The latest articles on DEV Community by asofteng (@asofteng). https://dev.to/asofteng https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F73204%2F5d715a70-708c-4690-bb92-b18c996ccf23.png https://dev.to/asofteng en asofteng Wed, 16 May 2018 12:49:44 +0000 https://dev.to/asofteng/whats-the-difference-between-a-software-developer-and-software-engineer-4a4n https://dev.to/asofteng/whats-the-difference-between-a-software-developer-and-software-engineer-4a4n <p>As a grade 10 high-school dropout with no formal eduction, who decided to skip school and jump into a career in development, I find my last two careers, the first question they had for me is, <em>What is the difference between a software developer and software engineer?</em> - A question, at it's forefront, that struck me off guard, and helped me appreciate the world of development.</p> <p>At first, my thought process was to answer with a naive question, <em>"Is there really a difference between a developer and engineer?"</em> - This was struck with hardship from the potential employer at the offset, and indicated there are differences, they asked me to, at a high level, name 10 key differences between a developer and an engineer.</p> <p><strong>I know what you're thinking,</strong> how am I supposed to answer that as a grade 10 dropout? It's a difficult question to answer, so I had a think about it, and here's what I found:</p> <h2> A Software Developer Is </h2> <ul> <li>someone who knows code to any degree</li> <li>someone who is able to understand to any degree the requirements and how they could implement it</li> <li>someone who is passionate about the code they're writing</li> <li>someone who isn't afraid to speak their mind</li> </ul> <h2> A Software Engineer Is </h2> <p><em>all of the aforementioned traits, in addition to...</em></p> <ul> <li>someone who can quickly and easily scope and understand requirements in depth</li> <li>someone who is able to fully digest and design the systems to be scalable within a reasonable technical capactiy</li> <li>someone who can speak fluently about the design decisions and principles to non-technical individuals and assist them in understanding the decisions and reasonable requirements made</li> <li>someone who, at the off-set, willing to, able to, and will interrupt the design or development process and raise concerns over practical and impractical development guidelines and decisions</li> <li>someone who, not only can determine how they can fix a problem or implement a feature, but can also determine how others can, and is willing to assist along the way</li> </ul> <h2> With this in mind... </h2> <p>How would you define the difference, if any, between a software developer and software engineer?</p> discuss ask software engineering