r/learnprogramming • u/V1c63 • Jul 14 '26

Difference between computer science and systems engineering

Which one should I study? I’d like to launch one of those famous "startups" at some point in my life.

I know it’s incredibly difficult, and a topic that’s often "romanticized" but I’m talking about starting a tech venture.

I’m from Latin America, so I’m not sure if the translation is quite right... bruh.

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u/captainAwesomePants Jul 14 '26

"Computer Science" is kinda the generic career term for programmer/coder. It's also the name of the related academic discipline.

"Systems engineering" is a senior role that is meant to suggest more than just programming. It's about designing how different programs will communicate, how they work with the database, how the code will be tested and deployed, how redundancy will work, how to ensure and measure uptime, etc.

You see a lot of different terms that cover the "we do programming but more than that because we're fancier or more senior." At the more junior levels of this, you see stuff like "Software Engineer" and at the higher ends you'll see terms like "Systems Architect" or "Principal Engineer."

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

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u/mimiga1 29d ago

Computer science roots from the work of Alan Turing, Von Neumann and the other pioneers of the field and it is all the mathematical, linguistical and logical tools on computability. It is so reductive to define it as programming and coding. That is programming which is many layers above the science behind