The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

Engineer implies a higher level of skill WRT establishing and following processes designed to minimize risk. A software engineer, like their mechanical or civil equivalents, has a strong sense of duty WRT building things that are useful, safe, reproducible, etc.

No doubt the line is gray. But, your stereotypical web app developer (failing fast while chasing a unicorn) is not an engineer.

In the real world, I'd expect Boeing to employ many software engineers [insert 737 Max joke here]. Google and Apple would employ a mix of engineers and developers. And a company that builds CRUD apps on contract would be almost exclusively developers.

All of this ignores the licensed engineer's opinion, which is often that none of us are engineers because we don't have to pass a licensing exam. And often don't even have to pass a particularly rigorous academic program.

Engineers apply math to create systems. Without Newton and his math there wouldn't be engineers or the other way round: engineers are those who create the stuff that is only possible with Newton's math.

Since only few software needs math to that degree, rarely any software is developed by software engineers.

Software developers on the other hand are like real estate developers. They don't build walls, they don't do structural analysis. Instead they combine systems. Unlike real estate developers, they mostly do the plumbing by themselves.

Programmers are to engineers what words (Greek: grams) are to math. They focus on the language and care about expressing ideas in program code.

Then there are also software designers and architects who care about the overall system structure.

This is one of the core issues many people seem to ignore. The number of universities where you can actually become a good engineer is really small, apart from the IIT/NIT/BITS/IIIT, the rest can be categorized into mediocre to astonishingly bad.

I do have a lot to say about this topic, as I had go through this experience first hand, and I wasn't one of those who managed to get into a good university (in fact, I barely managed to get into a really shitty one).

Here's a short summary of what's it like to get a degree from shitty private university in India -

a) There's no focus on getting an actual education, people (including professors, students, their parents) are more concerned with getting a piece of paper which certifies that the student is an engineer now.

b) The faculty responsible for teaching rarely give a shit, not that they have an ability to give a shit in this case. Most of them barely know the material they teach. I've had lecturers who would literally write out Java code on a board and then explain the meaning of each word for the next hour.

c) Most of these schools have mandatory attendance for classes, so if you have assumed you'll just sign up and go through the material on your own, you're screwed. You will end up spending 8 hours everyday for 4 years doing this, then spend additional 2-3 hours everyday doing assignments which basically consist of copying shit from a textbook.

d) Exams are just an exercise in mugging up the textbooks. Even for subjects which involve programming.

e) Companies that hire out of these schools are usually service based like Infosys, TCS, etc on a salary of about $300/mo. So the next time you complain about the shitty Indian guy with a thick accent who writes spaghetti code, just remember that they're getting paid peanuts for doing so. Also these companies have a bond of anywhere from an year to 3 (which basically means if you leave anytime before this period, you pay the company amount), it might be illegal, but then your lowly IT guy doesn't have the resources to take these companies to court.

There's lot to write about this topic, there are a lot of facets which intermingle with one another in absurd ways, perhaps I might write something more detailed some other day.

I call myself an engineer and is anyone has a problem with that, I just point out that I graduated from an engineering college and am eligible to become a PE, and will, should the world ever decide that's an important credential for building software. I work with tons of Mechanical and Aeronautical engineers, none of whom seem to take any issue with my holding a title of engineer.

[1] https://www.softwareengineerinsider.com/abet/abet-computer-s...