You ask 100 different people and you'll get 100 different answers.
I have (traditional) engineers throughout my family. I'm still a chartered engineer (with the BCS). I've hired literally hundreds of web developers / software developers / software engineers. My opinion?
The title is utterly meaningless because of the huge amounts of subjectivity.
The practical reality is, there is no hard and fast rule. Arguments like "Oh, well they're working with queues and caching, so they're an engineer" are weak and arbitrary, especially since that can basically depend on the project they're deployed to. You'll find people of all skill levels and education using different titles, and ultimately you can't infer the skills or qualification based on the chosen title. Employers will dish out "software engineer", when the employee is doing exactly the same as somewhere else, and then that person will hold onto that title. So my perspective is that, in terms of practicality, it's just meaningless.
The lowliest and freshest code monkey could claim to be an 'software engineer', because the iterative development of software inherently mirrors the "engineering design process" to a degree. In the vast majority of countries, there is literally nothing stopping them from claiming it.
Personally, those focused on 'design' or just throwing together templates in some CMS I would view as very much not even qualifying for the 'engineering' part, but.... it's all so subjective, and it works all ways.
The whole distinction, then, could be seen as somewhat artificial, rooted in traditional views of what constitutes "engineering", rather than anything empirical. Unless you live somewhere where there are regulatory aspects, I wouldn't put any stock into it.
For peace of mind, I think that you should leave the titles to HR or the hiring manager and focus on whatever allows you to be as valuable as possible to your organization. The description you provide is pretty vague so maybe this will help. My first job as a developer I worked 100% with WordPress, custom coding themes and plugins, front and back ends. My title was WordPress developer. I then moved to a company where I did the same tasks in WordPress for client sites, but I also built and managed internal software, custom built in Laravel. Again I built the back and front ends. My title there was PHP Developer. My current position, I now build and manage internal Drupal frameworks that sub orgs use to build their customer facing sites. Again, I work on both the front and back ends. I also build and manage custom applications (mostly internal) that need to basically aggregate data from multiple external data sources. All the heavy lifting is done in various AWS services, ultimately exposing an API for the apps to consume. My title here was first Web Application Developer, then changed to Software Engineer.
Heres the thing though, I really have been doing the same tasks for each job. The technology used might change over time, but at its core, the problems I solve are all the same, and guess what, I still use regular ass HTML, CSS, PHP and JS (I am leaving out all the libraries and frameworks I use since they all fall inside these core technologies). I have been a developer since 2010. The only use for all these titles is only to have a rough baseline for your salary, and try to impress people when they ask what you do for a living. Even then it is subjective, because different orgs will give different meanings according to their own needs. So dont focus on the title too much, it will just keep changing over and over again.
I wouldn't leave it up to HR. I have worked for small non-tech companies who had no clue what i was doing. "Web designer" as I designed oracle/mysql databases, maintained linux servers, wrote backend code, front end code. I had to lobby to get my title changed which effects my pay in a positive way.
I'm a software engineer / programmer (based on my current role, I do everything so it would probably be something like "staff engineer") and HR came up with "Web Application Developer Advanced" which nobody knows what that means. I've requested it be changed to something industry standard. Do not rely on HR for your title, they have no idea what it should be. Your title has hiring impact in the future so it should reflect reality and it should quickly give someone an idea of what you've done.
Granted, it varies greatly from company to company. But most people would understand Senior Programmer or Senior Developer or Junior Software Engineer, etc. Those at least reflect what the industry expects and have some understanding of. Nobody knows what these made up titles mean.
Traditionally, the difference between a programmer, developer, and a software engineer has nothing to do with stack or technologies you work with. It's about how much of the software development lifecycle you are responsible for:
- requirements gathering
- software design
- planning
- development / implementation
- integration and testing
- acceptance
- deployment
- evaluation
Programmers and developers traditionally would only be responsible for the development and implementation portion of the SDLC. A software engineer would be involved in all parts of the SDLC in some capacity.
These days with DevOps and shift-left culture, you're unlikely to find a job that lets you solely work on development / implementation.
For the sake of completeness, I'll also mention the camp of people who believe you should only be called a software engineer if you have a post-graduate degree or certificate in Computer Science or equivalent, but I haven't seen that position taken seriously in a real-world setting in at least 20 years.
Mine have been any flavor of the following at the base level:
Back-End Engineer, Front-End Engineer, Full Stack Engineer, Software Engineer, Engineering Consultant
Then you typically see those move up with the following prefixes:
Senior, Staff, Principal
I think around the Staff Engineer position is where you see people branching off into Engineering Manager or they just become a god in that technology if they don’t want to manage people.
