be cut from 4 year degrees / CS and moved into apprenticeship / trade school like setting.
I'm a coder, I write code. Or call me a programmer, a developer, or software engineer (just don't call me Shirley)
They all mean the same thing. And no there is no "a programmer bangs out code, and a software engineer "designs" it first. They both do the same thing. A programmer writes code, which involves "engineering" it first. A software engineer also writes code, which involves "engineering" it first. There is no distinction, although some people like to think there is.
But really does it matter? If my boss wants to call me "master of the universe" then great, I still write code.
What it comes down to, when people ask what I do, I say "I am a programmer" or "I am a computer programmer." Pretty much everyone knows what that means. If I said 'I'm a developer' people thing I own land, and develop it. If I said "software engineer" people would think I drive trains or build bridges.
You write code, stop being so stuck up!
You don't need a degree to be a Railroad engineer
But you need to pass a test / get certified and re-certified every 2–3 years
and the career progression is one that starts as an assistant (brakeman), conductor and finally, engineer.
They are the same thing. Lot of job titles are software development engineer so that they get applicants who call themselves one or the other.
Better question is what constitutes a senior engineer...
"Software Design God" is my preferred title.
Table-ized A.I.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_AP3SGMxxM
Table-ized A.I.
> If programming was easy women and children would be doing it ;-)
It may not be easy, and women and children are doing it.
Nah, not developer. Not even software developer. Not senior software developer either. Not even lead software developer. Principal Software Developer? nah sounds too much like some boarding school in UK. What about Senior Lead Principal Software Yahoo. Nah, it is going bankrupt. What about Senior Lead Principal Chief Software Architect? May bet. This is what I am going to call myself. Please dont tell HR.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
> I could call an employee "King of England" if I wanted to.
This is your cue to comment.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I like to guide my flocks of 1's and 0's around, hoping I don't loose some in the process.
Sig?
As a coder who has largely done what I'll call "engineering", I think the word is misaligned in all its disciplines. Real "engineering" occurs (or should be occurring) in endeavors that require the efforts of multiple people to build things that no single person alone could practically build (yeah, don't engage me on where to draw THAT line...). Real engineers, IMHO, spend their best time making Effective Communication between practitioners in all the disciplines in order to build big stuff with "quality" and "reliability" (yeah, don't engage me on how to define THOSE words...)
So there.
Look online at the software engineer and developer job descriptions posted by respected companies.
Then pick the title where most of the descriptions generally match up well with what you are good at doing.
+1 if you make an algorithm that does the match ranking for you automatically and can demonstrate it during the interview.
I'm a year shy of old school (39) and always wondered where all the Engineer, Architect and Developer titles came from. I started as a hobby in the 80s and it was "coder" or "programmer." You were either a new one, a decent one, a good one or a great one, depending on how much of the lifecycle you could handle, and if you could work through the tough algorithms and so on.
I guess it was for business people to be able to categorize the skill of employees they knew absolutely nothing about. Since "coder" and "programmer" really didn't indicate any sort of skill level other than professional and amateur, fresh programmers latched on to the titles to nurture their egos.
Professional programmers noticed the noobs were calling themselves software engineers and whatnot and noticed that these new titles sounded more experienced than their simple "programmer," so they latched onto the naming convention.
I just made all that stuff up. Am I an opinion engineer or opinion developer?
If that is not your degree, but your responsibilities are the same as one with that degree, aren't you still an engineer? And what if you have a degree in Computer engineering? What if you have a Ph.D. in computer science and an undergraduate education in software engineering was covered in pursuit of your degree?
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One is a geek, the other is a nerd.
They're all dorks. Either can be dweebs.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
From TFA in big fucking letters:
Metal Toad Media is a digital strategy agency.
So, what the fuck is a "digital strategy agency"?
Consultants who are paid to write bullshit by the word.
