[johngalt]

As an IT Director managing multiple people/offices over many states, and a former senior engineer at a fortune 500 I would say:

"I'm a Computer guy"

No one actually cares about our jobs/titles. If you were interested in that, go be firefighter. There are vanishingly few people that even know there's a difference between sysadmin and development.

[x0t]

Computer Guy generally translates to "this cat could fix my computer sometime." I'm a Network Administrator by day and I don't do any end user desktop support. Telling them I'm a Computer Guy automatically sets me up for "Hey, so I had this problem on my computer..."

I just tell them that I'm a Network Administrator and when the inevitable question comes up, I tell them that I manage the equipment that computers use to talk to each other. If it goes beyond that, I simply tell them it's kind of like telecomm and try to move the conversation to something they're interested in. I rarely tell them that I do software development on the side, that just furthers the confusion.

I remember an article a while back (I wish I could find the link) about a software developer that had the same problem. "You write programs? Oh, great, can you get rid of these viruses?"

[donaq]

I get that too, but what I've come to realize is that mostly people aren't really asking you to fix their computers. They just have insufficient information for proceeding with the conversation in a knowledgeable way, so they try anyway with a starting point you can both understand.

The people who ask these questions are usually trying to be friendly, is what I'm trying to say.

[x0t]

I hadn't considered that before. Maybe I won't be such a jerk in future conversations.

[evilduck]

I too have never thought about it that way. Thanks for the new perspective. Maybe I'll stop avoiding this question.

[angusgr]

Same. After lots of awkward silences from "I'm a software developer", I just say "I'm in IT" and then judge from the person's reaction if there's any point elaborating.

Some people switch off immediately, so you know you need to find something else to talk about. People who are techy, or work in IT themselves, will ask a follow-up question and that's when you can unleash all the details. :)