[PaulHoule]

It’s just a small part of the problem.

Other “engineers” get an engineering degree, have a system of licensure, etc. People don’t ordinarily get a degree in “software engineering” instead they get a degree in “computer science”. If you are an academic CS person you get ahead by writing papers, not writing software. Many CS academics are great programmers but they don’t necessarily have to be.

There are all sorts of divisions in our field, for instance some people will call me an idiot because I run a Windows desktop. 20 years ago that kind of hatred and ignorance was often extended towards Linux and open source by enterprises and Microsoft-culture developers.

Another thing that bugs me is the blog postings describing career paths in what used to be called FAANG where job titles are weirdly specialized like the language used by sexual subcultures like BDSM and polyarmory. I realized that those people don’t just have a fetish for talking strange, it is an interpersonal activity and that weird language helps them find each other and materializes their anxieties and power relationships. The same kind of thing is going on in the formerly called FAANG pyramids but it is not about the work it is about the social structure of those particular organizations which is quite different from where the rest of it work and like OKRs it gets appropriated like a cargo cult elsewhere.

I usually describe myself as a “software developer” and only call myself an engineer when there is a political or ideological reason to do so like those days I am shapeshifting Henry Petroski.

[hnthrowaway0315]

Other engineers also do sloppy jobs. HN simply puts too much credit to other engineers out there.

On the other side, we do have our certifications for some career paths though, like cloud and security, but I'm not sure if they instill confidence for hiring managers if such is not required by government.

Programming is supposed to be reachable and doable by anyone who loves it. We already have walls for many other things, let's keep programming from the mindset.

[PaulHoule]

One trouble w/ the certifications is they are generally around some specific technology and not principles.

For instance I had no problem at all switching from Java to C# and there's a certain kind of developer who is not intimidated at all in starting in a new job in a language they don't know. (e.g. even as a consultant I had other people pay me to get started in Python)

The certifications however are always for Red Hat or Microsoft or Oracle or AWS, something that is either proprietary or that tries to package something open source as if it was proprietary. In some cases these programs are pretty good (MSCE was pretty rigorous back in the day) but they add to the fragmentation of the industry.

[3523582908]

> Another thing that bugs me is the blog postings describing career paths in what used to be called FAANG where job titles are weirdly specialized like the language used by sexual subcultures like BDSM and polyarmory.

What?? Do you have a link to something like this? BDSM-references seem highly inappropriate in a work setting.

[PaulHoule]

You know that Depeche Mode song Master and Servant that has the line "it's a lot like life?"

Links would be really NSFW but if you really want to know I suggest you create an account on Fetlife though the way I see it, that site is what you'd get if Eternal September had an Eternal September and that had an Eternal September again.

[3523582908]

Yikes, I guess I don't want to know that badly. No judgment towards Fetlifers, but hard pass from me.