4 ms·

> Successfully building a company, and using that company's products, is actually the best job interview you can ask for if you can pay for that caliber of cand

> Successfully building a company, and using that company's products, is actually the best job interview you can ask for if you can pay for that caliber of candidate. This tests for very different skills than being an exceptional programmer.

elAhmo 5mo ago
Yes, hence the term software engineer which has programming as just one part of the job.
- skeeter2020 5mo ago
  OK, let's go to the source then and ask Claude: What's the difference between a software developer and a software engineer? The honest answer is that in most day-to-day contexts, the distinction is more about company culture and title preference than actual job duties. A "software developer" at one company might do more rigorous engineering work than a "software engineer" at another.
  - dust-jacket 5mo ago
    Yeah at my last job we A/B tested hiring ads for the same role with developer/engineer alternatives. It's just not the distinction some people believe it to be.
  - elAhmo 5mo ago
    Rather than jumping to ask Claude something, maybe you should've read things more carefully. I said difference between a _programmer_ and a _software engineer_ (or _software developer_, it is irrelevant in this context).
- thayne 5mo ago
  It isn't a good test for that either. Having a successful business requires a lot of factors that don't really have anything to do with software engineering. Things like luck, connections, access to funding, good marketing, etc. And while have good engineers on the payroll undoubtedly helps, the good engineers aren't necessarily the ones getting a big fallout from the acquisition and may not stick around for long after the acquisition, especially if they get put on a project they don't care about.
  - JJOKOCHAA 5mo ago
    That is right, a lot goes into having a successful project or team
827a 5mo ago
I did use the word "software engineer" there, but realistically what they're looking for is exactly the name of the role they wear: Member of Technical Staff. Software Engineer, businessman, product manager, designer, agentic harness engineer, cloud, devops, all rolled into one. They want people who can own the entirety of a product from end-to-end. A responsibility domain so vast that most peoples' first thought is to laugh, and that's exactly why they're acquiring companies; the responsibilities they're looking for mirror the role the founders and higher-level leadership in successful startups would have had. The lower-level engineers will probably be let go. They'll gladly pay $50M-$100M for just a dozen or so of the top people.
- aleph_minus_one 5mo ago
  > I did use the word "software engineer" there The reason why I avoided this term is that in Germany, there exists a quite strict of whatx an engineer (Ingenieur) is, which is defined in the laws of many federal states (Ingenieurgesetz [engineering law]). "Ingenieur" (engineer) is a protected professional title: > https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ingenieur&oldid=266363685#Berufsbezeichnungen_und_akademische_Grade https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ingenieur&oldid=2... (*) Falsely claiming that you are an Ingenieur when you aren't (by the definition in the Ingenieurgesetz) is a punishable crime in Germany: > https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Missbrauch_von_Titeln,_Berufsbezeichnungen_und_Abzeichen&oldid=258290178 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Missbrauch_von_Ti... There exist some boundary cases under which as a software developer you can call yourself an "Ingenieur", but you have to be insanely careful about whether you actually satisfy the legal criteria (see (*)) - in most cases you don't and you are thus a criminal if you do.
  - torben-friis 5mo ago
    Wait, does that mean that if I self describe as a software engineer on LinkedIn and get an offer by Germans id be breaking the law by accepting? If so, is this ever enforced?
    - aleph_minus_one 5mo ago

elAhmo 5mo ago

Yes, hence the term software engineer which has programming as just one part of the job.

skeeter2020 5mo ago
OK, let's go to the source then and ask Claude: What's the difference between a software developer and a software engineer? The honest answer is that in most day-to-day contexts, the distinction is more about company culture and title preference than actual job duties. A "software developer" at one company might do more rigorous engineering work than a "software engineer" at another.
- dust-jacket 5mo ago
  Yeah at my last job we A/B tested hiring ads for the same role with developer/engineer alternatives. It's just not the distinction some people believe it to be.
- elAhmo 5mo ago
  Rather than jumping to ask Claude something, maybe you should've read things more carefully. I said difference between a _programmer_ and a _software engineer_ (or _software developer_, it is irrelevant in this context).
thayne 5mo ago
It isn't a good test for that either. Having a successful business requires a lot of factors that don't really have anything to do with software engineering. Things like luck, connections, access to funding, good marketing, etc. And while have good engineers on the payroll undoubtedly helps, the good engineers aren't necessarily the ones getting a big fallout from the acquisition and may not stick around for long after the acquisition, especially if they get put on a project they don't care about.
- JJOKOCHAA 5mo ago
  That is right, a lot goes into having a successful project or team

827a 5mo ago

I did use the word "software engineer" there, but realistically what they're looking for is exactly the name of the role they wear: Member of Technical Staff. Software Engineer, businessman, product manager, designer, agentic harness engineer, cloud, devops, all rolled into one. They want people who can own the entirety of a product from end-to-end. A responsibility domain so vast that most peoples' first thought is to laugh, and that's exactly why they're acquiring companies; the responsibilities they're looking for mirror the role the founders and higher-level leadership in successful startups would have had. The lower-level engineers will probably be let go. They'll gladly pay $50M-$100M for just a dozen or so of the top people.

aleph_minus_one 5mo ago
> I did use the word "software engineer" there The reason why I avoided this term is that in Germany, there exists a quite strict of whatx an engineer (Ingenieur) is, which is defined in the laws of many federal states (Ingenieurgesetz [engineering law]). "Ingenieur" (engineer) is a protected professional title: > https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ingenieur&oldid=266363685#Berufsbezeichnungen_und_akademische_Grade https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ingenieur&oldid=2... (*) Falsely claiming that you are an Ingenieur when you aren't (by the definition in the Ingenieurgesetz) is a punishable crime in Germany: > https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Missbrauch_von_Titeln,_Berufsbezeichnungen_und_Abzeichen&oldid=258290178 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Missbrauch_von_Ti... There exist some boundary cases under which as a software developer you can call yourself an "Ingenieur", but you have to be insanely careful about whether you actually satisfy the legal criteria (see (*)) - in most cases you don't and you are thus a criminal if you do.
- torben-friis 5mo ago
  Wait, does that mean that if I self describe as a software engineer on LinkedIn and get an offer by Germans id be breaking the law by accepting? If so, is this ever enforced?
  - aleph_minus_one 5mo ago