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Well, I take a different view. I don't place a high value on self-testimonials, such as one might find in the average CV. I rate a - er - developer on what they can do, as demonstrated by their achievements. In particular, I don't have much respect for recruiters who place any value on job titles as a guide to predicted performance.

I really am just a programmer; I have had tasks assigned that amounted to "architecture", in the sense of designing a complex system that involved networking, heterogenous processors and storage systems, and advanced terminals.

I was once assigned the rank of "systems analyst". I had no idea what a systems analyst was, so I looked it up. It bore no relation to the job I was doing; apparently a systems analyst was a person that traipsed around a shopfloor with a clipboard and a stopwatch, looking for inefficient processes and work-practices.

I've never called myself an "engineer". To my mind, an engineer is a designer who creates designs that are extremely robust and reliable, while keeping costs within "reasonable" bounds. I've never had a job that allowed me to indulge in that kind of work.

I'm content to call myself a "computer programmer".




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