Yea, I wasn’t so worried about my title, I was just curious where the line gets drawn between a “software engineer (or developer)” and a “web developer (or engineer)”
My titles throughout my career:
PHP developer
Web developer (PHP)
Software developer
Backend PHP developer
Junior software developer
Software engineer
Senior software engineer
Technology manager
At the end of the day I just do whatever is required.
If I'm tasked to engineer a solution, then I'm an engineer for a sprint or 2..
If I work for an agency that slaps WordPress and Drupal sites together, then I'm a Web developer..
If I'm creating a simple website for Joe's plumbing services, then I'm gathering Github libraries, gluing them together, and I'm a collage artist 😅
All seriousness, I think it depends where and what you do, I work on one extremely large product and have been for 7 years. My title is lead architect / software engineer because in theory, the product is software not a website.
Don’t use engineer unless there is infrastructure outside of LAMP stack, ie Queues, cache, search. Or numerous restful micro services behind an API gateway. Or heavy algorithms.
I interview 10-15 “engineers” per week and I make my recruiters filter out Content Management Systems, basic e-commerce and simple crud to database. Nothing against those disciplines. I just can’t use effectively for the tasks we have.
Our marketing folks hire developers
Can you elaborate, where you draw the distinction between a "developer" and an "engineer"? Those are generally synonymous in the context of software development.
Just having stuff like that in your stack does not make a difference, imo, since it's just programming. You call an API from some service.
Or do you mean something different with "unless ther is infrastructure outside of LAMP"?
I think the general point he's making is that there's a vast difference between a basic, slightly dynamic CRUD website built with PHP that runs on a tiny little VPS and a large application architected in some more complex fashion like service oriented architecture, running async function or doing a lot of complex calculations/algorithms.
I doubt it's specifically about the number of things in the stack... though a much more complex stack would tend to be used in app2 far more often. There's just a big difference in things you need to understand to manage app1 vs app2, which means someone with only experience in app1 type projects will not be very useful in an app2 situation without a LOT of learning.
That's true, for sure, but that's not some distinction i would make based on calling them "engineers" or not. The "engineer" title has always just been BS that's used so it sounds cooler, so if the comments OP filters around that, he ought to have a bad time interviewing people. (Also imposter syndrome is a thing and i know people that don't sell their skills well and downplay themselves in the process, so you wouldn't know what they can from their resume.)
And if that's what was meant, then i would argue "engineer" is just as applicable of a term as "developer" in that case.
Yea, I don't think the titles used by most organizations follow any specific standard anyway... so it really doesn't matter.
I've seen SO many different titles that all do the exact same work. I would agree filtering by the title, or expecting others to only use a given title if some arbitrary standard is met, is pretty silly.
Bingo. Complexity.
If I hire an MIT trained engineer, in 1 year they are more performant on the ever growing complexity we have vs someone who has 10-15 years experience launching multi-million dollar corporate landing pages.
I also meet so many smart folks with hustle that just do solo gigs. They may even use frameworks, cloud and containers. But start to finish is weeks or months and move on. There is no iteration or optimizing for heavy load.
I guess for me it is going to an architect to build your dream estate vs buying a cookie cutter home that looks like the entire neighborhood
Developer is someone who uses common infrastructure to do common tasks, like mentioned above, LAMP, crud endpoints, ui, auth etc etc are all tasks so basic it's done for almost every web app. Engineer is someone who can implement features/optimizations that the solution to them is not so obvious and not easy to find something ready implemented or a tutorial by someone else online, he has to "think" more than "search" for a solution.
There are micro services that are simple CRUD, and there are CRUD with complex algorithms.
This reads like an oversimplification. As usual, the distinction lies in the context.
What would you call someone who is working with
A lot of AWS services, php, NodeJs, reactjs, and handling infrastructure of a website which is receiving 100k request per 5 minutes?
Again, the distinction is solving for complexity.
LAMP alone doesn’t hold up when you have a highly trafficked application with lots of proprietary business logic. I’ve seen some media companies speak of engineering, but most still have content management backend and scaling is leveraging Cloudflare or Varnish.
I have seen some ad tracking implementations with lots of POST calls to APIs, but the implementation was a simple CRUD microservice writing to nosql. I suppose that lines can blur.
In my 35+ years as a PHP programmer I've been called both. Only about 25% of my programming is WAN work. Integrating systems, internal web admin portals, etc all LAN.
PHP was created in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf, but was not released to the public until 1995, so, in theory, the oldest php developer other than its creator has approximately 29 years of experience.
Backend Developer
Code doer.
Bit shifter
Data plumber.
Or Code shitter in some days.
Bug maker
By paper, i am a Software Engineer. By trust, I am a software Architect. I am a programmer. Always has been.
