[jnbiche]

If someone knows Java, and knows it well -- and all that that entails (good engineering practices like code organization, commenting, testing, optimizing if needed, security, corner cases) -- then why wouldn't they qualify for the title of software engineer?

Actually, my problem in this (non-Bay area) region of the country where I now live is that I don't have a ten-year Java history, and most managers here don't seem to believe that my background in C, Python, Lua, and JavaScript would allow me to pick it up in a very short period of time (and indeed, I've since picked it up for Android development, and it turned out that the Android API was harder for me to learn that Java itself).

[m_ke]

There's a difference between someone who has ten years of experience and a guy who just finished a 2 year degree at a for-profit school.