Software Engineer

[Anonymous]

What is the education path to becoming a software engineer ? What does a software engineer do on a daily basis ?

[Anonymous]

Typically it’s a Computer Science degree, but many have a math or electrical engineering degree, or maybe information systems or something related. Some have no degree.

Software engineer can be used to refer to a developer, who primarily writes code, or a programmer, who only writes code. The title is broad. Technically, software engineering refers to the design and development of software applications. The discipline involved the full lifecycle from concept to deployment and operations, maintenance, and decommissioning. It can involve requirements analysis and system documentation. Generally, requirements development and user documentation are well handled by business analysts, but I’ve done all of that as a Computer Scientist. You’ll get various responses. People sometimes have strong feelings about the terminology, but really…..it’s a person who develops software. Most people have some version of analyzing requirements and developing code during their workday. This also requires meetings to sync up on what is happening on the overall project but a lot of work is independent. People hate the documentation part but usually get roped into it. Sometimes they have to meet with Users or some other organization and typically a program manager or analyst will accompany them to help bridge the gap in communication.

[Anonymous]

How is software engineer different than software developer?

[Anonymous]

some folks using chatgpt today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is software engineer different than software developer?

No difference. It's like "waiter" vs "server" or "housewife" vs "homemaker", or "assistant vice president" vs "securities salesperson".

"Software Engineer" tends to be used in countries that don't regulate that title legally, to attract immature people who want the ego boost of a fancier title.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is software engineer different than software developer?

This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I’m a software development manager and cloud architect. My title is “engineering manager” which I don’t love because I think of engineers as a specialized career with particular licensing requirements, and software development isn’t regulated like that. The closest thing I’ve seen is government clients requiring a CS degree and certifications for contractor staff. I have the degree and lots of certifications, and some of the tests to get them were difficult, but many people working in my field don’t have a lot of training. I’m my opinion, we’re not engineers and we shouldn’t call ourselves that.

[Anonymous]

Be aware that we have over a million foreign workers temporarily in the US doing IT work.

Any it keeps growing. Anyone waiting for a green card can stay forever so the
Numbers grow and grow.

They are all desperate for a green card and with this huge supply they suppress wages and allow ageism to be rampant in IT field

It is not a career anymore but a 5 to 15
Year job path before you will be fired and replaced with an HXXXb

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Be aware that we have over a million foreign workers temporarily in the US doing IT work.

Any it keeps growing. Anyone waiting for a green card can stay forever so the
Numbers grow and grow.

They are all desperate for a green card and with this huge supply they suppress wages and allow ageism to be rampant in IT field

It is not a career anymore but a 5 to 15
Year job path before you will be fired and replaced with an HXXXb

This person has no idea what they are talking about.

I’m a 56 year old US born development manager and was just hired for a new role. Also, I’m actively hiring developers and happy to talk with people of any age. The reality is that 95% of the applicants we get are not US born, and those that do apply are often wildly unqualified (e.g. can’t answer the question “what’s a relational database”).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be aware that we have over a million foreign workers temporarily in the US doing IT work.

Any it keeps growing. Anyone waiting for a green card can stay forever so the
Numbers grow and grow.

They are all desperate for a green card and with this huge supply they suppress wages and allow ageism to be rampant in IT field

It is not a career anymore but a 5 to 15
Year job path before you will be fired and replaced with an HXXXb

This person has no idea what they are talking about.

I’m a 56 year old US born development manager and was just hired for a new role. Also, I’m actively hiring developers and happy to talk with people of any age. The reality is that 95% of the applicants we get are not US born, and those that do apply are often wildly unqualified (e.g. can’t answer the question “what’s a relational database”).

Been building software since 1983. Cut my teeth on 360 assembler , Fortran and c

And it is factual that we have over a million foreign workers taking entry level jobs from US citizens

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be aware that we have over a million foreign workers temporarily in the US doing IT work.

Any it keeps growing. Anyone waiting for a green card can stay forever so the
Numbers grow and grow.

They are all desperate for a green card and with this huge supply they suppress wages and allow ageism to be rampant in IT field

It is not a career anymore but a 5 to 15
Year job path before you will be fired and replaced with an HXXXb

This person has no idea what they are talking about.

I’m a 56 year old US born development manager and was just hired for a new role. Also, I’m actively hiring developers and happy to talk with people of any age. The reality is that 95% of the applicants we get are not US born, and those that do apply are often wildly unqualified (e.g. can’t answer the question “what’s a relational database”).

PP is not entirely wrong. Wages in this industry had been suppressed due to outsourcing and insourcing. Even if good English communication skills and long term experience and high skills are still valued it's true that these jobs used to pay better in the 90s and early 2000s before massive outsourcing/insourcing. You can still get get paid well, but higher comp jobs are harder to get and they have poor life/work balance and more pressure and there is more competition. It's still a decent way to make a living and comparatively better compensated than let's say having a social sciences or humanities degree, I mean that you have a much higher chance getting a living wage with Comp Sci degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be aware that we have over a million foreign workers temporarily in the US doing IT work.

