11 ms·

Unless studied software engineering, you can switch to become an "engineer"? Wouldn't be software developer term more fitting?

thomzi12 4y ago
Sure! My company calls the role "software engineer" so that's how I describe the role but I think developer is also a good word for it
mythhouse 4y ago
oh no not this tired tangent again.
- thinking4real 4y ago
  The ramblings of someone who’s low skill and low ambition usually
  - gjvc 4y ago
    it's not clear to whom you are referring
    - melony 4y ago
      People obsessed with protecting the term “engineer” are usually those who want to gatekeep their jobs and salary. In other words, they are worried about competition and want to keep the career “prestigious” and kick the ladder away.
      - bee_rider 4y ago
        I’m under the impression that programmers’ salary progression typically compares quite favorably to classical engineers’.
      - bobleeswagger 4y ago
        It is a bit facetious to say that all analysts are engineers, or that it is "easy" for any analyst to become an engineer. There is overlap, but they are not identical skillsets. Analysts are certainly developers, but engineering involves more of a sense of scalability, analysis can do this, but it is generally more granular.
myth_drannon 4y ago
We also have support engineers with only highschool diploma! And account managers...
Bingaloopa 4y ago
Software Engineer and Software Developer are used interchangeably for the most part and I don't think you can really get any meaningful distinction just by the name (in most countries at least). Some countries (Canada I think being one?) may require you be licensed/registered with an engineering body before you're allowed to call yourself an engineer, but thats not the case in most countries AFAIK
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  Indeed. I worked at a Canadian company that got a legal nastygram from the professional association saying to stop calling us engineers. Then I started working for an American company that was like shrug no laws against that. I just can’t say professional engineer. The whole thing makes a ton of sense when we’re building bridges or airplane safety rated computer systems, but not so much when building websites or whatnot.
  - eddsh1994 4y ago
    I work on critical software and have the 'engineer' label, but do have a nagging feeling it's less structured than 'normal' engineering disciplines. I'm taking a part-time BEng to see if that's the case though!
  - Sephr 4y ago
    You can definitely call yourself a professional software engineer in the US.
halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
The US doesn't have software "engineering" degrees, so how does one exactly study software engineering? Computer science, too, is not "engineering".
- uxp100 4y ago
  It does…
  - geethree 4y ago
    NCEES even offered a Professional Engineering license in it for awhile. Since discontinued due to lack of interest. https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineering-exam/ https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineerin...
- DavidMiserak 4y ago
  There are colleges and universities in the USA that offer SE degrees, CMU is of note[0] [0] https://www.ece.cmu.edu/academics/ms-se/index.html https://www.ece.cmu.edu/academics/ms-se/index.html
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  The UK does, you can get chartered engineer status with a BSc & MSc in Software Engineering or Computer Science if it's applied enough with the IET. When I looked at the US i'm 99% sure I found similar degrees in Software Engineering too.
  - nkingsy 4y ago
    I’ve never seen a “software engineering” degree on a resume as an interviewer in the us.
    - eddsh1994 4y ago
      Fwiw, I have. They're becoming more common - and probably a good thing too, covering important non-CS skills like requirements engineering that are mostly made up in small tech companies without that experience.
echelon 4y ago
If you do any sort of measurement, analysis, or design before implementing a system, you're leveraging engineering principles. Examples: measuring data scale for growth rate and future needs, calculating incremental costs of cloud instances and data stores, designing and proving a state machine, instrumenting systems, measuring and stress testing a system against load, understanding back pressure and dynamical behaviors of distributed systems, designing threaded or active/active systems, vector clocks, consensus algoritms, test suites, etc. etc. I've had to write short inductive proofs in several of the systems I've built. It's engineering. The sooner we get over the imposter syndrome debate of what we can and cannot call ourselves and embrace the full scope and possibilty of what we can achieve, the sooner we can become better and more capable software engineers.
- angrais 4y ago
  >> I've had to write short inductive proofs in several of the systems I've built. In what context was this necessary?
  - recursive 4y ago
    To provide evidence that a recursive algorithm actually works maybe?
  - eddsh1994 4y ago
    This is pretty common in the Blockchain space to verify transactions behave correctly when arriving out of sync with tools like Agda, Coq, etc... I assume it's the same on databases & I heard Leslie Lamport give a talk at work where he mentioned AWS used TLA+ to prove some of its properties.