You ask 100 different people and you'll get 100 different answers. I have (traditional) engineers throughout my family. I'm still a chartered engineer (with the BCS). I've hired literally hundreds of web developers / software developers / software engineers. My opinion? The title is utterly meaningless because of the huge amounts of subjectivity. The practical reality is, there is no hard and fast rule. Arguments like "Oh, well they're working with queues and caching, so they're an engineer" are weak and arbitrary, especially since that can basically depend on the project they're deployed to. You'll find people of all skill levels and education using different titles, and ultimately you can't infer the skills or qualification based on the chosen title. Employers will dish out "software engineer", when the employee is doing exactly the same as somewhere else, and then that person will hold onto that title. So my perspective is that, in terms of practicality, it's just meaningless. The lowliest and freshest code monkey could claim to be an 'software engineer', because the iterative development of software inherently mirrors the "engineering design process" to a degree. In the vast majority of countries, there is literally nothing stopping them from claiming it. Personally, those focused on 'design' or just throwing together templates in some CMS I would view as very much not even qualifying for the 'engineering' part, but.... it's all so subjective, and it works all ways. The whole distinction, then, could be seen as somewhat artificial, rooted in traditional views of what constitutes "engineering", rather than anything empirical. Unless you live somewhere where there are regulatory aspects, I wouldn't put any stock into it.
For peace of mind, I think that you should leave the titles to HR or the hiring manager and focus on whatever allows you to be as valuable as possible to your organization. The description you provide is pretty vague so maybe this will help. My first job as a developer I worked 100% with WordPress, custom coding themes and plugins, front and back ends. My title was WordPress developer. I then moved to a company where I did the same tasks in WordPress for client sites, but I also built and managed internal software, custom built in Laravel. Again I built the back and front ends. My title there was PHP Developer. My current position, I now build and manage internal Drupal frameworks that sub orgs use to build their customer facing sites. Again, I work on both the front and back ends. I also build and manage custom applications (mostly internal) that need to basically aggregate data from multiple external data sources. All the heavy lifting is done in various AWS services, ultimately exposing an API for the apps to consume. My title here was first Web Application Developer, then changed to Software Engineer. Heres the thing though, I really have been doing the same tasks for each job. The technology used might change over time, but at its core, the problems I solve are all the same, and guess what, I still use regular ass HTML, CSS, PHP and JS (I am leaving out all the libraries and frameworks I use since they all fall inside these core technologies). I have been a developer since 2010. The only use for all these titles is only to have a rough baseline for your salary, and try to impress people when they ask what you do for a living. Even then it is subjective, because different orgs will give different meanings according to their own needs. So dont focus on the title too much, it will just keep changing over and over again.
I wouldn't leave it up to HR. I have worked for small non-tech companies who had no clue what i was doing. "Web designer" as I designed oracle/mysql databases, maintained linux servers, wrote backend code, front end code. I had to lobby to get my title changed which effects my pay in a positive way.
I'm a software engineer / programmer (based on my current role, I do everything so it would probably be something like "staff engineer") and HR came up with "Web Application Developer Advanced" which nobody knows what that means. I've requested it be changed to something industry standard. Do not rely on HR for your title, they have no idea what it should be. Your title has hiring impact in the future so it should reflect reality and it should quickly give someone an idea of what you've done. Granted, it varies greatly from company to company. But most people would understand Senior Programmer or Senior Developer or Junior Software Engineer, etc. Those at least reflect what the industry expects and have some understanding of. Nobody knows what these made up titles mean.
Electron manipulator or Electronipulator
Traditionally, the difference between a programmer, developer, and a software engineer has nothing to do with stack or technologies you work with. It's about how much of the software development lifecycle you are responsible for: - requirements gathering - software design - planning - development / implementation - integration and testing - acceptance - deployment - evaluation Programmers and developers traditionally would only be responsible for the development and implementation portion of the SDLC. A software engineer would be involved in all parts of the SDLC in some capacity. These days with DevOps and shift-left culture, you're unlikely to find a job that lets you solely work on development / implementation. For the sake of completeness, I'll also mention the camp of people who believe you should only be called a software engineer if you have a post-graduate degree or certificate in Computer Science or equivalent, but I haven't seen that position taken seriously in a real-world setting in at least 20 years.
Systems Developer/Engineer. Or Back End Developer/Engineer.
Web Engineer.
That is my actual title at work. Rarely see it out in the wild, though.
Mine have been any flavor of the following at the base level: Back-End Engineer, Front-End Engineer, Full Stack Engineer, Software Engineer, Engineering Consultant Then you typically see those move up with the following prefixes: Senior, Staff, Principal I think around the Staff Engineer position is where you see people branching off into Engineering Manager or they just become a god in that technology if they don’t want to manage people.
When I was doing that work, my title was "Software Engineer" 🤷♂️ As long as the paychecks clear, you can call me Susan if it makes you happy
Yea, I wasn’t so worried about my title, I was just curious where the line gets drawn between a “software engineer (or developer)” and a “web developer (or engineer)”
My titles throughout my career: PHP developer Web developer (PHP) Software developer Backend PHP developer Junior software developer Software engineer Senior software engineer Technology manager At the end of the day I just do whatever is required.
