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- If you do primarily do work that involves making decisions about data structures and algorithms, then you might be an engineer. - If you primarily do the wor
by Alex3917 10y ago
- If you do primarily do work that involves making decisions about data structures and algorithms, then you might be an engineer.
- If you primarily do the work of figuring out how to make business processes scale using software (and then implementing those ideas) then you might be a developer.
- If you primarily implement tickets then you might be a programmer or coder.
The idea of calling everyone who writes software an engineer is ridiculous, but so is the idea of saying that no one who writes software is an engineer.
- gspetr 10y agoFollowing this logic, anyone who manages engineers is a developer.
- Alex3917 10y agoI added a parenthetical to clarify. But to play devil's advocate, it's hard to argue that PMs and managers aren't 'developing' software, at least in the plain English sense of the word. (Although clearly you need to draw the line somewhere.)
- VLM 10y agoInterestingly that terminology fits in the building trades and we can only dream of making large scale software projects as predictable and reliable and human safe as large skyscrapers. That is a truly excellent analogy.
- eru 10y agoCost overruns are sadly all too common in construction---especially for anything that goes on below ground. That's where all the surprises are. Skyscrapers and bridges are less likely to fall down than software is to crash. But that's just different failure modes. Projects are still not very predictable.