3 ms·
What's an SME?
by throwaaskjdfh 5y ago
What's an SME?
- spdustin 5y agoSubject Matter Expert
- ThrowawayR2 5y agoEngineering jargon for "Subject Matter Expert".
- dochtman 5y agoIs this common across the industry, or mostly used at Amazon? I’ve been a professional software engineer for 20 year and read a lot of HN, but I think I haven’t seen this particular acronym around much (I think I would usually call these people “domain experts”).
- doctor_eval 5y agoYeah - I’m nowhere near Amazon but I’ve heard it, even been called it more than once. In my experience it’s not a title, so much as a role in a particular context. Like, I could be GM of billing - and therefore in a meeting I might be one of the billing SMEs.
- emddudley 5y agoThe term "SME" is common in engineering. It is equivalent to "domain expert".
- throwaaskjdfh 5y agoSame here, 25 years writing software, never heard it, even working in the Bay Area. I got a pretty large number of upvotes on the three-word post above so I think the term is common in some circles, unheard of in others. Someone should map it somehow.
- wheelinsupial 5y agoMap it somehow? What do you mean? There is a Wikipedia entry on it [1] that is a start. To your point, maybe there needs to be an HN glossary of terms or something like that. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject-matter_expert https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject-matter_expert
- throwaaskjdfh 5y agoI mean map which companies use this SME acronym and which don't, similar to how "soda", "pop", and "coke" map to different regions of the USA.
- wheelinsupial 5y agoMy hunch is it comes from companies that use PMI project managers. Maybe that maps to older non-tech companies, but I have no proof to back any of that up.
- HWR_14 5y ago> never heard it, even working in the Bay Area. I think SME is would be less common in the Bay Area. I tend to associate it's usage with older, less computer tech first, companies.
- wheelinsupial 5y agoThis is commonly used in the Hr, accounting, finance, and logistics teams in retail companies I’ve worked at that aren’t Amazon. In my experience it’s not uniquely an engineering term.
- __app_dev__ 5y agoI worked at Nielsen (TV Ratings) 3-4 years ago and we used it all the time and not for tech. At the time it was used by all he major Entertainment Studios in Los Angeles as well. Any type of office role it: Marketing, Mathematician, Software and Data Roles, ... Never used it at small companies so it seems mostly used at larger companies or relatively new.