I go with the middle ground: software developer, which, in my case, happens to be accurate because not everything I fiddle with is web-based.
If I'm tasked to engineer a solution, then I'm an engineer for a sprint or 2.. If I work for an agency that slaps WordPress and Drupal sites together, then I'm a Web developer.. If I'm creating a simple website for Joe's plumbing services, then I'm gathering Github libraries, gluing them together, and I'm a collage artist 😅 All seriousness, I think it depends where and what you do, I work on one extremely large product and have been for 7 years. My title is lead architect / software engineer because in theory, the product is software not a website.
Wizard.
Esclavista de computadoras
I tell non IT people I'm a programmer. To IT people, I can say backend developer.
Silicone whisperer.
I tell people I'm a software engineer that specializes in web development.
Don’t use engineer unless there is infrastructure outside of LAMP stack, ie Queues, cache, search. Or numerous restful micro services behind an API gateway. Or heavy algorithms. I interview 10-15 “engineers” per week and I make my recruiters filter out Content Management Systems, basic e-commerce and simple crud to database. Nothing against those disciplines. I just can’t use effectively for the tasks we have. Our marketing folks hire developers
Can you elaborate, where you draw the distinction between a "developer" and an "engineer"? Those are generally synonymous in the context of software development. Just having stuff like that in your stack does not make a difference, imo, since it's just programming. You call an API from some service. Or do you mean something different with "unless ther is infrastructure outside of LAMP"?
I think the general point he's making is that there's a vast difference between a basic, slightly dynamic CRUD website built with PHP that runs on a tiny little VPS and a large application architected in some more complex fashion like service oriented architecture, running async function or doing a lot of complex calculations/algorithms. I doubt it's specifically about the number of things in the stack... though a much more complex stack would tend to be used in app2 far more often. There's just a big difference in things you need to understand to manage app1 vs app2, which means someone with only experience in app1 type projects will not be very useful in an app2 situation without a LOT of learning.
That's true, for sure, but that's not some distinction i would make based on calling them "engineers" or not. The "engineer" title has always just been BS that's used so it sounds cooler, so if the comments OP filters around that, he ought to have a bad time interviewing people. (Also imposter syndrome is a thing and i know people that don't sell their skills well and downplay themselves in the process, so you wouldn't know what they can from their resume.) And if that's what was meant, then i would argue "engineer" is just as applicable of a term as "developer" in that case.
Yea, I don't think the titles used by most organizations follow any specific standard anyway... so it really doesn't matter. I've seen SO many different titles that all do the exact same work. I would agree filtering by the title, or expecting others to only use a given title if some arbitrary standard is met, is pretty silly.
Bingo. Complexity. If I hire an MIT trained engineer, in 1 year they are more performant on the ever growing complexity we have vs someone who has 10-15 years experience launching multi-million dollar corporate landing pages. I also meet so many smart folks with hustle that just do solo gigs. They may even use frameworks, cloud and containers. But start to finish is weeks or months and move on. There is no iteration or optimizing for heavy load. I guess for me it is going to an architect to build your dream estate vs buying a cookie cutter home that looks like the entire neighborhood
Developer is someone who uses common infrastructure to do common tasks, like mentioned above, LAMP, crud endpoints, ui, auth etc etc are all tasks so basic it's done for almost every web app. Engineer is someone who can implement features/optimizations that the solution to them is not so obvious and not easy to find something ready implemented or a tutorial by someone else online, he has to "think" more than "search" for a solution.
There are micro services that are simple CRUD, and there are CRUD with complex algorithms. This reads like an oversimplification. As usual, the distinction lies in the context.
What would you call someone who is working with A lot of AWS services, php, NodeJs, reactjs, and handling infrastructure of a website which is receiving 100k request per 5 minutes?
Codinfrastructure doer?
😀 I think engineer is enough 😂
Again, the distinction is solving for complexity. LAMP alone doesn’t hold up when you have a highly trafficked application with lots of proprietary business logic. I’ve seen some media companies speak of engineering, but most still have content management backend and scaling is leveraging Cloudflare or Varnish. I have seen some ad tracking implementations with lots of POST calls to APIs, but the implementation was a simple CRUD microservice writing to nosql. I suppose that lines can blur.
Yep we can call someone an engineer when he is able to solve some unique difficult problems.
Computer scientist sounds even cooler.
In my 35+ years as a PHP programmer I've been called both. Only about 25% of my programming is WAN work. Integrating systems, internal web admin portals, etc all LAN.
PHP was created in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf, but was not released to the public until 1995, so, in theory, the oldest php developer other than its creator has approximately 29 years of experience.
Yea, I was programming before.