Dave Diamond
Graham DownsIf you write software for a living, what do you call yourself? #polls
Please boost for reach. I don't want to cloud the results by including hashtags pointing to certain terms. :-)
| Programmer | |
| Developer | |
| Engineer | |
| Other |
Poll ends at .
Sozha@GrahamDowns They very rarely use "Programmer" in modern job titles on CVs. Developer is also categorized in whatever language they prefer to code in. But if they have a lot of languages they can code in they generally are named software developer or software engineer. In the time I was a boy, until about in my 30s, "Programmer" was the general word for coders no matter which computer language/programming languages they used.
Kim van Wyk@GrahamDowns I've gone with "Engineer" but that's mainly because my degree is in electronic engineering and I worked in embedded systems writing C for years. It's all desktop and server Python code these days but I still think of myself as an engineer before any other term.
Franchesca@kimvanwyk @GrahamDowns same, my degree is b-eng ergo I’m an engineer (I earned it) and I studied electronics and have done low level programming enough to actually understand how computers work.
NormanDunbar@GrahamDowns I call myself "Norman"! (Sorry.)
In the past I have been a programmers, junior and senior, and also developer plus senior.
Cheers.
@NormanDunbar Me too (except in my case it's Graham).
I've been coding professionally since 1998, having started as a Junior Programmer, then progressed to Software Developer, and then Senior Software Developer.
At no point have I ever felt the temptation to refer to myself as an "Engineer", and to be honest, I've always found the term quite pretentious. I know nothing about engineering. I've never built a bridge or a road or anything like that, and to my mind, there's just no correlation between those two.
However, having read some of the responses from people who call themselves "Engineer" because their degrees are in electronics engineering, I'll say fair enough to them. Consider me schooled. :-)
@GrahamDowns I *was* an engineer, a marine one at that, before I taught myself to code in 1982 on a zx81, went to college then started work in IT.
@NormanDunbar Oh wow. That's awesome!!
I never went to college/university. Completely self-taught, I started working three months after graduating High School. I wasn't even 18 yet at the time (I was two weeks away, though, so it was fine).
@GrahamDowns I gave up my job to go to college. I did get a small grant though, so I wasn't entirely penniless! The course was a year and you got six months in industry as part of it.
That was 1983. After that I was another 2 years doing a diploma course, then over a decade in local government in Scotland. Back to industry in Leeds afterwards then MrsD and I started our own consultancy and did that until we retired.
I did programming & Oracle database DBA stuff, she was a qualified SW tester.
@NormanDunbar That is a really cool story. You were obviously really committed to making it work. All I can say is well done! :)
@GrahamDowns Thanks. 👍
@GrahamDowns Now that I've retired, I write books . I call myself "author" now. 😁 Mostly about the Arduino, but I'm doing one now for the Raspberry Pi Pico.
yelling jackal@GrahamDowns I'll be okay with the term "engineer" once we have some actual regulations in this cursed industry that is eating itself and pulling all of society with it.
I've been known as programmer and developer. Depends on the context. Titles have always been developer.
I've been known as programmer and developer. Depends on the context. Titles have always been developer.
Chris Simpson@GrahamDowns I answered "developer" but I sometimes say "engineer" when I know it might annoy a nearby person who feels overly strongly that only people with a very specific qualification should be allowed to call themselves engineers. It's childish of me, but I find it amusing.
Programming to me seems to be a subset of development, though with the current sloppy nature of software development, I'm thinking of calling myself a "small batch artisanal software developer" for absolute clarity.
mahamind@GrahamDowns I like Common Lisp. That's all.
Piers Cawley@GrahamDowns @irina When I did, I called myself a coder.
DieKeh®seite@GrahamDowns
calling myself an idiot …
calling myself an idiot …
Lysander il breve@GrahamDowns
Applied computer scientist or algorithmist.
Or, among friends, informatician, enginerd (perjorative), byte sheperd
Applied computer scientist or algorithmist.
Or, among friends, informatician, enginerd (perjorative), byte sheperd
Abram Kedge🏴🇨🇦@GrahamDowns I was called an "architect" at Western Digital. A bit pretentious, but it signified being comfortable with designing the structure of major portions of the codebase, and drawing up interaction contracts with adjacent parts of the product. Coding was a tiny part of the job.
Four of us worked on a complete replacement of the ten year old firmware. It had become so entangled, it was impossible to refactor to work with multiple cores. We had a three-core system booting Windows in about three months.
kit@GrahamDowns Developer, analyst, DBA. I've always refused the label engineer becuase I've never been part of a professional body that held me to account, and I'm not sure I've ever worked with anyone who understood the lessons of the Tacoma Narrows bridge
cuan_knaggs@hypostase @GrahamDowns i've been doing this for a while now and have never met a software engineer
@GrahamDowns job title says developer but i've moved back to designer
Carolyn@GrahamDowns I would like to ask the developers, what do they feel separates them from being programmers? :)
Leon Cowle@GrahamDowns "AI Orchestrator"
/me ducks for all the rotten tomatoes getting thrown my way. lol.
@leoncowle Oh dear... ;-P
Elliot Shank@GrahamDowns @HollyGoDarkly “software geek”
Enola Knezevic@GrahamDowns I have officially had job titles "programmer" and "developer" and my academic title is "engineer" 🤷
Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 👽@GrahamDowns When I was young and unemployed, I was a Hacker. When I wanted corpos to hire me, I was a Software Engineer. Now that I'm old and unemployed, I'm a Hacker again.
No, I don't care what that connotes to corpos and other non-hackers.
David H. McCoy@GrahamDowns @everythingalsocan
Should be combo options. I use Soft Eng and Dev.
Vash
Thomas BornhauptPhysiker, programming is only an other language
Victor von VoidAccording to my job description I'm a Senior Software Engineer, I use it interchangeably with Software Developer, depending on context.
The first one is the job name and the description of my academic training, the second one is the description of what I actually do (especially to non-techies, as opposed to just managing stuff or people).
Timothy Wolodzko@GrahamDowns "engineer" because I don't have engineering degree, so that way I can pretend it
mxk@GrahamDowns engineer, but partially because writing code nowadays is less than 20% of my work.
Whole systems error analysis is the way bigger chunk
Whole systems error analysis is the way bigger chunk
Quincy ⁂
kepstin@GrahamDowns more specifically, "software developer". For what it's worth, "engineer" is a protected term here and I don't have the education or certification to use it...
Tho I did actually take a few software engineering courses in university - they were in a separate building over with the "real" engineers unlike the normal computer science classes that were in the sciences and mathematics departments.