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Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

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Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#61

Post by walshemj »

jjsz wrote: post #30
Glyptodon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate the trend of calling people who code 'engineers.' It's just not a good title for anything to do with software. And invariably people who embrace its usage seem to be trying to compensate or ignorant of what a real engineer actually does or is.

The trend extends to other words. Sometimes I hear Programmers calling themselves Computer Scientists or Computer Engineers [1] [2] [3] when in different cases they are a Developers or a Hacker. Which they get wrong too. You are what you are. of you're acting another role you should state that you're playing that role not that you are. Ex. Computer Scientist, who can fill the role of a Programmer. This discussion kee…

It was explained to me (at a world leading RnD organization)

And engineer is a scientist with thumbs - though some times they have to ask the technicians to remind them how ohms law goes :-)

When I worked at a top 5 Civil engineering consultancy I corrected one of the engineers math one particular bridge in Saudi

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#62

Post by donutdan4114 »

Phlarp wrote: post #38
bigtech wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to continue this but I have garbage collection to attend to.

And they say nobody around here has a sense of humor! Happy to see it was just a matter of injecting the proper dependencies!

Whoops, came to reddit by accident.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#63

Post by JRobertson »

dwc wrote: post #32

There's a major point in this article that not many commenters seem to be picking up on: there's a fork in the road of careers. To one side is a multilane highway over fairly level ground leading straigh to predictable suburbia. To the other side is an uneven dirt path leading through mountains and countryside to parts unknown and has many forks of its own. Neither path is right for everyone. And hardly anyone needs…

You contradict yourself. First you say: "Neither path is right for everyone"

Then you say: "The sad part comes when some bright, young up-and-comer leaves off their interesting personal projects in less used languages in order to focus on only mainstream stuff."

Why is that sad? It's just like you said, "Neither path is right for everyone." I was bright and young once and had an opportunity to go into a start-up and shape the world, but I turned it down for a mainstream job, and I'm happy I did.

There is no reason to pity my choice or mourn for me. And there is no reason to continue to foster the mentality that anyone who has never worked in a start-up is some sort of lesser developer.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#64

Post by _delirium »

bitwize wrote: post #25

No, the person he's responding to is right. In general, hiring managers don't care about bits, they care about dollars. They're going to be looking for dollars you made for other companies because that translates into dollars you can make for them. Money. It's the universal language.

That is not true across the board. Many companies are looking for specific technical talent. When nVidia is looking for someone to fill a specific niche on the CUDA team, they don't care about how much money you made for company A or B; they care whether you have the technical ability to fill the niche as they conceive of it. The hiring manager isn't naive, and already has an idea of why this position was created and what they're looking for in a hire. The interviewer is quite likely to be an engineer already on the team.

What they want you to convince them of is that you have the technical skills to fill the role. If you start talking about ROI and business value, it can be seen as a red flag that you're from a more "soft" background like business informatics, and not a good fit for the position.

Of course, if you're getting hired by someone who doesn't have a specific technical role they're trying to fill, or doesn't know what exactly they're looking for, the situation will be different. But that is not usually the case at chip-design firms.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#65

Post by _delirium »

jleader wrote: post #43
a-priori wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in Canada. It's illegal here to call yourself an 'engineer' unless you're a licensed engineer. It's a protected term, like 'doctor'. So unless you studied Software Engineering, which there are many schools that teach it, and hold a P.Eng, then you can't use the term.

That's technically true in many US states as well, but I've never heard of it being enforced outside of the fields where many practitioners are licensed (mostly Civil Engineering, to a much lesser extent Electrical and Mechanical Engineering).

In practice, I don't believe any U.S. states attempt to regulate the mere linguistic usage of the word "engineer", the way that Canada does. Pretty much anyone can call themselves an engineer, or have the word "engineer" in their job title. What's regulated is that there are certain situations, mainly in civil engineering, in which a required document can only be signed off on by someone with a state engineering license.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#66

Post by CodeMage »

mtraven wrote: post #21
crazygringo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty funny. In case anyone's wondering, the full term is "garota de programa", literally "girl of program" or "program girl". Obviously, the English is "call girl". Normally, "programa" just means events, like "what's the program for the evening?". Here, of course, you can figure it out yourself.

Now I'm wondering if there is a difference between call-by-value girls and call-by-reference girls.

I'm going to regret this joke, but: I posit the difference lies in how much cache you need.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#67

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

analyst74 wrote: post #2

You should call yourself whatever based on the situation. If you are hanging out with a group of consultants, you call yourself consultant; if you are a special effects programmer, and talking to a model, you say you're in the movie business; if you are interviewing with the author, you call yourself programmer. The best way to connect with others is to understand how they perceive things and find ways to relate to t…

This so obvious I'm amazed that it isn't discussed every time this topic comes up. Programmers seem to think that there is something "dirty" about adjusting your language according to audience.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#68

Post by jjsz »

chc wrote: post #59
jjsz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trend extends to other words. Sometimes I hear Programmers calling themselves Computer Scientists or Computer Engineers [1] [2] [3] when in different cases they are a Developers or a Hacker. Which they get wrong too. You are what you are. of you're acting another role you should state that you're playing that role not that you are. Ex. Computer Scientist, who can fill the role of a Programmer. This discussion kee…

What's the difference between a computer scientist filling the role of programmer and somebody who is both a computer scientist and a programmer? If you can fill the role of X competently, why can you not rightly be said to be an X?

You're X AND Y. Not just Y. Just like someone here on HN who worked on their double bachelors of Math AND Physics while there was a minor called Math-Physics. S(he) worked hard for that and.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#69

Post by nilkn »

Glyptodon wrote: post #19
nawitus wrote: post #12

I thought the general advice is to call yourself a software engineer.

I hate the trend of calling people who code 'engineers.' It's just not a good title for anything to do with software. And invariably people who embrace its usage seem to be trying to compensate or ignorant of what a real engineer actually does or is.

What exactly is an engineer then?

A lot of my friends are desk engineers at chemical companies. Not a single one is putting anything together at all with their hands, and most aren't figuring out how other people will put stuff together with their hands either. It's an almost entirely intellectual endeavor. In fact, at some places like Exxon, some chemical engineers are also internally known as economic analysts because they're mostly just trying to find ways to optimize revenue flow. If this qualifies as an engineer, why in the world does software development not, especially if what you're doing involves maintaing a server/database cluster or overseeing development practices?

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#70

Post by [deleted] »

jjsz wrote: post #68
chc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between a computer scientist filling the role of programmer and somebody who is both a computer scientist and a programmer? If you can fill the role of X competently, why can you not rightly be said to be an X?

You're X AND Y. Not just Y. Just like someone here on HN who worked on their double bachelors of Math AND Physics while there was a minor called Math-Physics. S(he) worked hard for that and.

[deleted]
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