[makeitsuckless]

Feels like we're chasing our tails on this one. We went from "programmers" to "developers" to "engineers". Every time it started well, because only people with the right mindset referred to themselves and the people they looked for that way, but pretty soon the rest catches up and the term devalues.

We should just call ourselves codemonkeys and focus on doing the job well regardless.

[whitegrape]

I still default to calling myself a programmer or a coder... I'm happy to ride the social status train of "Software Engineer", but I don't pretend it's anything else, and it could swiftly be taken away if some Congress Critters got it into their heads that because in general none of us are licensed PEs we don't deserve to call ourselves engineers. I sometimes think it might be good for that to happen so that some of us have less-inflated views of ourselves and our profession, but judging from other countries that have such restrictions, we'd probably get a significant salary cut to go along with it while the business people with MBAs reap even larger shares of whatever company's profits which are only made possible by code monkeys...

[fapjacks]

This is also how I refer to myself on things like tax forms, political campaign contribution statements, and in conversations with plebs. I'm a "computer programmer", regardless of what it says on the paperwork at the office.

[tomjen3]

If anything we should have a much higher view of ourselves and MBAs should have a much lower view as we are those who make something whereas MBAs contribute nothing.