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Words have meaning. I'm not a prescriptivist but when you have an army of formerly PM's, Designers, etc all at once exclaiming "I'm an engineer too!" that shoul

Words have meaning. I'm not a prescriptivist but when you have an army of formerly PM's, Designers, etc all at once exclaiming "I'm an engineer too!" that should signal that maybe the thing they're doing isn't really engineering. Do you count making a square space splash page 'engineering'? Tools improving to the point that the barrier of entry plummets is great. That doesn't mean you're now engaging in the same fundamental task that happened before things got easier/

echohack5 1y ago
If the thing standing in your way to engineering a great product was syntax, and a bunch of gate-kept and inconsistent linux cli tooling, then its fine to call it engineering. I dunno, do you read bytecode?
- GeneralMayhem 1y ago
  I don't think that's the point. If non-technical people are able to make a product happen by asking a machine to do it for them, that's fine. But they're not engineering. It simply means that engineering is no longer required to make such a product. Engineering is the act of solving problems. If there are no problems to solve, then maybe you've brought about the product, but you haven't "engineered" it. I don't think that memorizing arcane Linux CLI invocations is "engineering" either, to be clear.
  - thunky 1y ago
    If I were to "build" the next big app entirely using llms, never writing a line of code, did I create it and do I own it? If you answered yes that's really all that matters imo. Label me what you want.
    - toofy 1y ago
      If you hired people to build that product, you never wrote a line of code. No, you didn’t build it. Your team did. You’re not magically a software engineer, you hired someone else to do it. Is there a product? Yep. Do you own it? Maybe. But again, you’re not suddenly the engineer. A project manager? Maybe.
      - thunky 1y ago
        > No, you didn’t build it That's why I used the word create. I would be responsible for the creation of the product, so imo I created it. I'm the creator. It wouldn't exist without my vision, direction, and investment (of time and/or money). Like a movie Producer: they don't actually "build" the movie. They use their money pay people to manifest a movie, and at the end of it they have created a movie and get a share of the profits (or losses) that come with it. No, they shouldn't call themselves cinematographers, but they can say that they "produced" the movie and nobody takes issue with that. > Do you own it? Maybe. If I paid for it then absolutely I own it. I get to keep the future profits because I took the risk. The people that "built" it get nothing more than what I paid them for their labor (unless I offerred them ownership shares).
        toofy 1y ago
        i think people are trying to make this difficult when it’s honestly super simple. yes, you can make a product. no, it does not suddenly magically make you a musician. you did the equivalent of hiring someone else to do it. you did not do it. if you claim you wrote the novel, you’re lying. someone else did. if someone takes credit for work someone else did, they’re lying. it’s honestly not complicated. at all.
        thunky 1y ago
        you're not countering what i'm saying, so i think we agree. i'm just adding that (as an "engineer") i don't care what you call me, or what i call myself, because nobody cares and it doesn't matter. i'm commodified labor. replacable. with no claim on anything. and nobody will ever agree on the correct title anyway. what actually matters imo is who the owner is.
        toofy 1y ago
        yeah, it sounds like we both agree with the original post. it literally doesn’t make someone an engineer. its not difficult to understand but for some reason when its said it pisses certain people off. i suspect many of the people upset want to convince themselves they’re suddenly magically a musician, architect, engineer, novelist, programmer, etc… when it just couldn’t be further from the truth. they’re just doing the equivalent of sending a dm to a coder friend and the friend is the actual programmer. i think some people don’t appreciate being told the truth.
- NotAnOtter 1y ago
  If the thing gating your from creating a great product was the engineering, then I would call you a great product designer and not an engineer. If you suddenly can create products with a new tool - you didn't change, the tools did. You're still a great product designer and not an engineer.
wetpaws 1y ago
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coolKid721 1y ago
Terms have meaning, and words can refer to different terms. People quibbling about what's an engineer or not is about as helpful as the stupid hotdog sandwich thing, it's arbitrary an engineer is not a determinate thing. AFAIK the reason why the word engineer has some specific clout people get touchy about is because in normal engineering fields becoming a licensed engineer is kind of a big deal for them so they get really particular about it. I only ever refer to myself as an engineer to bother people who get cunty about it. Get over yourself, why do you care if a designer calls themself an engineer? Are you worried it'll make it hard to find other true engineers so you will have a harder time finding civil engineers to talk about how calling apis is basically the same as building bridges?
- OJFord 1y ago
  In many countries it has legal meaning, and you can't just say you're an engineer, if you're not. (I'm not from one of them, fwiw. I had AEG send out an 'engineer' to replace a piece of plastic on a dishwasher; I've been emailed by 'customer support engineers'.) I don't think it's a 'get over yourself' thing though, SWE is fairly unique in industry in not making a distinction between engineers and technicians. I actually think the rise of LLMs might take us there, not necessarily the terminology, already abused as it is, but the distinction in roles between what were architects and senior+ engineers, and overseeing machinery.
  - coolKid721 1y ago
    People using words in a way you don't like isn't abuse
    - OJFord 1y ago
      I disagree with the premise, but even accepting it, isn't it? Isn't any abuse - physical abuse - just something we decide as a society isn't acceptable?
nerdsniper 1y ago
Words have meaning, but we can still argue over the meaning of words. For example, I believe that engineering necessarily involves calculus, and if you’re not doing calculus ever in your job, you’re more of a “technician” or “specialist” than an engineer. I have a degree in chemical engineering, and have been titled “chemical engineer”, “controls engineer”, “electrical engineer”, and “field engineer”. Currently my title is “software engineer”. But I believe the last time I did any engineering was when my title was “Intern” - none of my jobs since then have required actual rigorous engineering and could have been done equally well or better by someone without an engineering degree. I currently believe “software developer” would be a more appropriate title for me.
- alganet 1y ago
  I held "software engineer" and even "researcher" titles (btw I don't even have a degree). These mean nothing. I am a troubleshooter, and my troubleshooting skills are measured by how much trouble I can shoot. Not how much trouble I will be able to shoot once my tool is sharpened, not how much trouble I could shoot _in principle_, nothing of this nonsense. Trouble I can shoot now. Users who mostly use LLM prompting are currently very limited in the amount of trouble they can shoot. Sometimes, it creates more problems than it solves. Once that changes, we can open the gates. Show me the works.
- bravetraveler 1y ago
  In this spirit, I offer: SRE is less engineering and more controlled opposition
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
> an army of formerly PM's, Designers, etc all at once exclaiming "I'm an engineer too!" that should signal that maybe the thing they're doing isn't really engineering Not really disagreeing with your other points but this specific one is an ad hominem. Anyone can engineer, so the only signal to look at is what they are actually doing. It otherwise implies that PMs, designers, etc. can’t be competent engineers, which I do not believe of the competent PMs, designers, etc. I’ve worked with.

