Developer or Engineer

When I graduated (many years ago!) my first job was as a Developer. I was one of about 90 developers on a multi-year project (I think it was in its third year when I joined) and my role required me to churn out code according to the detailed design specification. Follow the design, turn it into C code, make sure it compiled and passed some basic tests then throw it over the wall to the QA team. You won’t be surprised to hear that the project was not a success. In fact, when the company was sold about four years later the new owners discovered two other very similar projects had been underway for about the same time, and none were close to done.

Rather than point out how things could have been far better if they had used an Agile approach, I want to explore how the role of the Developer has changed. Even though we may still use the term these days, the expectations of a Developer have grown significantly. Writing code is just part of the job; as a Software Engineer, the expectation is no longer that of an individual following a design doc and converting it into code then handing it off to the next group in the chain. I’ve seen many argue (and I would agree) that coding is the least challenging part because it’s often what comes naturally as well as being the focus of most training.

Coding is still important, of course, but it’s not where most Engineers need help. Engineers are…