What's the difference? We can barely decide what to call ourselves. Is there a correlation between job satisfaction and a disposition towards calling yourself an engineer?
I don't know about title and how it factors in - but It is noteworthy that these two entries - seemingly the same profession, are so disparately placed. This industry has a huge variation in working conditions/environments.
There are the people who work at large corporations - think insurance, banks, major enterprise apps etc. They work on "boring" problems, but they also get paid well, and probably don't have a ton of stress.
There are startup people who get paid OK, plus owernship packages who work long hours, regularly have some heavy stress, but they "live the dream" - many are truly happy with their work situation.
There are folks like game programmers who are always on a death march, have 80hr weeks, but don't get paid very well to chase some dream. By many accounts, the end up burnt out/used up fast.
With such widely varying roles - it makes sense that there are multiple rankings in fairly different places on the list.
Job titles are probably based on some governmental labor definitions. . .in the U.S., that would be Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And in the organizations where I've worked - mid- to large-size, programmers are perceived - rightly or wrongly - as folks who just code, while the software engineers are perceived doing more than just coding - although a lot of people with that perception can't really explain what they think the "more" is. Don't shoot the messenger. :-)
What's frustrating is working for a company that calls you a programmer that then expects you to be a business analyst, systems architect, DBA, QA person, and coder all in one. That's how it is where I work. We do have additional titles (I'm a systems analyst now), but the actual work isn't any different between levels. I've learned a lot, but I'll have a hard time convincing a new employer that I should be hired for a senior level position.
There are the people who work at large corporations - think insurance, banks, major enterprise apps etc. They work on "boring" problems, but they also get paid well, and probably don't have a ton of stress.
There are startup people who get paid OK, plus owernship packages who work long hours, regularly have some heavy stress, but they "live the dream" - many are truly happy with their work situation.
There are folks like game programmers who are always on a death march, have 80hr weeks, but don't get paid very well to chase some dream. By many accounts, the end up burnt out/used up fast.
With such widely varying roles - it makes sense that there are multiple rankings in fairly different places on the list.