echohack5 1y ago

If the thing standing in your way to engineering a great product was syntax, and a bunch of gate-kept and inconsistent linux cli tooling, then its fine to call it engineering. I dunno, do you read bytecode?

GeneralMayhem 1y ago
I don't think that's the point. If non-technical people are able to make a product happen by asking a machine to do it for them, that's fine. But they're not engineering. It simply means that engineering is no longer required to make such a product. Engineering is the act of solving problems. If there are no problems to solve, then maybe you've brought about the product, but you haven't "engineered" it. I don't think that memorizing arcane Linux CLI invocations is "engineering" either, to be clear.
- thunky 1y ago
  If I were to "build" the next big app entirely using llms, never writing a line of code, did I create it and do I own it? If you answered yes that's really all that matters imo. Label me what you want.
  - toofy 1y ago
    If you hired people to build that product, you never wrote a line of code. No, you didn’t build it. Your team did. You’re not magically a software engineer, you hired someone else to do it. Is there a product? Yep. Do you own it? Maybe. But again, you’re not suddenly the engineer. A project manager? Maybe.
    - thunky 1y ago
      > No, you didn’t build it That's why I used the word create. I would be responsible for the creation of the product, so imo I created it. I'm the creator. It wouldn't exist without my vision, direction, and investment (of time and/or money). Like a movie Producer: they don't actually "build" the movie. They use their money pay people to manifest a movie, and at the end of it they have created a movie and get a share of the profits (or losses) that come with it. No, they shouldn't call themselves cinematographers, but they can say that they "produced" the movie and nobody takes issue with that. > Do you own it? Maybe. If I paid for it then absolutely I own it. I get to keep the future profits because I took the risk. The people that "built" it get nothing more than what I paid them for their labor (unless I offerred them ownership shares).
      - toofy 1y ago
        i think people are trying to make this difficult when it’s honestly super simple. yes, you can make a product. no, it does not suddenly magically make you a musician. you did the equivalent of hiring someone else to do it. you did not do it. if you claim you wrote the novel, you’re lying. someone else did. if someone takes credit for work someone else did, they’re lying. it’s honestly not complicated. at all.
        thunky 1y ago
        you're not countering what i'm saying, so i think we agree. i'm just adding that (as an "engineer") i don't care what you call me, or what i call myself, because nobody cares and it doesn't matter. i'm commodified labor. replacable. with no claim on anything. and nobody will ever agree on the correct title anyway. what actually matters imo is who the owner is.
        toofy 1y ago
        yeah, it sounds like we both agree with the original post. it literally doesn’t make someone an engineer. its not difficult to understand but for some reason when its said it pisses certain people off. i suspect many of the people upset want to convince themselves they’re suddenly magically a musician, architect, engineer, novelist, programmer, etc… when it just couldn’t be further from the truth. they’re just doing the equivalent of sending a dm to a coder friend and the friend is the actual programmer. i think some people don’t appreciate being told the truth.
NotAnOtter 1y ago
If the thing gating your from creating a great product was the engineering, then I would call you a great product designer and not an engineer. If you suddenly can create products with a new tool - you didn't change, the tools did. You're still a great product designer and not an engineer.

