This is roughly how I explained it to my mother. I told her that no, I'm NOT an engineer and I used this analogy: An engineer is a guy who measures stuff upfro

This is roughly how I explained it to my mother. I told her that no, I'm NOT an engineer and I used this analogy: An engineer is a guy who measures stuff upfront to create a plan of action (like measuring how much concrete we need if need a bridge to carry 500 cars). He never gets his hands dirty nor does he build the actual bridge. He has a ton of responsibility and must call on vast knowledge to know what patterns will be needed and if they will cope with the loads. On the other hand, programmers are more akin to gardeners (my mom is super into gardening) and carpenters - we have to get our hands dirty and build the thing. We have to use and stay true to the spec (from the engineer above) as close as possible, measuring a piece of wood 3 times before we cut it (not the fail fast nonsense) and carefully plant new plants that won't kill the whole garden. We also need to pull out weeds and prune the bushes and so forth. With a bit of careful implementation you can have a gorgeous garden and bird/insects/squirrels visitors and so on. Software Developers I would say, is then a combination of the above, depending on your experience you might lean more toward one side or the other. The best developers have a good balance of Knowing stuff and Doing stuff.