this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
1 points (100.0% liked)

Asklemmy

55930 readers
365 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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?

all 40 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] muusemuuse@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

giving rocks anxiety

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Digital psychoacousticiamusicolograpist

That's actually my thing I'm working towards but

[–] mrbeano@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I was with you until the last 6 letters...

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Nuh uh, its grapist πŸ‘‰πŸ‘ˆ

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Uh feel yah

[–] algernon@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

Bachelor of Bitical Arts.

[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I wanted to be an archeologist.

Not only did I fail at my dreams I gave them up for the lie of "job security".

[–] sockenklaus@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago

To be honest software development and archaeology have a lot in common.

[–] MisterCurtis@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

Lead googler

Music artist

[–] Ardyssian@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Virtual Lego Assembler; the Virtual Legos are Libraries / PaaS APIs

[–] dreugeworst@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

senior headpalmer

[–] ClathrateG@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago

my title is 'analyst programmer' so just analyst I guess,

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

porn star; that is if i were hot. lol

[–] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] zenforyen@feddit.org 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That sounds pretty cool, I could imagine myself doing that.

How did you get into such a role? Is it some kind of consultancy?

[–] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 0 points 2 years ago

It happened by chance the first few times. Projects were failing and management wanted more resources, I was assigned and noticed problems that hadn't been noticed. After a few different projects with different issues, I became the default guy to call into ongoing projects. At the time I had already rejected a few promotions because I didn't like any of the other roles above my position, so I eventually asked management to create a new role for me based on that.

[–] plumbercraic@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] tun@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago

project manager

[–] folekaule@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

Yaml editor? Business therapist? Email author? Paid meeting actor? Scrum participant? Office cynic? Idk.

[–] NABDad@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago
[–] grue@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

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.)

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 0 points 2 years ago

I always say β€œweb application developer” because I don’t want to be considered a β€œweb designer” (which I consider to mean designing static websites for businesses like restaurants).

[–] sgtlion@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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.

[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 0 points 2 years ago

These are job titles I've actually used:

  • Brain for Hire
  • Elephant header
  • Janitor
  • Troubleshooter

Over the past 25+ years I've worked for myself and whilst doing the exact same job, fixing complex ICT problems for my clients I've had to complete job title fields in countless corporate forms.

It's fun to interact with colleagues who get the joke and hilarious when they don't.

[–] zenforyen@feddit.org 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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).

[–] flubba86@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oh dang, last year I left a job I was in for 8 years, where I was writing software for scientists and researchers (or attempting to). You do spend a lot more time in meetings discussing your software than you do actually writing code. And those projects have the bad habit of being cancelled three quarters the way through, because funding gets pulled, or the researcher just leaves, or quite often they find an off-the-shelf software product that is a better solution.

[–] zenforyen@feddit.org 0 points 2 years ago

I did that for 3 years. Funny how it seems to be a universal experience. Confirms to me how it's pretty much the same, regardless of project, funding or scientific area.

For me it was a bit heartbreaking to see, because I loved the idea of writing software for research. But the reality was that academia simply does not have the right structures to support serious and sustainable software development and until that changes, it feels more like a thankless "bullshit job".

You simply can't run software development in such a opportunistic and chaotic way like scientists do their research and write papers.

[–] simontherockjohnson@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago
  • Janitor
  • Babysitter
  • Contortionist
[–] flubba86@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I suppose the same can be said for authors.

You could be an author who writes epic fantasy novels. Or an author who writes high school text books. Or an author who submits science journal articles. Or an author who writes video game walkthroughs.

[–] faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 0 points 2 years ago

Yeah, "author" makes the most sense. They're usually pro-grammar.

[–] flubba86@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

See, at my job it's the other way around. I am responsible for:

  • Solution architecture
  • Cloud architecture development
  • Cloud infrastructure design and implementation
  • Data model specification
  • Database schema design
  • Database administration
  • Data cleaning and data review
  • ETL
  • Server administration
  • Web framework developer
  • Frontend developer
  • Backend API developer
  • Mobile app developer
  • Documentation author
  • Troubleshooting
  • Maintenance

Also I have involvement in: Stakeholder engagement, user education and training, project management.

I do the work equivalent of around 3 full-time engineers. So to keep it simple, we call my position just "senior software engineer". I like your idea of disambiguation to better communicate exactly what you do, but I don't know what you'd call me.

[–] sockenklaus@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago

In Germany we call you a "MΓ€dchen fΓΌr alles"

[–] golden_zealot@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago
  • Captain Handcannon
  • Big Cheese of the Seven Seas
  • Luscious Duluth Doddery Landran III the Fourteenth

I am and do basically whatever they need. Please end my misery.

[–] butsbutts@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

screen looker

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 years ago

"Embedded control architect"

[–] Binette@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 years ago

I would be a cook. I love food.