I am not a Software Engineer
huronbikes.mataroa.blog
I am not a Software Engineer
1–10 of 12 posts
Re: I am not a Software Engineer
#2This is perfect!
I too am not a SWE. This confuses a lot of SWEs, recruiters, interviewers, etc.
My domain used to have a name, but that name got changed to something that has the word AI in it. And I don't really identify with that either, although I use parts of that.
Hacker (in the HN sense, obviously) actually captures fairly perfectly how I approach using computers/tech.
Good piece for those with such an identity crisis to re-find the word for it.
Re: I am not a Software Engineer
#3I love it! I had this convo with many people before, I consider myself a hacker too, not the Hollywood cliche, but the concept of hacking things and repurposing them to do another goal or a new one. I get bored quickly doing the same thing over and over so sitting and writing code is a soul crushing task, rather, I have a goal to do something and in the process I learn all the new exciting stuff while building it, of course, you have to be a quick learn and adaptable to do that. It’s perfect except when it comes to get a job, most companies still follow the traditional concept of you being a cog in a machine, and whatever you are doing will be used in our work, they don’t look at the attributes you have but rather how many X years in writing Z language or FPGA design.
Re: I am not a Software Engineer
#4He’s a perfectionist idealistic artsy software engineer. Surely some 10x engineers can find some roles where they can totally avoid agentic AI coding and leave that to their coworkers to manage for him.
We need people like him.
We also need pragmatic efficient generalist software engineers who have a get shit done / FAFO mindset, accept the probabilistic nature of this enterprise and focus on what customers really need
(Hint: your customers don’t care about your beautiful TDD OOP SOLID DRY code)
Re: I am not a Software Engineer
#5I don't know where he lives, but I am Canadian so I find it laughable that someone with a few-week bootcamp and a few years of on-the-job coding experience can call himself an engineer in the USA. In Canada "engineer" is a title with serious requirements and responsibilities. I don't see the Bay Area coder crowd rushing to take responsibilities like "if the bridge I design falls, I can be sued and/or lose my license."
Re: I am not a Software Engineer
#6I’m not sure what his point is? This just looks like grief-posting. Keep up with the times and don’t be incurious.
If you don’t like AI then you should find a niche in software development that may still require rawdogging. I think kernel development and making hand crafted libraries are good options.
Product engineers will be more exposed to AI.
Re: I am not a Software Engineer
#7I don't know where he lives, but I am Canadian so I find it laughable that someone with a few-week bootcamp and a few years of on-the-job coding experience can call himself an engineer in the USA. In Canada "engineer" is a title with serious requirements and responsibilities. I don't see the Bay Area coder crowd rushing to take responsibilities like "if the bridge I design falls, I can be sued and/or lose my license.…
I find the American version far more attractive to my ideals. No fake credentials whatsover. And who ends up making better software? Americans.
Re: I am not a Software Engineer
#8> How AI software is made possible through mass exploitation.
Throwing around vacuous accusations like this dilutes the effect of flagging real exploitation.
Re: I am not a Software Engineer
#9I don't know where he lives, but I am Canadian so I find it laughable that someone with a few-week bootcamp and a few years of on-the-job coding experience can call himself an engineer in the USA. In Canada "engineer" is a title with serious requirements and responsibilities. I don't see the Bay Area coder crowd rushing to take responsibilities like "if the bridge I design falls, I can be sued and/or lose my license.…
I find the American version far more attractive to my ideals. No fake credentials whatsover. And who ends up making better software? Americans.
Are you American? What does that mean to you?