About six years ago, I decided to become a "desingineer", by accident. Here's how it went down:
After getting a BS and M.Eng in Computer Science, everyone was pleased as punched to let me code for them. But I wanted to code and design interfaces as well. What a strange idea - a programmer also making the interfaces.
Well, it turned out no one would take me seriously unless I had designed interfaces in a professional environment before. I needed someone that would take a chance on me, to actually let me design their UIs while hiding me away in their software team. (I managed to find one job that would, and for that I'm forever grateful.)
Once I picked up some experience designing UIs, the top companies wouldn't would take me seriously until I had some formal design training and credentials. So, I went back for a degree in Interaction Design.
Once I finished my degree, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until I shipped some code that had my own designs in it. So I did that for a while, in a few hybrid dev/designer positions.
Once I shipped my code, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until I had shipped a design of my own creation that was also my own (so, owning the UI, UX, code and business strategy). So I got back into entrepreneurship (something I'd largely given up with my pure CS focus), and started creating and shipping my own designs.
Now, as an entrepreneur, interaction designer and computer scientist, the top companies won't take me seriously until I start shipping designs of my own creation that are also visually stunning. Working on it. :)
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Only now, six years later, do I realize that no one will ever take you seriously unless they can define you.
Programmers can be understood, and slotted. They have real, respected career paths. Designers can be understood, and slotted. They have real, respected career paths as well. Even Interaction Designers are slowly becoming understood.
Being a desingineer, while bringing me incredible amounts of joy, also feels absolutely terrible - because people are constantly coming along with ideas of what you can or should bring to an organization. The limits of the position are such unknowns, in fact, that sometimes people feel desingineers should be everything to everyone.
Sometimes that comes out of with a sense of greed - after all, it's on the desingineer to prove they shouldn't have to do all of those things, right? And, in fact, they feel entitled to everything. Early-stage startups are particularly bad about this, I've noticed - their "first designer hire" posts often forget that everyone starts somewhere. (Sorry, but it's true.)
But other times people simply misunderstand how long it takes to become good at each of the individual skill sets involved. And other times companies are still sorting out what skill sets their companies actually need in the same person.
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Is there anything we can do, as a community, to bring some clarity and definition to "desingineering" - so kids coming out of school don't have to go through what I have gone through? It's obvious that this is a position that companies need, but it's not one that will be treated with respect until its own practioners - a fair number of whom seem to be on HN - actively come together to help define it.