Do you count making a square space splash page 'engineering'? Tools improving to the point that the barrier of entry plummets is great. That doesn't mean you're now engaging in the same fundamental task that happened before things got easier/
But I believe the last time I did any engineering was when my title was “Intern” - none of my jobs since then have required actual rigorous engineering and could have been done equally well or better by someone without an engineering degree.
I currently believe “software developer” would be a more appropriate title for me.
I am a troubleshooter, and my troubleshooting skills are measured by how much trouble I can shoot.
Not how much trouble I will be able to shoot once my tool is sharpened, not how much trouble I could shoot _in principle_, nothing of this nonsense. Trouble I can shoot now.
Users who mostly use LLM prompting are currently very limited in the amount of trouble they can shoot. Sometimes, it creates more problems than it solves.
Once that changes, we can open the gates. Show me the works.
Not really disagreeing with your other points but this specific one is an ad hominem. Anyone can engineer, so the only signal to look at is what they are actually doing.
It otherwise implies that PMs, designers, etc. can’t be competent engineers, which I do not believe of the competent PMs, designers, etc. I’ve worked with.
I dunno, do you read bytecode?
I don't think that memorizing arcane Linux CLI invocations is "engineering" either, to be clear.
If you answered yes that's really all that matters imo. Label me what you want.
Is there a product? Yep. Do you own it? Maybe. But again, you’re not suddenly the engineer. A project manager? Maybe.
That's why I used the word create. I would be responsible for the creation of the product, so imo I created it. I'm the creator. It wouldn't exist without my vision, direction, and investment (of time and/or money).
Like a movie Producer: they don't actually "build" the movie. They use their money pay people to manifest a movie, and at the end of it they have created a movie and get a share of the profits (or losses) that come with it.
No, they shouldn't call themselves cinematographers, but they can say that they "produced" the movie and nobody takes issue with that.
> Do you own it? Maybe.
If I paid for it then absolutely I own it. I get to keep the future profits because I took the risk. The people that "built" it get nothing more than what I paid them for their labor (unless I offerred them ownership shares).
yes, you can make a product. no, it does not suddenly magically make you a musician.
you did the equivalent of hiring someone else to do it. you did not do it.
if you claim you wrote the novel, you’re lying. someone else did. if someone takes credit for work someone else did, they’re lying. it’s honestly not complicated. at all.
i'm just adding that (as an "engineer") i don't care what you call me, or what i call myself, because nobody cares and it doesn't matter. i'm commodified labor. replacable. with no claim on anything. and nobody will ever agree on the correct title anyway.
what actually matters imo is who the owner is.
it literally doesn’t make someone an engineer.
its not difficult to understand but for some reason when its said it pisses certain people off.
i suspect many of the people upset want to convince themselves they’re suddenly magically a musician, architect, engineer, novelist, programmer, etc… when it just couldn’t be further from the truth. they’re just doing the equivalent of sending a dm to a coder friend and the friend is the actual programmer.
i think some people don’t appreciate being told the truth.
You're still a great product designer and not an engineer.
AFAIK the reason why the word engineer has some specific clout people get touchy about is because in normal engineering fields becoming a licensed engineer is kind of a big deal for them so they get really particular about it. I only ever refer to myself as an engineer to bother people who get cunty about it. Get over yourself, why do you care if a designer calls themself an engineer? Are you worried it'll make it hard to find other true engineers so you will have a harder time finding civil engineers to talk about how calling apis is basically the same as building bridges?
(I'm not from one of them, fwiw. I had AEG send out an 'engineer' to replace a piece of plastic on a dishwasher; I've been emailed by 'customer support engineers'.)
I don't think it's a 'get over yourself' thing though, SWE is fairly unique in industry in not making a distinction between engineers and technicians. I actually think the rise of LLMs might take us there, not necessarily the terminology, already abused as it is, but the distinction in roles between what were architects and senior+ engineers, and overseeing machinery.