More and more I think the word programmer has come to mean nothing and will continue to lose meaning. More and more people need to program for their work and would not call themselves “programmers” (Scientists, Marketers/DevRel, other Engineering fields, Support, Ops, etc).

BTW, there are people who definitely “Engineer” software they are rare, but they exist, especially at the FAANGs. There are lots of people who have the word “Engineer” in their title that shouldn’t, a fine alternative is “Developer”.

What’s the difference? A developer is implementing a known solution in a specific domain. An engineer is dealing with a significantly unique problem space that has only been addressed by theory, if that. Engineers spend a lot less time programming than Developers do, because their primary occupation is solving tough problems with their colleagues through documentation, RFCs, etc. They often are not the ones who even implement their own ideas. Wait, isn’t that a Software Architect? No. Software Architects plan and documents in known solution space, they aren’t solving unknown problems.

Most people that I’ve worked with in Software have never worked with a Software Engineer before.