This labeling tactic became pretty common and tries to build a narrative that software engineers are going away. Artisan coders, craftsmen,
First and foremost, wool craftsmen are not engineers (which doesn't make their work less valuable).
Second, most software engineers, especially not in FAANG-like companies, don't engineer a shit. My spouse worked at a large telecom company in US and employees with "software engineer" title were doing mechanical tasks following some scripts, like daily system reload - run the script, verify status, open a ticket for a sub-contractor if anything is wrong, support the contractor via the ticket system until it's resolved. To be fair, two of my close family members work in FAANG and say COVID over-hire created a similar landscape there too.
My point is, creating CRUD internal tools was not an engineering to begin with, it was a craft, matching most craftsmen features such as small-scale, bespoke work, hands-on practice, tacit knowledge, apprenticeship-like learning (even if it's SO or tutorial), iterative refinement, tool mastery, adaptation during build.
So only FAANG does engineering now? Pretty elitist take. Would you happen to have a FAANG company in your resume, by any chance?
Yes, non tech companies tend to care less about the technical end of things. They, we, "don't do engineering" in the sense of dealing with large scale systems, optimization, etc. Still have to understand the product, and translate business requirements into code and systems, often running with budget constraints. If that's not engineering, I don't know what is.
No, my opinion is that most engineering is done in startups. Few people I know went to startups and had to engineer real systems end-to-end. These weren't usually FAANG-scale monsters and single node could handle all projected load.
> Would you happen to have a FAANG company in your resume, by any chance?
No, I went to academia instead. But my spouse and brother in law are in FAANG (two different companies), and my husband admits he hadn't engineered a shit for years (and he's not a manager), but there was a glimpse of real engineering over the years, especially pre-2020.
This labeling tactic became pretty common and tries to build a narrative that software engineers are going away. Artisan coders, craftsmen,
First and foremost, wool craftsmen are not engineers (which doesn't make their work less valuable).
Second, most software engineers, especially not in FAANG-like companies, don't engineer a shit. My spouse worked at a large telecom company in US and employees with "software engineer" title were doing mechanical tasks following some scripts, like daily system reload - run the script, verify status, open a ticket for a sub-contractor if anything is wrong, support the contractor via the ticket system until it's resolved. To be fair, two of my close family members work in FAANG and say COVID over-hire created a similar landscape there too.
My point is, creating CRUD internal tools was not an engineering to begin with, it was a craft, matching most craftsmen features such as small-scale, bespoke work, hands-on practice, tacit knowledge, apprenticeship-like learning (even if it's SO or tutorial), iterative refinement, tool mastery, adaptation during build.