Huh?
Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers
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Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers
#12More I see cross-engineer that do backend to fronend and more I see problem. There is no way a database guru can create a super nice UI with CSS and JavaScript. Same thing for an expert in JavaScript and web cannot be also an expert in AI, database and xyz stuff. I am all about having people touching a little bit of everything, but at the end, everyone has an expertise and they should do 80% of their time there. Mult…
Agree. I keep seeing job postings requiring (combined roles): * Must do backend * Must do frontend * Must do devops * Must do database schemas like a wizard * Must know all of AWS inside and out * Do you like customer support? You'll be doing customer support. * You'll be doing marketing disguised as engineering blog posts. Completely unrealistic.
Dunno about startups, where it probably is just "we're going to overwork you", but in big companies a posting like this is often a "hire Bob" situation -- Bob worked at the company for many years, picked up a bunch of different skills and was working on different projects. Bob leaves. They only have the one opening to bring someone on, so they want to hire someone exactly like Bob, and just throw up a job posting with all of Bob's skills.
Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers
#13More I see cross-engineer that do backend to fronend and more I see problem. There is no way a database guru can create a super nice UI with CSS and JavaScript. Same thing for an expert in JavaScript and web cannot be also an expert in AI, database and xyz stuff. I am all about having people touching a little bit of everything, but at the end, everyone has an expertise and they should do 80% of their time there. Mult…
Being very-multi-disciplinary makes sense for development managers (who manage a team of specialized people), not for individual contributors, at least not in the common case.
Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers
#14I've always thought of it as: An engineer engineers solutions, frequently from scratch or very small pieces. A developer develops solutions, often from larger pieces, focusing on implementing them to solve business needs. It's subtle but I think there is some differentiation. I think the vast majority of companies only require developers, or mostly developers, including Etsy.. because let's be honest what is Etsy doi…
I think of it as, engineers try to ask/answer the "should" questions -- as in, how should a thing work, what's the right way to get this done, etc. A developer takes business requirements, or sometimes just acceptance requirements, and implements them directly.
Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree. I keep seeing job postings requiring (combined roles): * Must do backend * Must do frontend * Must do devops * Must do database schemas like a wizard * Must know all of AWS inside and out * Do you like customer support? You'll be doing customer support. * You'll be doing marketing disguised as engineering blog posts. Completely unrealistic.
Dunno about startups, where it probably is just "we're going to overwork you", but in big companies a posting like this is often a "hire Bob" situation -- Bob worked at the company for many years, picked up a bunch of different skills and was working on different projects. Bob leaves. They only have the one opening to bring someone on, so they want to hire someone exactly like Bob, and just throw up a job posting wit…
Or, renew someone's work visa. Requirements are that such a job is made publicly available... but no outside hires are made, they just use it to renew the existing engineer's visa. Seen this twice (well, applied for two positions and found out this was the case why I wasn't considered).
Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers
#16Very odd to see this kind of attitude coming from someone who works on a community that supports makers.
Not every problem needs to be engineered. Sometimes you just need a good enough solution developed, and an engineered one would be overkill.
Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers
#17I always thought that Development was creating something. Engineering was actually making that something work.
Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers
#18In the paragraph on "Engineering vs. Development" I read what engineering is "Engineering, as a discipline and as an activity, is multi-disciplinary. It’s just messy. And that’s actually the best part of engineering. It’s not about everyone knowing everything. It’s about paying attention to the shared, mutual understanding. " But the author doesn't contrast that with what development is. I used the words interchangea…
I would also like them to go into detail about the differences, and how they see the people they brought up from the hacker schools fit into that model.
Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers
#19I am sympathetic to the distinction. I had a bunch of applicants for a position claiming to be "Distributed Systems Engineers" mostly because they'd stood-up, maintained, and or used a Hadoop or Spark cluster in their current or prior job.
But to me that was more of an advanced (one hopes) end-user. Someone who could take a bunch of large, mostly-complete logical components that somebody else engineered and then use them to stitch together a solution by integrating these existing frameworks that already provide the first 80+% of the technical solution to carry the last ~20% toward a domain-specific use-case.
What I was looking for wasn't somebody who knew how to use something like HDFS. I was looking for someone who could build something as good or better than HDFS from nothing if they had to. A lot of what passes for "engineering" today, at least by marketplace label, tends to resemble the former rather than the latter.
There's definitely all kinds of space for both kinds of builders/creators depending on the needs and the project, but it certainly doesn't help that the English language and it's colloquial application to the problem space has grossly blurred the distinction.
Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers
#20More I see cross-engineer that do backend to fronend and more I see problem. There is no way a database guru can create a super nice UI with CSS and JavaScript. Same thing for an expert in JavaScript and web cannot be also an expert in AI, database and xyz stuff. I am all about having people touching a little bit of everything, but at the end, everyone has an expertise and they should do 80% of their time there. Mult…
Agree. I keep seeing job postings requiring (combined roles): * Must do backend * Must do frontend * Must do devops * Must do database schemas like a wizard * Must know all of AWS inside and out * Do you like customer support? You'll be doing customer support. * You'll be doing marketing disguised as engineering blog posts. Completely unrealistic.
When I see the following terms, I usually move on:
Guru, Ninja, Wizard, Rockstar.
I am none of these.