

Ask HN: What role do you identify as in your occupation? - jamesknelson

Hi HN,<p>I&#x27;m curious as to how people see their role in their occupation, and the story behind your view.<p>It would also be interesting to hear if other people disagree with the fit between a given role and a given story!
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mindcrime
Depends on the context. If random people ask, I usually say "I'm a consultant"
and then if they ask "what kind of consultant" I explain that I specialize in
big-data / data-warehousing / data-mining and the like. Sometimes I'll
volunteer that I'm working on a software startup.

But in a different context, like at a startup related event, I'll identify as
"Founder" and/or "CEO".

If the person asking is really obviously not technical, I may give a generic
"I'm an IT guy" or something.

Personally, I see myself as a guy who likes exploring new technology and ways
to apply technology to solve problems. If I had to give myself a title, I'd
say "problem solver" or "troubleshooter". _shrug_

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csirac2
My contract says my title is software engineer, but titles don't mean much in
a small company. Which I kind of like.

That said, I didn't study Software Engineering at university. And so, in
almost 10 years in various roles writing software, this is the first one in
which I've allowed this title to apply (previously I've had: Systems Analyst,
Software Developer, Bioinformatics Technologist, Instrumentation Engineer,
etc).

I also didn't study systems engineering (which is a real discipline
responsible for remarkable achievements such as taming the complexity of
massive systems such as modern airliners), but not _that_ Systems Engineering,
I mean the wishy-washy, everyone's-an-engineer sense of Systems Engineer as
typically used in software land - that's what I think a more accurate title
for my role would be.

I work on the hardware for our widget, as well as the user-facing software. I
set up our automated build system that builds everything including our ARM
Linux OS image, including kernel and bootloader. I established the production
and Q/A checklists. I actually do some of the assemblies. I determine what
components we use, and I work with real engineers to validate and test and
update customer spec sheets accordingly. I answer questions like, "what kind
of power system would let us get XX hrs runtime at YY% duty cycle".

I have a complete picture in my head of the product, its capabilities and
limitations. When it goes wrong, at any level, I'm the one that has to fix it.
I've never worked with a Systems Engineer at a big tech company but it seems
as if this is the sort of scope they work with. Except they probably don't
have to write the userland code as well :)

~~~
mikekchar
I really wish that there was an acceptable title similar to "Engineer" that
wasn't engineer. Early in my career, I was saddled with the "Software
Engineer" title at a large telecommunications company. I suffered a lot from
real engineers complaining that I wasn't a real engineer because I didn't
study engineering. Eventually, I decided that they were right, but that
"Software Engineering" wasn't a real engineering discipline anyway (at least
not yet). How many "software engineers" know the mean time between failures of
their systems? When they integrate a library, can they enumerate the risks
involved? Even on a team that prides itself on very low defect density, I
don't think we can really call this discipline "engineering" in the way that
other other disciplines are "engineering".

Of course, when I speak to young software engineers now (real engineers who
studied software engineering), they often violently disagree with me. This
often strikes me as being a bit ironic. What's even more ironic is that after
30 years in the software industry I know considerably more about "software
engineering" than anyone I have met coming out of an engineering program
(which is not surprising, and I mean no disrespect to the people who have such
a degree -- in 30 years, I'm sure they will know considerably more than I do
now).

I tend to view people's confidence that they can predict the properties of
software in the same way you could predict the properties of different metals
as being hubris. One programmer has a late night out and drinks too much. The
next day, still woozy from the night before he writes some code. It looks all
right a first glance, but he accidentally overwrites some memory that makes a
task in another part of the machine completely fall over. There is 4 million
lines of code and this software error sleeps until memory usage is _just
right_. Hopefully it is not medical software...

Having said that, my colleagues who are actual engineers reassure me that real
engineering is also fraught with such random behaviour, so I'm being too
picky. It's always something I think about while riding elevators.

~~~
a3n
Call yourself a Software Developer, regardless of your title. All my
development roles on my resume say exactly that, regardless of what my
employers called it. When "civilians" ask what you do, say you write software.