That makes no sense. First of all, IT is simply not "paint by numbers", except at the most junior level. The surface of what IT undertakes to do is constantly expanding. Anyone with intermediate to senior responsibility in the field has to master a very broad corpus of knowledge concerning the performance, scalability, integration, fault-tolerance, security, and usability of hundreds of different subsystems interacting in complex ways.
This has to be done not only within the limitations of today's technology but in anticipation of what is likely to emerge in future. IT is therefore very much an applied science, just as software development is. The published literature in both fields makes this clear. You have to recognize what's possible, what's optimal, and what's elegant, because nobody will be telling you the right answers. You and your professional peers will be proposing solutions to the problems of the day, and finding ways of measuring them against each other. Only at the end of that process will you know the right answer. (This is called science, by the way.)
Some few of those solutions become standard practice that can be reduced to "paint by numbers" and taught at the trade school level. But one of the things that makes these fields so active is that, once such solutions are established, they tend to become automated and invisible. Attention shifts to a new set of challenges made possible by the preceding technology. So trade schools are fine as far as they go, but the knowledge they offer to someone working with computing and network infrastructure has a rather short shelf life. If you want enduring payback for your studies, you have to learn the science.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
"Unlike software, where usually the worst that happens is buggy software that needs fixing, faulty infrastructure can cost lives inmediately"
Are you out of your mind? Most machines and buildings made today are controlled substantially by software. Your car, your office building's CO2-sensor-based HVAC system, your hospital patient-monitoring and dosing equipment, your airplane, your traffic lights.... need I go on?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
It's more than just fees. Traditionaly being a Professional Engineer (and calling yourself an "Engineer") meant that you actually personally signed off on projects as being able to meet the stated goals. (Bridges, buildings, reactors, power stations, etc.)
Unless a "Software Engineer" is personally signing off on a software design and taking actual responsibility for bugs, I don't think they should be using the term "Engineer".
Incidentally I have degrees in Computer Science and Engineering Physics. I do software development for telecoms stuff, but I definitely wouldn't call what I do "Engineering".
I've worked professionally as a developer/software engineer/product architect/technical prime my entire professional career and I have no idea what the difference is supposed to be. The work has been more or less the same regardless of what the title is.
The one to be careful about is manager because that will usually involve having to babysit other people and if that's not your thing you'd do best to avoid it.
You don't need a degree to be a Railroad engineer
But you need to pass a test / get certified and re-certified every 2–3 years
and the career progression is one that starts as an assistant (brakeman), conductor and finally, engineer.
Railroad Engineer is a Conductor, not an Engineer.
I always assign myself my own title and enter in the company's Exchange Global Address list, the place this outfit stores titles for people. I make it "System Programmer", my favorite old school IT title, or if I'm feeling expansive, "Master of the Devices" or "Final Interpreter of the Dogma".
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
When various forms ask me for a job title, I pick completely randomly between "programmer", "software developer" and "software engineer", because they're all the same thing and I can't remember which one is the official name for the position. (I just checked, it's "software engineer". Now I'm going to forget again.)
Well, and sometimes to people who know what it means, I say "codemonkey", which to me is a slang but not at all derogatory term that means the same as the above three, except explicitly not being responsible for the actual design of any large systems, which is fine, as I don't really want to be responsible for the design of any large systems (smaller subsystems, though, sure. Everyone does that.) That is clearly not going on any official titles, though.
Anyway, Betteridge's, etc.
I came into this thinking "Uh oh, an article about job titles, HERE COME THE SNOBBY ENGINEERS!" and I was not disappointed.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Just a note, but Software Engineering has been around since the late '50s so unless you at or nearly 70 years old then there is little chance you were programing before the term existed, and certainly not professionally. Of course in the '60s and '70s professional software development more closely represented engineering than the cowboy coding hack jobs of today. Software Engineering still happens today, though not usually at the ever growing number of start ups, and even rarely in your average business application.
Is just a slightly more arrogant software developer.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.