cellis 4y ago
Upvoted not because I agree, but because I'm genuinely interested in the discussion. What is the difference in your opinion?
- thundergolfer 4y ago
  This only opinion piece on the issue worth reading, because it's the only one that bothered to seek the opinions of the people that would know best: those people that have been software engineers _and_ some other kind of engineer. https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/are-we-really-engineers/ https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/are-we-really-engineers/
  - wheelinsupial 4y ago
    I think I'm missing something, but why is an opinion piece needed on this issue? Software engineering is a licensed engineering profession in many places. It used to be possible to be licensed as a software engineering in the United States [1, 2](little demand caused the licensing exams to be discontinued, possibly because regulation wasn't enforced, according to [2]). So, I think it's fair to say enough of the engineering profession has spoken to say software is a branch of engineering. What I think are the relevant extracts from the article: > “Do you consider software engineering actually engineering?” > Of the 17 crossovers I talked to, 15 said yes. > That said, many of the crossovers [3] also added an additional qualification: software engineering is real engineering, but a lot of people who write software aren’t doing software engineering. This is not a problem with them, rather a problem with our field: we don’t have a rich enough vocabulary to talk about what these developers do. The engineering field has developed a vocabulary for different professionals in the field. Why can't this be applied to the software field since it is a form of engineering? There are engineers, technologists, technicians, and trades (at least where I am). The issue is there are education and work experience requirements that lead to licensing, which people will say are inequitable and gatekeeping [4]. From 2, there was an experience-only path available to get software engineering licensure, so if the field really wants it, there seems to be precedent to allow for alternative routes into those titles. [1] https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/software/ https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/software/ [2] https://www.nspe.org/resources/pe-magazine/may-2018/ncees-ends-software-engineering-pe-exam https://www.nspe.org/resources/pe-magazine/may-2018/ncees-en... [3] The definition of "crossovers:" "people who used to be professional engineers and then became professional software developers. I call these people crossovers, hybrids between the two worlds." [4] I'm sympathetic to these concerns. I studied engineering technology and worked as a technologist at the beginning of my career. I wanted to become a mechanical engineer, but I couldn't afford to return to school full time to complete the remaining 2 years for the BEng. (My school offered a 2 year diploma for engineering technologists, which led directly to years 3 and 4 year of the BEng.) When I wanted to complete the degree, a full time course load was required (7 courses per term at my school) for the engineering program to maintain accreditation.
switchbak 4y ago
I've worked with a bunch of engineers, and while I respect and admire them tremendously, I'd not want to be lumped in with the kind of code they generally write. And don't get me started on the typical code a scientist writes! Let the downvotes commence. Edit: This is a gentle ribbing, but there really does seem to be a different approach in the philosophy of how to solve a problem. Engineers seem to eschew abstraction while software folks embrace is (sometimes to a fault). It's actually pretty fascinating.
- nicce 4y ago
  Very odd. Usually engineers love abstraction where I am coming from. The simpler the solution, better it usually is. Helps understanding the whole system, making it less complex. Simplicity causes less bugs. Of course, you can do too much abstraction.
  - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
    Have you never run into Matlab code with a few hundred global variables mutating frequently? :)
    - nicce 4y ago
      Okay. I was referreing into software engineers, not data engineers :-)
      - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
        Ah, I was referring to general engineers, like chemical or mech engineers :)
- bee_rider 4y ago
  If they wanted to built their own abstractions they’d be scientists. Actually this is one thing that has always confused me about “software engineers,” at least as someone with an engineering education who isn’t doing engineering work really: we learned how to do particular types of problems very well and reliably, and generally learned a bunch of math tricks. But at a fundamental level the material that the physics students were learning was basically more complicated. Scientist has always felt like a more prestigious title to me. Since most programmers have computer science degrees, why don’t we call ourselves computer scientists?
dang 4y ago
People use 'engineer' differently in different parts of the world.

