this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
47 points (89.8% liked)

Programming

17483 readers
199 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Rules

  • Follow the programming.dev instance rules
  • Keep content related to programming in some way
  • If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities [email protected]

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
snowe
Ategon
[email protected]
47
Software Engineer vs Software Developer (self.programming)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by fogetaboutit to c/programming
62 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

In your opinion what's the difference between the two? In my opinion both terms are frequently used interchangeably in the workplace.

But I'd like to consider myself as an engineer, because although I don't consider myself to be good at it, I think I cares about the software that I worked on, its interaction with other services, the big picture, and different kinds of small optimizations.

I mean, what is even engineering?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] lysdexic 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Poorly defined nomenclature. Simple as that. I’m an “automation engineer”, have had many other titles (...)

Anyone can call themselves what they feel like it. However, in some jurisdictions and contexts the title "engineer" does have a specific meaning, consisting of someone who not only has the necessary and sufficient training but also is a member of a specific professional body. These credentials have meaning and those who try to pass themselves off as one without having the certification or credentials might be breaking laws.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

100%, but my understanding is that most often applies to fields of engineering outside of computer science like mechanical, chemical, structural engineering etc. But there are licensing bodies for achieving Professional Engineer of FE in some cases for CS.

I am not a lawyer but I presume most laws apply to claims of such certifications rather than job titles. In either case most people don’t pick their own job titles. Just don’t put PE, after your name, same as you should not just randomly throw BSN or MD unless you have a registered licensure.