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Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

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Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#141

Post by fudged71 »

msbarnett wrote: post #126
lgunsch wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why it irks you. There is actually software engineers. At the U of A, where I went, Software Engineering is separate than Computing Science. Software Engineering was run by the Engineering department, and they had the same rigours as the rest of engineering has. However, Computing Science was run by the Science department.

Note that, even though you can get a Software Engineering degree from the U of A, your likelihood of ever qualifying for your PEng is next to nil. In 99.99% of software jobs in the Canadian or US job markets you're simply never going to be able to accumulate enough eligible hours in your 6 year EIT eligibility period, because of the way APEGA defines things. Software jobs where you're supervised by a P.Eng., as requi…

This is why a bunch of my friends would go to companies like CDL systems where there are many software P.Eng.

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#142

Post by chrisan »

jallmann wrote: post #53
mtmail wrote: post #2

In 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…

Moreover, there seems to be a contradiction there: they are saying engineering is not inherently domain-specific, but to seek out domain experts when the need arises. Okay? That network engineer isn't REALLY an engineer until he wants to learn about databases? Would a "network engineer" be a non-sequitur in itself? "Software engineering," as the term is usually used, is really a joke. In my mind, engineering is about…

I think this basically boils down to "are lives at risk?"

As you hint at, most companies likely don't have the rigors of an "actual" engineer. But places like NASA or a medical company where lives are at stake would likely have the same rigors and reliability of a civil engineer and their bridge.

I think it is unfair to compare software _____s to civil engineers. We just don't have anywhere near the level of laws and regulations on most of our projects as someone who is building things that lives depend on being reliable. And even then, bridges can and do fail.

If a civil engineer were building bridges for his kid's matchbox cars I bet they do not put in the same level of reliability as a bridge where human lives must cross it daily for many years.

Since no lives are at stake for most software in the world, the guys up top will opt for the cheaper route over the route that involves a high level of process, measurability, and discipline.

Once they start losing sales/customers due to bugs they may change their tune of course :)

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#143

Post by neptunespear »

msbarnett wrote: post #126
lgunsch wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why it irks you. There is actually software engineers. At the U of A, where I went, Software Engineering is separate than Computing Science. Software Engineering was run by the Engineering department, and they had the same rigours as the rest of engineering has. However, Computing Science was run by the Science department.

Note that, even though you can get a Software Engineering degree from the U of A, your likelihood of ever qualifying for your PEng is next to nil. In 99.99% of software jobs in the Canadian or US job markets you're simply never going to be able to accumulate enough eligible hours in your 6 year EIT eligibility period, because of the way APEGA defines things. Software jobs where you're supervised by a P.Eng., as requi…

I've heard that APEGBC is now regulating the term "Software Engineer", when it didn't before. Hootsuite had to change its job titles to "Software Developer".

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#144

Post by rixed »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #134
mattlutze wrote: post #25

I don't understand why he's drawing this line in the sand. Engineering is applying scientific principles to solve a problem. Development is the process of improving something. I don't see why they should be at odds; the concepts seem orthogonal. Instead of insulting rigorous, creative professionals who prefer the name "developer" over "engineer", maybe he could have said that he wants to hire people that won't go CYA…

There you have it: developers rarely apply scientific principles to development. The native people would've switched to Ada or Modula-3 long ago if they did. Cleanroom and formal code reviews would've had more takeup after empirical studies showed they worked. Models for safe concurrency from Hansen, Ada, Eiffel, etc would've been widely deployed. Frameworks for web app issues like from OWASP would've eliminated thos…

You make it sound like it's developers fault, while in my experience that's merely the market that does not ask for nor reward spending time on correctness (or security) Maybe we are still too early in the initial gold rush?

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#145

Post by andraganescu »

serge2k wrote: post #136

> I’ve never heard an engineer wanting to say “You know what, I don’t want to care about database schema design.” I simply can't believe he's telling the truth here. I mean networking, sure, but databases are another story.

programming computers has more to do with DB schema than networking, no?

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#146

Post by chmaynard »

Back when CS departments were first established, engineering schools probably should have stepped up and taken responsibility for educating software engineers. My impression is that even today, most engineering schools do not provide formal software engineering education and state governments do not recognize it as a valid discipline (no licensing).

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#147

Post by slavik81 »

msbarnett wrote: post #137
auxym wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Quebec, programming is not considered an engineer-reserved task and therefore experience cannot be used towards getting the PE. In practice, it means that even thoug there is such a thing as software engineering degrees (most universities offer it), no graduate ever becomes an engineer. My opinion (as a jr mechanical engineer) is that the whole law is a bit outdated and seems to be geared 100% to civil engineers w…

> In Quebec, programming is not considered an engineer-reserved task and therefore experience cannot be used towards getting the PE. In practice, it means that even thoug there is such a thing as software engineering degrees (most universities offer it), no graduate ever becomes an engineer. APEGA has essentially the same rule in Alberta. That's what makes it impossible to log enough eligible hours to qualify for a P…

APEGA accepted my work experience record without issue, and I don't think it was a problem for anyone I worked with. Maybe that's because I worked at an unusually engineering-heavy shop? The software was rigorously tested for safety reasons, and a P.Eng. had to sign off on each release.

It's reasonably common for engineering grads of any speciality to simply end up working somewhere they don't need a P.Eng. While it might be nice if that were less common for Software Engineers, a P.Eng. must stand behind their work. Qualified candidates should show they worked in a manner that made an existing engineer comfortable ok'ing their work. That may not be common, but it's fundamental to the process.

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#148

Post by mattlutze »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #134
mattlutze wrote: post #25

I don't understand why he's drawing this line in the sand. Engineering is applying scientific principles to solve a problem. Development is the process of improving something. I don't see why they should be at odds; the concepts seem orthogonal. Instead of insulting rigorous, creative professionals who prefer the name "developer" over "engineer", maybe he could have said that he wants to hire people that won't go CYA…

There you have it: developers rarely apply scientific principles to development. The native people would've switched to Ada or Modula-3 long ago if they did. Cleanroom and formal code reviews would've had more takeup after empirical studies showed they worked. Models for safe concurrency from Hansen, Ada, Eiffel, etc would've been widely deployed. Frameworks for web app issues like from OWASP would've eliminated thos…

It may very well be that the software industry needs a more formal structure of Professional Engineers like the rest of the applied sciences / engineering disciplines have.

http://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe

What disciplines in software development truly need the concept of a a big-e Engineer? Which don't?

http://theinstitute.ieee.org/ieee-roundup/opinions/ieee-roun...

More fundamentally, have the practices and knowledge in software engineering yet reached a point of maturity, that licensing Professional Software Engineers would be ethical?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_professio...

Until then, it doesn't feel particularly useful to have folks coming up with their own pet definitions and adding confusion to a sufficiently broad, fluid profession.

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#149

Post by dilemma »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #101

One of the best pieces of sleight of hand that modern companies are pulling on modern engineering job seekers is the complete demise of the job description. Job descriptions act like a constraint on the human complexity of a team or organization. They help codify the way people conceive of modularizing known workflows and discretizing for the purposes of having employees solve them. Crucially, a job description defin…

Excellent. Saved to my Management notebook as a reminder to my future self.

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#150

Post by facepalm »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #19

I 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…

Do you really engineer something like HDFS just like that? Or does it take a lot of time, several people, many failed attempts,...?
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