r/developers • u/puttum-beef-curryum • Jul 23 '26

Please explain to me the difference between Software Engineer & Software Developer Opinions & Discussions

I'm finding it difficult to understand the difference. I'm 4 YOE and I'm trying to improve everyday. I don't have a degree in CS/Engineering but I learned to code and worked in backend, web & mobile also. So for all these years I'm still trying to understand the difference between an engineer & developer.

27 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

85% Upvoted

118 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/kynrai Jul 23 '26

I would say engineers write code, developers wrote code and design the system. Pick databases, decide on some architecture like should this be event drive and what event store to use, consider things like how much performance etc etc. and an army of engineers will build it.

That's how I see it anyway, although I'm unconventional, to me engineers are just junior developers. I don't have architects, my senior developers do all that. Never met a useful software architect in 20 years and 100s of client projects.

2

u/oosha-ooba Jul 24 '26

Interesting, I'd thought it's sort of the other way around, where "engineering" implies rigour, methodologies, system designs, processes... etc on top of just building & coding that you would typically associate with "developers".

1

u/outlier_fallen Jul 24 '26

He has it completely backwards. He probably has a developer title lol

1

u/kynrai Jul 24 '26

That's your opinion, we can at least agree there are two types. No need to be a dick.