wetpaws 1y ago

[dead]

coolKid721 1y ago

Terms have meaning, and words can refer to different terms. People quibbling about what's an engineer or not is about as helpful as the stupid hotdog sandwich thing, it's arbitrary an engineer is not a determinate thing. AFAIK the reason why the word engineer has some specific clout people get touchy about is because in normal engineering fields becoming a licensed engineer is kind of a big deal for them so they get really particular about it. I only ever refer to myself as an engineer to bother people who get cunty about it. Get over yourself, why do you care if a designer calls themself an engineer? Are you worried it'll make it hard to find other true engineers so you will have a harder time finding civil engineers to talk about how calling apis is basically the same as building bridges?

OJFord 1y ago
In many countries it has legal meaning, and you can't just say you're an engineer, if you're not. (I'm not from one of them, fwiw. I had AEG send out an 'engineer' to replace a piece of plastic on a dishwasher; I've been emailed by 'customer support engineers'.) I don't think it's a 'get over yourself' thing though, SWE is fairly unique in industry in not making a distinction between engineers and technicians. I actually think the rise of LLMs might take us there, not necessarily the terminology, already abused as it is, but the distinction in roles between what were architects and senior+ engineers, and overseeing machinery.
- coolKid721 1y ago
  People using words in a way you don't like isn't abuse
  - OJFord 1y ago
    I disagree with the premise, but even accepting it, isn't it? Isn't any abuse - physical abuse - just something we decide as a society isn't acceptable?

nerdsniper 1y ago

Words have meaning, but we can still argue over the meaning of words. For example, I believe that engineering necessarily involves calculus, and if you’re not doing calculus ever in your job, you’re more of a “technician” or “specialist” than an engineer. I have a degree in chemical engineering, and have been titled “chemical engineer”, “controls engineer”, “electrical engineer”, and “field engineer”. Currently my title is “software engineer”. But I believe the last time I did any engineering was when my title was “Intern” - none of my jobs since then have required actual rigorous engineering and could have been done equally well or better by someone without an engineering degree. I currently believe “software developer” would be a more appropriate title for me.

alganet 1y ago
I held "software engineer" and even "researcher" titles (btw I don't even have a degree). These mean nothing. I am a troubleshooter, and my troubleshooting skills are measured by how much trouble I can shoot. Not how much trouble I will be able to shoot once my tool is sharpened, not how much trouble I could shoot _in principle_, nothing of this nonsense. Trouble I can shoot now. Users who mostly use LLM prompting are currently very limited in the amount of trouble they can shoot. Sometimes, it creates more problems than it solves. Once that changes, we can open the gates. Show me the works.
bravetraveler 1y ago
In this spirit, I offer: SRE is less engineering and more controlled opposition

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago

> an army of formerly PM's, Designers, etc all at once exclaiming "I'm an engineer too!" that should signal that maybe the thing they're doing isn't really engineering Not really disagreeing with your other points but this specific one is an ad hominem. Anyone can engineer, so the only signal to look at is what they are actually doing. It otherwise implies that PMs, designers, etc. can’t be competent engineers, which I do not believe of the competent PMs, designers, etc. I’ve worked with.