Any it keeps growing. Anyone waiting for a green card can stay forever so the
Numbers grow and grow.

They are all desperate for a green card and with this huge supply they suppress wages and allow ageism to be rampant in IT field

It is not a career anymore but a 5 to 15
Year job path before you will be fired and replaced with an HXXXb

This person has no idea what they are talking about.

I’m a 56 year old US born development manager and was just hired for a new role. Also, I’m actively hiring developers and happy to talk with people of any age. The reality is that 95% of the applicants we get are not US born, and those that do apply are often wildly unqualified (e.g. can’t answer the question “what’s a relational database”).

Culture has changed though. Work has devolved into an "assembly line" type of situation where you are timed and constantly pressured to develop things as fast as possible at the expense of creativity and quality. This has even penetrated consulting which used to be expertise driven field. Agile and "sprinting" took all the joy out of being able to engineer interesting solutions and have time to solve problems instead of patching things up. And this has become tough for older people to keep up too. Many younger developers are on a fast moving treadmill and take ADHD drugs and anxiety meds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be aware that we have over a million foreign workers temporarily in the US doing IT work.

Any it keeps growing. Anyone waiting for a green card can stay forever so the
Numbers grow and grow.

They are all desperate for a green card and with this huge supply they suppress wages and allow ageism to be rampant in IT field

It is not a career anymore but a 5 to 15
Year job path before you will be fired and replaced with an HXXXb

This person has no idea what they are talking about.

I’m a 56 year old US born development manager and was just hired for a new role. Also, I’m actively hiring developers and happy to talk with people of any age. The reality is that 95% of the applicants we get are not US born, and those that do apply are often wildly unqualified (e.g. can’t answer the question “what’s a relational database”).

Been building software since 1983. Cut my teeth on 360 assembler , Fortran and c

And it is factual that we have over a million foreign workers taking entry level jobs from US citizens

This. And not only entry level jobs. Outsourcing is still a thing too, all 500 companies have offshore offices for IT work. It's no longer India only, there are now outsourcing companies in South America to provide services during our business hours. This isn't going away. I still think you can get a career out of it, but it's harder as a lot of the work had been commoditized. You have to keep up and grow your skills and stand out like in many other fields, I suppose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be aware that we have over a million foreign workers temporarily in the US doing IT work.

Any it keeps growing. Anyone waiting for a green card can stay forever so the
Numbers grow and grow.

They are all desperate for a green card and with this huge supply they suppress wages and allow ageism to be rampant in IT field

It is not a career anymore but a 5 to 15
Year job path before you will be fired and replaced with an HXXXb

This person has no idea what they are talking about.

I’m a 56 year old US born development manager and was just hired for a new role. Also, I’m actively hiring developers and happy to talk with people of any age. The reality is that 95% of the applicants we get are not US born, and those that do apply are often wildly unqualified (e.g. can’t answer the question “what’s a relational database”).

Culture has changed though. Work has devolved into an "assembly line" type of situation where you are timed and constantly pressured to develop things as fast as possible at the expense of creativity and quality. This has even penetrated consulting which used to be expertise driven field. Agile and "sprinting" took all the joy out of being able to engineer interesting solutions and have time to solve problems instead of patching things up. And this has become tough for older people to keep up too. Many younger developers are on a fast moving treadmill and take ADHD drugs and anxiety meds.

Agile has its place, but for large systems, it doesn't scale, and it actually makes the application harder to support long term. Too piecemeal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be aware that we have over a million foreign workers temporarily in the US doing IT work.

Any it keeps growing. Anyone waiting for a green card can stay forever so the
Numbers grow and grow.

They are all desperate for a green card and with this huge supply they suppress wages and allow ageism to be rampant in IT field

It is not a career anymore but a 5 to 15
Year job path before you will be fired and replaced with an HXXXb

This person has no idea what they are talking about.

I’m a 56 year old US born development manager and was just hired for a new role. Also, I’m actively hiring developers and happy to talk with people of any age. The reality is that 95% of the applicants we get are not US born, and those that do apply are often wildly unqualified (e.g. can’t answer the question “what’s a relational database”).

Culture has changed though. Work has devolved into an "assembly line" type of situation where you are timed and constantly pressured to develop things as fast as possible at the expense of creativity and quality. This has even penetrated consulting which used to be expertise driven field. Agile and "sprinting" took all the joy out of being able to engineer interesting solutions and have time to solve problems instead of patching things up. And this has become tough for older people to keep up too. Many younger developers are on a fast moving treadmill and take ADHD drugs and anxiety meds.

Agile has its place, but for large systems, it doesn't scale, and it actually makes the application harder to support long term. Too piecemeal.

Yes, but it is still the "golden standard" and vastly used and pushed by various consultancies and management of the companies themselves. It's miserable when it comes to complex development projects and large volume data related work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is software engineer different than software developer?

Many use those terms to mean the same thing. Some limit Software Engineer to one with an MS in Software Engineering. CMU, ODU, and some other schools offer that as a specific degree.