[tobych]

What's IC?

[sasper]

Individual contributor. It's a fancy management word for SWE or anyone else in a non-management role.

[ACow_Adonis]

Ug...ok, I'll be that guy: what's an SWE?

[coffeefirst]

Software Engineer.

I have no idea who started using these acronyms but they definitely forgot they're new and not universal.

[SenHeng]

I guess the W is to differentiate it from Systems Engineer?

We use SE here in Japan for both software engineers and system engineers. How are they difference? The latter is older and seems to have originated from people doing architectural, consulting type of work.

Fun fact, consulting/contracting businesses here and also known as SES, System Engineer (as a) Service.

[pjscott]

I haven't heard SE outside of a Japanese context, so this may just be a case of different countries randomly picking different acronyms.

[SenHeng]

A simpler, more universal word might be grunt.

[pjscott]

The higher levels of IC are usually more noncom than grunt.