Code monkey
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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My boss once referred to me as “code bastard”. I’m keeping it.
I'm in tech and "computer programmer" has always sounded to me like a grandma phrase. Like how all gaming consoles are referred to as "the Nintendo" or "the game station".
Has there been a programmer for anything other than a computer
Yes. And, by the way, "computer" was once the name of a profession, carried out by people.
Serious question, not a native speaker: Why do people in the Anglosphere refer to mostly-software companies as tech companies, or to software developers as tech workers?
Because even in those companies many of the 'computer people' are not software developers. Tech workers is a catch all term for most people at those companies.
But the term isn't used for technology outside of software companies, for example, mechanical and electrical engineering
There's tech companies that don't work with software
Such as?
Tech is short-hand for technology.
So, technology companies and technology workers.
But the question was why
Thanks for responding but that wasn't the question
Machinists / mechanical engineering are technology workers, so are civil engineers, electrical engineers, etc, but only software gets called "tech"
Not engineer.
At least here in Germany, engineer is a protected profession. Other than that: All of the above.
Softwareingenieur darf man sich nennen, wenn man ein mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliches Fach studiert hat, wo Informatik dazugehört. Somit ist Software Engineer oder Softwareingenieur die korrekte Berufsbezeichnung für alle mit einem Bachelor/Master oder höher in Informatik.
Dann muss man schon auch als solcher tätig sein, sonst nicht.
If you studied a technical science and do coding for that you may be allowed to be called ingenieur.
Hmmm. But all the people around me working in software studied multiple years in an Engineering field. In my case, I studied a 5-year industrial engineering and two masters afterwards; I feel very comfortable wearing the "software engineer" or more accurately "robotics engineer" badge.
During the 2008 recession, a lot of Uber drivers had engineering degrees. I guess we should start calling Uber drivers engineers too.
No, that's precisely the opposite of my point. If you drive an Uber, you're an Uber driver. People are "CEO" or "Judge" despite nobody having a CEO or Judge degree. Your profession is what you do, not what you happened to study in your teens to get there.
Interesting. In the US, all kinds of jobs are called engineers
Yeah, same in the UK. Really annoyed me that the plumber, electrician.. etc were all engineers. In Germany it's as protected as calling yourself doctor, which ultimately affects how people view the profession and the salaries they command
I mean, it's a protected term in Canada too but it doesn't necessarily lead to higher salaries.
My cousin who's an electrician made about as much as I did as an electrical engineer, and I left electrical engineering to be a software developer because it paid more. Engineering paid more than being an electrical technician / designer, but not by a huge amount.
I left aeronautical engineering to become a software "engineer" for similar reasons, salary and work culture. Actual engineering pays quite terribly in the UK, it's a fair bit better in Germany or the US from what I hear.
US much better than Germany I’ve heard!
Software yes, actual no
I prefer Software Engineer, mostly because I studied at an engineering school and have a degree in Software Engineering. My actual titles have varied throughout my career, but I overall consider myself a software engineer.
I'm curious if you've looked up whether you're allowed to call yourself an engineer in some states (US centric of course)? I read years ago that some states really frown on calling yourself an engineer if you aren't a certain small range of engineers that they have codified (pun intended) in law.
I think that's only a civil engineering thing.
Source: work in the industry, and "Civil Engineer" and "Professional Engineer" are legally protected titles. Other than that, it's fair game. Like, there are "Design Engineers" in the civil sector that don't have their Professional Engineer certification.
In Germany the title engineer is protected by law but with a computer science degree you may call yourself an engineer.
My friends call me "Please fix my printer".
Deputy assistant senior vice president software engineering manager
I have the words "software engineer" in my job title but I hate it.
We aren't engineers, we're a bunch of undisciplined hackers, engineers have standards and ethics.
Programmer is my preferred term, or software developer.
Code monkey is also acceptable.
Depends. I've studied for my engineering title, I have standards and ethics. Requirements, specification, design, architecture, programming, testing, integration, delivery, everything is part of my job. If you are a programmer, you only do programming.
Yeah, that's bullshit.
Look at the state of software in the world. Even for Boeing standards, most software is abysmal. You can have personal standards all you want, if business daddy wants to deliver untested crap, I might object, but I can't stop it and it's usually not a hill I would want to die on.
That's why I said it depends. If a billion dollar company decides to cut costs even more to gain more and more profits, they hire an army of codemonkeys in India and that is what you get.
If you work at a mid sized company interested in sustainable growth, you might get a software engineering position where you are the business daddy and if you say "I won't deliver that untested" then it won't be delivered untested.
I'm working at a company in Germany and we are leading in our field. I have one boss and he listens to what I tell him because he doesn't have a clue about software engineering and that's what he hired me and my team for.
Look into Agile, servant leadership and new work (the real stuff and not the garbage "hip" companies want to make you believe) if you want to understand.
It's the old principles that kill companies like Boeing, because they think they can make big profits like it's 1984 solely by pumping money into an army of wage slaves.
