Not hugely concerned about Badenoch as a threat (currently don’t think she’ll get to be leader) but at some point is anyone going to pick up on her repeated “I am an engineer” line and say “no, you worked in IT”?
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I have no particular insights here, but I'm just kicking back and noting that possibly the most fierce and controversial debate on Bluesky is, "is a software engineer an engineer?" Which is possibly the most Bluesky thing that ever Bluskyed.
In my experience, Computer Science departments have the Peace of Babel - not quite enough shared language/dimensional overlap for proper fights/much beyond limited trading + hand gestures.
Even the raw split between the half of the Anthropology Department that view themselves as social scientists/hominid biologists and the half that view themselves as humanities/sociologists-with-passports isn't nearly as wide as a Balkanised computer science department.
Departments run the gamut from
- fundamentals of compsci (incomprehensible to anyone outside pure math.s in the maths dep)
- project management (speaking pure business schoolese)
- software development (engineering subdiscipline)
- UI people (psych department escapees)
- computer vision (appl phys)
I worked as a software engineer. I don't think any of us would ever have thought of or described ourselves as a type of actual engineer any more than a tree surgeon would think of themselves as a branch of medicine.
post-Brunel it's an odd title anyway. The lads who actually design engines do it on CAD, I've never been certain what civil engineering has to do with engines and people who repair them are called "mechanics".
An entire profession splintered into a billion subsets.
Data engineer chiming in here: the problem is that IT has a long history of pilfering job titles from other sectors. Clearly, nobody would ask a solution architect to design a house for them, but the whole of IT is chock-full of such titles. See also: data scientist, scrum master etc.
I think it really depends upon the discipline- I would accept that folks banging out mobile apps using frameworks are not engineers per se (more like builders tbh), but the folks working on OS internals, machine learning/statistical algorithms and cyber are most definitely engineers.
There is ONLY one reason not to describe yourself as an engineer in this situation. Someone with car trouble might ask you to check their camshaft and all you know is there's a button somewhere to open the bonnet.
Yes, you have a masters in “engineering”, sure sure. Computer Systems, though. You aren’t “an engineer”. It’s like me saying I’m an artist because I’ve got a BA
Eh I am trolling broadly but my *main issue* is really describing herself as such vs the length of time since she did any work related to it, a very distant second is that most people would probably at least look twice at the description if they realised that’s what her qualification entailed.
Like, as I say, it’s been 20+ years since she graduated and 15 minimum since really worked in the field, “I’m an engineer” seems an odd claim. By similar lights could claim to be a historian. History, like engineering, teaches you ways of looking at things. Would still be hooey to claim it like that
There are several issues:
Can you identify yourself as a member of a professions if you are no longer practicing? (Yes, but you should make it clear in someway)
Is Software Engineering actually Engineering? (yes)
Is what people with the title Software Engineer actually do, Engineering? (Mainly no)
well we do engineer and build systems the same as Any engineer does for mechanical processes and the world of that and IT are merged, check out EV's which is basically software on wheels now. My job title is CSA - the A being architect but can't design a building for shit !!
My understanding of software engineers (being married to one) is they spend their time fixing problems they caused themselves, so perhaps she's the perfect choice.
But that's just because we can't blame (checks notes) rust, shrinkage and the wrong type of snow for the problem and are thus compelled to admit what the average engineer will avoid like the plague (that they should have prepped for this but got lazy/cheap)
Now look here! It's a scurrilous lie that software engineers are a bunch of clown falling over our own feet at every available oppurt - Oh I'm getting paged, brb
The problem in Germany is of course that a lot of people who just about got an undergraduate degree call themselves "Politologe", which is Badenoch-level pretension.
Yeah, yeah, OK, Eisenstein, calm down with your hot takes. Comp Sci, data engineer, MBCS here. Sounds like she did the degree, got the masters, then dropped that career path like a hot potato. She's a politician, not an engineer.
You, on the other hand, are more of an artist than most of us.
You can become a Chartered Engineer working in software, which I think is strong evidence that your opinion is bunk (as well as insulting to software engineers). This is not the same as saying that all those who call themselves software engineers are actually good at it though.
As a software engineer who's had a reasonably long and successful career and now trains and manages other software engineers, any software engineer who would be insulted by that would be a huge red flag.
I do recall looking at becoming a chartered physicist once and someone claiming that the benefits included "If someone needs a physicist in a hurry they can easily look you up in the phone book".
Having engineers in the family I've always thought of engineering as requiring a physical element, i.e. working with physical structures on the basis of physical properties. So you could write software as part of engineering but it wouldn't be engineering in itself.
I suppose it depends whether you think electronic engineering is engineering or not.
Difficult for me, as I work almost entirely on software, but a lot of the software is intrinsic to mfg machinery & proprietary to Siemens/Rockwell, etc. I wouldn't say I was an engineer, but others in team are.
