A friend and I were discussing recently the interesting phenomenon where despite us having highly unrelated jobs/passions with unrelated skillsets, we are both considered “software engineers” because we happen to write code. I believe this happens because when, say, family asks what we do, it usually feels like they’re mainly interested in the day-to-day as opposed to the core purpose of the work. This makes perfect sense and is fine, but between two people who write code it is probably reductive communication.
This prompted us to strip back the code-writing part and come up with a new job title for each of our occupations; my actual job, and his primary interest. The new titles were far more descriptive of the core work we both do that is probably more salient on a fundamental level than the programming part.
Mine was “software engineer” -> “video compression researcher” His was “software engineer” -> “web platform designer/developer” (using developer in the name still feels like cheating, but we couldn’t think of anything else)
SWEs (or CS students): Do this for yourselves. What does this look like for you?
My last job was: PowerPoint presentation and poster designer, educator, communicator and mind reader.
Tried to be software developer in science, turns out that I had to spend much more time promoting whatever little coding I do to interested parties, and creating software based on guesses what they could need and what the right thing probably should be.
It was a mess, for many reasons.
Now I’m an actual software architect and engineer.
As a metaphor, somewhere between apprentice dark magician (when sprinkling in some fancy things not many others would be able to do), gardener (need to clean up a lot of weeds, tidy up and revitalize the decomposing codebase, trim some rotten code branches) and strategist (when conceptually working on the mid and long-term planning and high level goals).
I always say “web application developer” because I don’t want to be considered a “web designer” (which I consider to mean designing static websites for businesses like restaurants).
I’d still be an “Engineer,” LOL. (I do civil engineering as well as CS, and try to work at the intersection of the two fields.)
Yaml editor? Business therapist? Email author? Paid meeting actor? Scrum participant? Office cynic? Idk.
Software Diagnosticist, maybe?
My main role lately has been to jump into failing projects and put them back on track, then leave it back with its own team. Sometimes I’m debugging software, other times I’m “debugging” processes or even team structures. Occasionally even the whole idea behind some project is just messed up and nobody realized.
I would be a cook. I love food.
Lead googler
my title is ‘analyst programmer’ so just analyst I guess,
project manager
Virtual Lego Assembler; the Virtual Legos are Libraries / PaaS APIs
senior headpalmer
Learner.
Id just grow chilis and make hot sauce. Probably switch to arch and find an open source project to contribute to for scratching the tech itch.
If money weren’t an issue I’d go back to working in fast food or a warehouse. I miss busting ass and being able to clock out at the end of the day.
If I didn’t write code? Network… make… worker…
On first read, I assumed the title asked what would be my second career choice. Other than self employment, that would be gardener.
i was systems engineer/head programmer and thought i was lucky getting paid for my pastime. 30+ years later i realised i was not lucky at all. so i quit and today i am a fish monger and it feels great. i know, not an answer for your question…