thomzi12 4y ago

Sure! My company calls the role "software engineer" so that's how I describe the role but I think developer is also a good word for it

mythhouse 4y ago

oh no not this tired tangent again.

thinking4real 4y ago
The ramblings of someone who’s low skill and low ambition usually
- gjvc 4y ago
  it's not clear to whom you are referring
  - melony 4y ago
    People obsessed with protecting the term “engineer” are usually those who want to gatekeep their jobs and salary. In other words, they are worried about competition and want to keep the career “prestigious” and kick the ladder away.
    - bee_rider 4y ago
      I’m under the impression that programmers’ salary progression typically compares quite favorably to classical engineers’.
    - bobleeswagger 4y ago
      It is a bit facetious to say that all analysts are engineers, or that it is "easy" for any analyst to become an engineer. There is overlap, but they are not identical skillsets. Analysts are certainly developers, but engineering involves more of a sense of scalability, analysis can do this, but it is generally more granular.

myth_drannon 4y ago

We also have support engineers with only highschool diploma! And account managers...

Bingaloopa 4y ago

Software Engineer and Software Developer are used interchangeably for the most part and I don't think you can really get any meaningful distinction just by the name (in most countries at least). Some countries (Canada I think being one?) may require you be licensed/registered with an engineering body before you're allowed to call yourself an engineer, but thats not the case in most countries AFAIK

Waterluvian 4y ago
Indeed. I worked at a Canadian company that got a legal nastygram from the professional association saying to stop calling us engineers. Then I started working for an American company that was like shrug no laws against that. I just can’t say professional engineer. The whole thing makes a ton of sense when we’re building bridges or airplane safety rated computer systems, but not so much when building websites or whatnot.
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  I work on critical software and have the 'engineer' label, but do have a nagging feeling it's less structured than 'normal' engineering disciplines. I'm taking a part-time BEng to see if that's the case though!
- Sephr 4y ago
  You can definitely call yourself a professional software engineer in the US.

halfmatthalfcat 4y ago

The US doesn't have software "engineering" degrees, so how does one exactly study software engineering? Computer science, too, is not "engineering".

uxp100 4y ago
It does…
- geethree 4y ago
  NCEES even offered a Professional Engineering license in it for awhile. Since discontinued due to lack of interest. https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineering-exam/ https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineerin...
DavidMiserak 4y ago
There are colleges and universities in the USA that offer SE degrees, CMU is of note[0] [0] https://www.ece.cmu.edu/academics/ms-se/index.html https://www.ece.cmu.edu/academics/ms-se/index.html
eddsh1994 4y ago
The UK does, you can get chartered engineer status with a BSc & MSc in Software Engineering or Computer Science if it's applied enough with the IET. When I looked at the US i'm 99% sure I found similar degrees in Software Engineering too.
- nkingsy 4y ago
  I’ve never seen a “software engineering” degree on a resume as an interviewer in the us.
  - eddsh1994 4y ago
    Fwiw, I have. They're becoming more common - and probably a good thing too, covering important non-CS skills like requirements engineering that are mostly made up in small tech companies without that experience.

echelon 4y ago

If you do any sort of measurement, analysis, or design before implementing a system, you're leveraging engineering principles. Examples: measuring data scale for growth rate and future needs, calculating incremental costs of cloud instances and data stores, designing and proving a state machine, instrumenting systems, measuring and stress testing a system against load, understanding back pressure and dynamical behaviors of distributed systems, designing threaded or active/active systems, vector clocks, consensus algoritms, test suites, etc. etc. I've had to write short inductive proofs in several of the systems I've built. It's engineering. The sooner we get over the imposter syndrome debate of what we can and cannot call ourselves and embrace the full scope and possibilty of what we can achieve, the sooner we can become better and more capable software engineers.

angrais 4y ago
>> I've had to write short inductive proofs in several of the systems I've built. In what context was this necessary?
- recursive 4y ago
  To provide evidence that a recursive algorithm actually works maybe?
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  This is pretty common in the Blockchain space to verify transactions behave correctly when arriving out of sync with tools like Agda, Coq, etc... I assume it's the same on databases & I heard Leslie Lamport give a talk at work where he mentioned AWS used TLA+ to prove some of its properties.