As the son of an engineer (heavy chemicals), the brother of another (dyes then oil then pharma manufacture) and the uncle of a third (gears) I approve of this grease-and-steel definition. However the person who comes to mend your dishwasher is a technician, not an engineer, multiple spanners or no.
Yeah. I mean considering everyone took the piss out of Keir’s “my dad was a toolmaker” when Keir’s dad was, in fact, a toolmaker, this inability to say “hang on” seems a bit egregious
True. Software is coupled to a continuously changing business model in a way not experienced by other forms of engineering.
So software engineers have to build to allow change that's atypical.
E.g. You never build a bridge and later have to add in the middle a junction to fork to an island!
tbh the kind of important but grindingly dull IT projects her employer did - internet and mobile network infrastructure, industrial control systems*, corporate payroll - qualify as engineering in my book
* including for Beagle 2. Timing-wise there's a small but non-zero chance Kemi was on that
A software engineer is a computer programmer who, when asked what they do at a party, has to preemptively start with a "You've probably never heard of it, but..." spiel
I usually go with "Computer stuff" and if they insist on more detail, I find "I'd tell you more but I'd probably bore myself to death as well as you" works.
Then they usually ask me to fix their PC and I walk away
(on the other hand, I studied theoretical physics at university and have worked in science-adjacent jobs ever since, but still: if I ever said "As a physicist..." in an interview, I'd expect Jeremy Paxman to materialise and kick my teeth in, metaphorically speaking)
If the Engineering Council are happy to toward CEng status to people in the IT industry (I could qualify for CEng status as an experienced software engineer but haven't applied for it), then "engineer" is fine. Don't go down the architect rabbit hole though: that will annoy RIBA no end ...
Interesting discourse here on “Engineer”
Usually it’s ‘the guy who fixes the vending m/c isn’t an Engineer’ -a refrain I’ve heard constantly since 1st hearing it from Monty Finniston in 197*
As 🇬🇧 doesn’t define/restrict the term - what about somewhere that does?
I think you’ll find…
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I think that means I’m allowed to run with scissors but not more than that
- fundamentals of compsci (incomprehensible to anyone outside pure math.s in the maths dep)
- project management (speaking pure business schoolese)
- software development (engineering subdiscipline)
- UI people (psych department escapees)
- computer vision (appl phys)
It's a real Frankensubject with a lot of departmental seminars saved from violence only by mutual incomprehension.
“Tell you what, we’ll hit it with a hammer and slather pig-fat on it, and that should do the trick.”
You aren’t an engineer.
Computer Science, or IT degrees don't meet those qualifications.
I blame Scott Adams.
An entire profession splintered into a billion subsets.
The US has licensed engineers, for civil engineering, electrical, mechanical etc. But there's no requirement of that around software engineering.
Can you identify yourself as a member of a professions if you are no longer practicing? (Yes, but you should make it clear in someway)
Is Software Engineering actually Engineering? (yes)
Is what people with the title Software Engineer actually do, Engineering? (Mainly no)
So we're drawing the line between "blue" and "green" on the continuous spectrum, but for engineers now?
Mind you, I had to make sense of some Logica interface specs once so I would also accept "because she worked for Logica"
https://www.theiet.org/membership/library-and-archives/the-iet-archives/iet-history/the-society-of-engineers
and engineering council says it can't protect the title
https://www.engc.org.uk/glossary-faqs/frequently-asked-questions/status-of-engineers/
You, on the other hand, are more of an artist than most of us.
Difficult for me, as I work almost entirely on software, but a lot of the software is intrinsic to mfg machinery & proprietary to Siemens/Rockwell, etc. I wouldn't say I was an engineer, but others in team are.
But what is and isn't engineering is debatable
I recommend Dave Farley's "Modern Software Engineering", if you have any interest at all in the topic
https://g.co/kgs/gQzcGTa
(In fact someone with spanners would be a mechanic)
Also, what experience of software do you draw ob?
https://bsky.app/profile/davidneilhamilton.bsky.social/post/3l4nvem4bcm2b
So software engineers have to build to allow change that's atypical.
E.g. You never build a bridge and later have to add in the middle a junction to fork to an island!
Which is the main reason traditional Big Design Up Front engineering approaches just don't work for software.
So yes: like engineering, but different
* including for Beagle 2. Timing-wise there's a small but non-zero chance Kemi was on that
Then they usually ask me to fix their PC and I walk away
"They're looking at the other person's shoes"
#OldJokesHome
*glares at Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino*
Usually it’s ‘the guy who fixes the vending m/c isn’t an Engineer’ -a refrain I’ve heard constantly since 1st hearing it from Monty Finniston in 197*
As 🇬🇧 doesn’t define/restrict the term - what about somewhere that does?
I think you’ll find…