| "We're middle-men (and women), glorified translators" By that rationale, teachers are glorified dictionaries, accountants are glorified calculators, and lawyers are glorified secretaries. "Programmers don't 'unemploy' people" Bullshit. If I build an automated fraud detection system for a bank and they lay off 50 people in charge of fraud detection after it goes live, I most certainly made their jobs redundant. If I build a more efficient control system for an automobile plant, and they lay off operators as soon as it goes live, I've certainly made their jobs redundant. Efficiency kills jobs by definition. You only create more jobs when you start in a new area, or as a competitor. And even then it's only temporary until efficiencies kill those jobs as well. "As a ground rule, as long as you are calling other peoples modules you're not yet programming" Then, as a ground rule, as long as you're drawing triangles, arches, and straight lines, or using a CAD program, you're not yet architecting. As long as you're using 2x4s or windows made of glass you didn't blow yourself to build a house, you're not yet building. Why does everything have to be built fron scratch in an intellectual vacuum in order to be "real"? Isn't the whole point to stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before? "Whether you use the word programmer to describe yourself or not has very little to do with what your bank statement tells you at the end of every month." Actually, it has a LOT to do with what your bank statement tells you at the end of the month. The world runs on respect. And respect comes from other people. Give yourself a title that engenders respect and you'll find yourself able to negotiate FAR better deals for yourself than you would with a less respectable "I'm-just-a-replaceable-cog" title. "And in such places (and unfortunately also in quite a few smaller ones) the market value of what a person doing your work is charging is what will determine your pay" No, the market value of a person with your TITLE is what will determine your pay, unless you're known to be a pushover who accepts promotions without pay increases. And if such a 'promotion' happens, you gladly accept it anyway, and then leave 6 months later with your new title to leverage a better salary. |
Jacques is essentially saying, "I'm a programmer, and I'm secure in that. Even when I'm just gluing existing code together, I'm damn good at it. I know that being a programmer who hacks code, first and foremost, doesn't make me a replaceable cog."
Others are not satisfied to think of themselves as doing gritty work that is not always an act of creative expression or a uniquely inspired solution. If I'm just wiring stuff together, the thought goes, surely anyone can do that? Ah, but the creativity lies in the problem solving, and that's what the employer/client cares about anyway. So I'm a problem-solver, first, and a programmer second.
I think some people are happy to be "just programmers" or "programmers first" and others are "programmers second."
In reality, there aren't two different jobs called "Software Engineer" and "Programmer" across companies, though glamour of title may be a hint as to how a company values and treats their programmers/engineers. If you have 20 years of programming experience and are hired to write code, you're a programmer by default. Whether the work is dull or interesting, creative or rote, or paints you as an "artiste" or a "cog in a machine" depends on the job rather than what you call yourself.
It can't hurt to bill yourself as a problem-solver with business and entrepreneurial savvy, etc., as companies will always say they want people with iniative and higher-level thinking, even if they aren't prepared to let you exercise it. Put another way, no potential employer is going to say, "We're looking for a programmer, but it says here you're an engineer. Are you sure you're not over-qualified for this position?" Your self-given title won't save you. On the flip side, a good company looking for highly creative engineers will know that many of them call themselves "programmers."
In summary, I see the "don't call yourself a programmer" advice as coming out of fear of being a replaceable menial worker, more than reflecting any reality about hiring practices or the deep nature of programming. Jacques's argument is, "Programming can be pretty menial sometimes, but good programmers are hard to replace. So avoid the duller work, and solve people's problems, and you can have a happy, highly-paid career."