>No other branch of engineering, at least none that come to mind, have to deal with the number of variables that any medium-sized software application does. Sof

>No other branch of engineering, at least none that come to mind, have to deal with the number of variables that any medium-sized software application does. Software, being infinitely malleable and running on a seemingly infinite variety of hardware in an infinite number of environments, is vastly harder than any other engineering. I'm not going to argue if this is right or wrong as I don't have a Software Engineer's perspective. My background is in chemical and materials engineering in heavy industry (mining and manufacturing sectors). I've worked in Operations and Process Engineering positions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_engineering) and in more recent years I've been employed as a "Technology engineer" which is essentially integrating new technology and process improvements and optimizations into existing industrial applications. The scope and complexity of what Engineers deal with daily might surprise you, software is complex so to is something like a smelter or refinery.