2026-03-26 06:02 UTC
Replies (23)
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@kimvanwyk@fosstodon.org 2026-03-26 06:29
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa I've gone with "Engineer" but that's mainly because my degree is in electronic engineering and I worked in embedded systems writing C for years. It's all desktop and server Python code these days but I still think of myself as an engineer before any other term.
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@NormanDunbar@mastodon.scot 2026-03-26 06:47
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa I call myself "Norman"! (Sorry.) In the past I have been a programmers, junior and senior, and also developer plus senior. Cheers.
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@len@nyan.network 2026-03-26 06:54
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa I'll be okay with the term "engineer" once we have some actual regulations in this cursed industry that is eating itself and pulling all of society with it. I've been known as programmer and developer. Depends on the context. Titles have always been developer.
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@chris_e_simpson@hachyderm.io 2026-03-26 07:00
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa I answered "developer" but I sometimes say "engineer" when I know it might annoy a nearby person who feels overly strongly that only people with a very specific qualification should be allowed to call themselves engineers. It's childish of me, but I find it amusing. Programming to me seems to be a subset of development, though with the current sloppy nature of software development, I'm thinking of calling myself a "small batch artisanal software developer" for absolute clarity.
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@mahamind@mastodon.africa 2026-03-26 07:45
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa I like Common Lisp. That's all.
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@pdcawley@mendeddrum.org 2026-03-26 07:46
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa @irina@wandering.shop When I did, I called myself a coder.
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@lysander@fedi.vituperio.eu 2026-03-26 08:32
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa Applied computer scientist or algorithmist. Or, among friends, informatician, enginerd (perjorative), byte sheperd
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@AbramKedge@beige.party 2026-03-26 14:04
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa I was called an "architect" at Western Digital. A bit pretentious, but it signified being comfortable with designing the structure of major portions of the codebase, and drawing up interaction contracts with adjacent parts of the product. Coding was a tiny part of the job. Four of us worked on a complete replacement of the ten year old firmware. It had become so entangled, it was impossible to refactor to work with multiple cores. We had a three-core system booting Windows in about three months.
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@mensrea@freeradical.zone 2026-03-26 15:14
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa job title says developer but i've moved back to designer
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@leoncowle@hachyderm.io 2026-03-26 16:18
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa "AI Orchestrator" /me ducks for all the rotten tomatoes getting thrown my way. lol.
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@clonezone@mastodon.social 2026-03-26 16:33
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa @HollyGoDarkly@wandering.shop “software geek”
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@rhelune@todon.eu 2026-03-26 18:00
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa I have officially had job titles "programmer" and "developer" and my academic title is "engineer" 🤷
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@mdhughes@appdot.net 2026-03-26 18:16
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa When I was young and unemployed, I was a Hacker. When I wanted corpos to hire me, I was a Software Engineer. Now that I'm old and unemployed, I'm a Hacker again. No, I don't care what that connotes to corpos and other non-hackers.
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@davidhmccoy@mastodon.world 2026-03-27 03:07
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa @everythingalsocan@techhub.social Should be combo options. I use Soft Eng and Dev.
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@Vash@mstdn.games 2026-03-27 06:51
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@vvv@mastodontech.de 2026-03-27 08:17
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa According to my job description I'm a Senior Software Engineer, I use it interchangeably with Software Developer, depending on context. The first one is the job name and the description of my academic training, the second one is the description of what I actually do (especially to non-techies, as opposed to just managing stuff or people).
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@tymwol@hachyderm.io 2026-03-27 08:55
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa "engineer" because I don't have engineering degree, so that way I can pretend it
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@mxk@hachyderm.io 2026-03-27 08:57
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa engineer, but partially because writing code nowadays is less than 20% of my work. Whole systems error analysis is the way bigger chunk
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@quincy@chaos.social 2026-03-27 08:59
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa Programmer, because it feel more honest. I use "developer" only when looking for a job.
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@kepstin@tenforward.social 2026-03-27 17:44
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa more specifically, "software developer". For what it's worth, "engineer" is a protected term here and I don't have the education or certification to use it... Tho I did actually take a few software engineering courses in university - they were in a separate building over with the "real" engineers unlike the normal computer science classes that were in the sciences and mathematics departments.
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@pseyfert@chaos.social 2026-03-27 21:55
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa depends whom I talk to. Random person outside of IT → programmer. When pedantry is appropriate (to feed a database) → engineer. Casual setting when the distinction eng/dev is not relevant to the discussion (but rather, language, sub domain, seniority)→ developer (don't know why)
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@Oaktag@infosec.exchange 2026-03-28 03:38
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa Different words for different contexts. If I'm explaining to a Lyft driver what I do, I'm a programmer. If I'm explaining to fancy tech people why they should hire me, I'm an engineer.
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@__d@mastodon.social 2026-03-29 07:51
@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa I see my task, fundamentally, as programming computers. So I call myself a computer programmer. Software Engineering is a lie, trying to claim status without responsibility. Developer always struck me as a slimy dude in a bad suit trying to sell land that floods at high tide …