It's your resume, put what you want on it.

I agree, this isn't engineering. Where's my supervising Principal Engineer,
and where's my path to that?

But if someone wants to call themselves a Software Engineer, or a Custodial
Engineer, of a Software Custodian, I don't really care.

~~~
jnbiche
> I agree, this isn't engineering. Where's my supervising Principal Engineer,
> and where's my path to that?

1\. Not all engineers in traditional engineering disciplines, like EE, work
as/under licensed engineers, with supervising Principle Engineers (depends on
the jurisdiction, job, and individual). If they've been trained and are
working as electrical engineers, should they call themselves something other
than electrical engineers at that point?

2\. NCEES, who state engineering boards depend upon to license engineers,
considers software engineers to be an engineering discipline, as do a number
of US states. There are already a number of software engineers who have passed
the software engineering PE and FE exams and who are now licensed engineers.
There are even more on the way. NCEES started offering software engineers PE
exams back in 2012, now over half of US states offer the exam [1].

1\. [http://ncees.org/about-ncees/news/ncees-introduces-pe-
exam-f...](http://ncees.org/about-ncees/news/ncees-introduces-pe-exam-for-
software-engineering/)

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mikekchar
In my current gig I was originally hired to help the developers improve their
ability to write software using agile (specifically XP) techniques. Rather
cautiously I put "Agile Coach" on my business card. I'm not one of those
coaches who focusses on management interaction. I sit down with programmers
and pair program with them. I help break down stories with program managers. I
introduce techniques to people and sit with them while they are learning to
use them. My main goal is not to introduce a system, but rather to work with
people and wait for opportunities to show why one way of doing things will be
more successful than another way. It's a bit like a sports coach who will
watch you do something, then introduce corrections, but always showing you how
that correction made things better.

For family reasons, I had had to move back to Japan from the UK and ended up
working on contract for the same company. In the end, coaching from 9000 km
away is pretty difficult. The communication bandwidth just isn't there. So now
I primarily write code. My boss encourages me to continue "coaching"
individual people, but I have to limit myself to one person at a time.

I don't view myself as a coach any more. In truth, I have very little
influence over what generally happens across the team any more. I go months
where I don't even speak to some people on the team. I suppose I am mentoring
individual people and cranking out code, which is a contractor's job.

My role now is "contract programmer" I guess. I still pair program about 50%
of the time (and with a 8/9 hour time difference, that's fairly tough on the
sleep schedule... but it gives me plenty of time to ride my bike during the
day ;-) )

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imauld
Web Developer. I develop things for the web.

I primarily use Python but I also use JS and SQL. If I need to write some
Ruby, I'll learn to write some Ruby. If I need to use some Go I learn to use
some Go. so the title:

    
    
      Python, JavaScript, SQL Web Developer but also whatever other language I need to learn
    

doesn't seem as elegant as Web Developer.

~~~
ruraljuror
Same boat. Except if the audience seems like someone who might then refer to
me as a Web Designer (and there are a lot of these people), I will probably
then call myself a "computer programmer."

~~~
imauld
I prefer Techno Mage in that instance

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a3n
Relocatable engineering department component.

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taprun
I'll just throw Patio11's famous rant here:
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-
pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

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jamesknelson
I see myself as a UX Generalist.

I've been doing freelance development as a solo developer for a number of
years now, and this entails doing everything from interviewing users,
gathering requirements, building the actual product, and then iterating based
on user feedback. My reasoning for seeing my role as a "UX generalist", as
opposed to a "JavaScript generalist" or "full-stack engineer" is that it feels
like in this role, development comes second to actually providing the customer
with the best experience.

I'd love to hear what words other people would use for the same role!

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thuruv
I was actually hired as a simple KPO data associate in a reputed e commerce
company y. Now with python it became data analyst. The closest thing i wanna
become I data scientist as growing potential for my knowledge and lifestyle.