Look into "how a company works", because that directly works against anything you say.
Not that I disagree with your ambition, I would like to only ship tested code. But if you're working with deadlines and fixed budgets, that's often enough impossible. I can't even get a proper specification out of my clients, and even if they do, it'll change in a week. You can be as agile as you want, if money runs out, there's not much you can do.
I might object, but I can’t stop it
I'd argue that if you seriously consider yourself a software engineer, and you take the "engineer" part seriously, you should be quitting and blowing the whistle if that happens. If you just go along with it, then sure, you're not an engineer.
Sure, and go where else exactly?
The entire industry works on shipping duct taped products.
I do have my standards, but there's a point at which you have to say "it's good enough". If someone's at risk of dying or being harmed, yeah, that's a real problem. If the application keeps crashing and loses the business money, that's not my problem, I can only notify my superiors about my concerns.
Honestly, the longer I work in tech, the less confidence I have in anyone's title. Even searching for a job, different companies have different ideas of what, pretty much everything is....
I'm more on the side of IT support (sysadmin/netadmim/systems engineer/network engineer/second/third level support/engineer/whatever tf)... And even looking for a job for myself, it's a nightmare... Even mundane details about the job are messed up. I saw a posting for a "remote support technician", by their definition, this was "remote" as in, not from an office. The job was on-site support for remote sites. I don't even think it was an IT position, more like mechanical maintenance IIRC. So you were "remote" aka, not at their office, doing support (for something not electronic), as a "technician".
It's bullshit all the way down.
When I was last looking for a job someone commented that I had "only" applied to x positions in y weeks, when their search for (some vague title related to my usual employment) had z search results, where z was more than 10 times x. I didn't bother replying but I couldn't help but think, did you look at any of those postings? I literally had a search filter for jobs that was "CCNA" (Cisco certified) and I literally had administrative assistant positions coming up.... Those are little better than secretarial jobs. I know because I clicked on it because maybe, just maybe they meant an assistant to the systems administrator, but no, it was exactly what it said on the tin.
This is my frustration with IT. There are zero standards for what a job is. Developer? Is it software or something related to construction? Engineer? Are you examining the structure of something or building out IT solutions? Admin? Office admin? Systems admin? Department admin? There's too many "admin" related jobs.... "Support"? Supporting what exactly? Am I programming switchports, or is this some other kind of bullshit support.
That's not even getting into all the actual IT jobs that are clearly out in left field. Sysadmin jobs that require years of experience with an application that's extremely specific to one industry; an application you could learn likely in a matter of days, which isn't very complicated, but your resume goes in a bin if you don't have some very specific certification and a number of years of experience with the related app... I know that because I've applied to such positions and didn't even get a courtesy email telling me to pound sand.
Which takes me to another point, you don't get rejected. You get ghosted. They don't want you? Fine, tell me that. You don't even have to give me a reason, just some copy pasta about pursuing other candidates. That way I will know to not expect anything further, and keep trying. I mean, I'm going to keep trying no matter what, but still...
The whole job market is a hellscape.
Then, I can turn my attention to the pointless titles people have, which often don't mean shit outside of your specific workplace. "Lead customer success technician" ... Ok, wtf is that? What does any of that mean? Are you technical in the sense of working with information technology? Or is it one of the DOZENS of other "technical" things? Everyone is a technician and everyone is an engineer now. Those terms used to mean something. Now they're just keywords to blast your resume with to try to match some AI filter so you can get a call. If you don't play the game, your left behind.
I feel bad for all the professional engineers out there who hold degrees in real engineering. Now anyone, everyone and their mother is calling themselves some kind of engineer. It's all word salad and I hate it.
The reality is also, that development is so extremely diverse, that it's hard to find umbrella-enough terms to describe a job.
For example, I'm a senior software developer on paper.
I'm not senior, not even 10 years job experience. But I seem to be rather good at what I'm doing, so I'm a senior now.
I'm also hardly writing any code. I talk to customers about what they want their software to do, I talk to management about how many people I need, I review pull requests, I talk to junior devs about their problems, etc, etc. Maybe 10% of my time is actual code. But what title other than "developer" should I have?
A few more titles that you will hate, but actually describe your role. You are in no sense just a senior developer.
You are an
- Architect
- Solution Architect
- Project Manager and Team Leader
- Service Manager
Which one fits best, you have to decide. But i would put this up on my resume if i had your responsibilities.
It's not a huge project (3-4 devs, including myself), there's simply not enough to do for a dedicated architect. PM and SM are done by dedicated roles, but as a lead dev, I obviously have to play translator quite a bit.
I make computers do useful things.
"The computer guy" which is wrong in all ways but somehow correct
I hear the voice of the machine spirit!
- Viewport engineer.
- Browser-space technician.
- Microsoft painter-decorator.
- Inferior decorator.
- He-who-responds (on the bugs channel).
- Scope denier.
- Manager disappointer.
inferior decorator
This one is going in my dad joke arsenal. Thank you
I think "prompt engineer" is the best job title on multiple levels