cellis 4y ago

Upvoted not because I agree, but because I'm genuinely interested in the discussion. What is the difference in your opinion?

thundergolfer 4y ago
This only opinion piece on the issue worth reading, because it's the only one that bothered to seek the opinions of the people that would know best: those people that have been software engineers _and_ some other kind of engineer. https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/are-we-really-engineers/ https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/are-we-really-engineers/
- wheelinsupial 4y ago
  I think I'm missing something, but why is an opinion piece needed on this issue? Software engineering is a licensed engineering profession in many places. It used to be possible to be licensed as a software engineering in the United States [1, 2](little demand caused the licensing exams to be discontinued, possibly because regulation wasn't enforced, according to [2]). So, I think it's fair to say enough of the engineering profession has spoken to say software is a branch of engineering. What I think are the relevant extracts from the article: > “Do you consider software engineering actually engineering?” > Of the 17 crossovers I talked to, 15 said yes. > That said, many of the crossovers [3] also added an additional qualification: software engineering is real engineering, but a lot of people who write software aren’t doing software engineering. This is not a problem with them, rather a problem with our field: we don’t have a rich enough vocabulary to talk about what these developers do. The engineering field has developed a vocabulary for different professionals in the field. Why can't this be applied to the software field since it is a form of engineering? There are engineers, technologists, technicians, and trades (at least where I am). The issue is there are education and work experience requirements that lead to licensing, which people will say are inequitable and gatekeeping [4]. From 2, there was an experience-only path available to get software engineering licensure, so if the field really wants it, there seems to be precedent to allow for alternative routes into those titles. [1] https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/software/ https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/software/ [2] https://www.nspe.org/resources/pe-magazine/may-2018/ncees-ends-software-engineering-pe-exam https://www.nspe.org/resources/pe-magazine/may-2018/ncees-en... [3] The definition of "crossovers:" "people who used to be professional engineers and then became professional software developers. I call these people crossovers, hybrids between the two worlds." [4] I'm sympathetic to these concerns. I studied engineering technology and worked as a technologist at the beginning of my career. I wanted to become a mechanical engineer, but I couldn't afford to return to school full time to complete the remaining 2 years for the BEng. (My school offered a 2 year diploma for engineering technologists, which led directly to years 3 and 4 year of the BEng.) When I wanted to complete the degree, a full time course load was required (7 courses per term at my school) for the engineering program to maintain accreditation.

switchbak 4y ago

I've worked with a bunch of engineers, and while I respect and admire them tremendously, I'd not want to be lumped in with the kind of code they generally write. And don't get me started on the typical code a scientist writes! Let the downvotes commence. Edit: This is a gentle ribbing, but there really does seem to be a different approach in the philosophy of how to solve a problem. Engineers seem to eschew abstraction while software folks embrace is (sometimes to a fault). It's actually pretty fascinating.

nicce 4y ago
Very odd. Usually engineers love abstraction where I am coming from. The simpler the solution, better it usually is. Helps understanding the whole system, making it less complex. Simplicity causes less bugs. Of course, you can do too much abstraction.
- cscurmudgeon 4y ago
  Have you never run into Matlab code with a few hundred global variables mutating frequently? :)
  - nicce 4y ago
    Okay. I was referreing into software engineers, not data engineers :-)
    - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
      Ah, I was referring to general engineers, like chemical or mech engineers :)
bee_rider 4y ago
If they wanted to built their own abstractions they’d be scientists. Actually this is one thing that has always confused me about “software engineers,” at least as someone with an engineering education who isn’t doing engineering work really: we learned how to do particular types of problems very well and reliably, and generally learned a bunch of math tricks. But at a fundamental level the material that the physics students were learning was basically more complicated. Scientist has always felt like a more prestigious title to me. Since most programmers have computer science degrees, why don’t we call ourselves computer scientists?

dang 4y ago

People use 'engineer' differently in different parts of the world.