Ask HN: Software Developer vs. Software Engineer

As a software "engineer" working in an engineering company, what I do is not even remotely close to engineering. Indeed the terms are interchangeable. I guess with the latter you can ask for more money? Back in my home country to be a SE instead of a SD you need to have gotten a master's degree from university. In practice there is no difference whatsoever.

It doesn't matter. To skip the discussion I prefer programmer or coder, actually. There are of course some labels applied by HR to avoid the problem. But if anyone is interested in go deep into this subject I invite it to read an article (old post in HN):

https://web.archive.org/web/20111025230504/http://www.geocit...

I see many commenters suggesting that the distinction is a subtle one of ability and scope. This is interesting to observe and definitely not what I had anticipated in the responses.

In my experience the titles are interchangeable in practice. I can see how one might make a spirited argument that there should be a meaningful difference and how that could be useful in hiring.

Taking a look at Google Trends for both terms it is interesting note seeming regional preferences: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=software...

I have never particularly cared. They both denote discipline, skill, and end-product focus.

I usually refer to myself as an "engineer," but "developer," in my opinion, works better with less technical folks, and is less alienating.

The "correct" answer is that Margaret Hamilton coined the term "software engineering" while working on the Apollo program back in the 1960's. As a way of declaring that software people can have the same level of rigor and respectability as hardware people. This branding finally caught on in the 2010's.

However, to talk about the "real" answer, let me start by saying that I've been doing this for a little over 20 years now. When I first started out, my job title was "Computer Programmer".

After awhile, my title (and those of all my peers) changed to "Software Developer". After a laughably short period of time, it stretched into "Senior Software Developer".

After I'd been doing that for some years, my job title changed to "Software Architect".

After awhile, the industry decided to stop pretending that most architects do full-time architecture for a living. So my job title changed to "Staff Engineer", and then "Principal Engineer" when I started making too much money.

I don't know that the day-to-day activities of my job have actually changed all that fundamentally. I have a LOT more influence with Product Managers and executive leadership than I did in my early years, and I find myself doing more mentorship and informal leadership. But by and large, I think this industry just changes job titles every so often because: (1) it wants to stay trendy and copy whatever Google is doing, and (2) technology and H.R. play games with each other over salary bands. So I wouldn't meditate too deeply on it.

At least we're not ops or QA. It feels like those poor souls re-brand every six months, chasing after pay parity with the devs.