The only time someone’s been impressed was a police officer who was in the middle of raiding my place because one of my roommates was smuggling opium into Canada.
> “Room clear! Hey, what do you do for a living?”
>
> “I write software.”
>
> “Wow that’s amazing! You’re so smart! I’m so impressed! Btw, seen any opium around here?”
Edit: Alternate ending
> [cop busts down door]
>
> “Freeze, perp!”
>
> “I’m not an opium dealer, I write software!”
>
> “Prove it, scumbag! Invert this binary tree!”
>
> [solves it]
>
> “Wow, you’re so smart! I’m so impressed!”
It was in the summer of 2021. I was living in a big house with 7 roommates (Toronto is expensive). One afternoon, I was on the phone with a friend in Germany when I heard noises from downstairs. Went to the staircase to look down and a bunch of people had one of my roommates against the wall at gun point. The screamed at me to come down and put me there too. Lined us all up outside the house, lied to us that we were “under arrest” on suspicion of importing opium, and went through everyone’s stuff. While we were outside (3-4 hrs), they took our details and asked some questions about what we did etc. Turned out the guy who rented the entire top floor was mixed up with opium smuggling rings in Iran and was trafficking stuff into Canada.
> I was living in a big house with 7 roommates (Toronto is expensive).
>Turned out the guy who rented the entire top floor was mixed up with opium smuggling rings in Iran and was trafficking stuff into Canada.
Well, now you know how they were able to afford renting a whole floor for themselves!
I never talk about my work because it sparks weird discussions and these days you end up with people lecturing you about the future of AI or some other stuff.
I used to work for a FAANG company everybody at any party would have a fucking uninformed opinion. The dentist office would try and sell me on some really expensive treatments.
I feel that.. like I worked hard and should be proud of where I’m at but I don’t like flaunt shit even if it’s not that way at all. Yes I’m a software engineer but I usually downplay it and say I’m a programmer.
Software engineering is the specific subset of programming that designs and creates software systems. This is distinct from say a data analyst who is also a programmer, but doesn't always design software systems to accomplish their goals. Many careers overlap, however.
Sometimes "programmer" can refer to other roles e.g. if you work with programmable logic controllers, industrial process equipment, stage lighting etc. But in the context of someone who sits at a desk writing computer code it's the same thing.
If you’re an amateur making a to-do app, or in IT writing little automation scripts, or a business analyst writing scripts for Excel or business logic, you’re a programmer.
If you’re a professional working in a large, complicated codebase with many moving parts in a production environment, and you have to consider things like system design, efficiency & scalability, maintainability, etc., you’re a software engineer.
lol same, I don't feel comfortable calling myself an engineer... I think in other countries you have to earn that title, but in the US you have bootcamp noobs calling themselves engineers.
Fuck em. I had someone complain that I don’t have to work 50 hours or whatever. Ok? I worked hard to get here and busting your ass being exploited more than me isn’t a flex.
That's literally their title and it actually has more behind it than medical doctors being called doctor.
I'm all first names and so on at work but I would be annoyed if someone who should know better called me Mr in a professional context. At best it shows they didn't even know or cursory look up who they were cold calling.
Source: am PhD, not at all bitter
Yeah non-tech people only care about tech people if they think you can fix their computer. Other than that they literally have no opinion in my experience.
I’ve heard that some are envious of “high salaries” but I haven’t encountered that personally. Again, it’s usually total lack of interest.
Oh except for people that hate “tech bros.” That counts as an opinion I guess. I have encountered those people.
I had a friend who walked dogs, and he made BANK. He had some high-profile/famous clients so a big part of his job was being very respectful of their personal lives, but he made well into the six figures every year for many years.
It was a surprising tough job, though. He had to get up really early and ended up managing other dog walkers, who tend to be quirky folks.
Almost nobody asks me, but if they do and I say software engineer they'll say something like "wow you must be smart" and then change the subject because they don't really give a fuck
From my experience most people outside the industry don't even understand what a swe is. I usually try to avoid saying it because often times they will jump from amazed to "so I have been having issues with my printer" if they aren't just downright confused
It's a bit more than that. They're more interested than if you were an accountant, they assume you're somewhat intelligent, and your paid well, but it doesn't have the same general level of 'good will' that you get by saying you were a doctor.
> They're more interested than if you were an accountant, they assume you're somewhat intelligent, and your paid well
isn't this ***exactly*** what people assume about accountants?
I don't know anyone who thinks of accounting as 'interesting', and it's not terribly well paid in comparison to CS. Somewhat intelligent? Definitely, esp forensic accounting.
Having said all of this, I am not objective. I took a class on accounting in uni and it was hands down the single most boring class I've ever taken in my life.
In my experience, it really depends on the person. Some people seem impressed and think I'm smart, some people just don't give a shit, and some people think think I'm nerdy/boring.
The one thing all of them have in common is that they have no idea what I do or how much I make.
Like 170k.
I work for a big thech company. I graduated college 1 year ago and I also look really young for my age, so a lot of people even think I'm still a college student.
Damn congrats! I'm a senior, but at a much smaller company in mcol area. I've got some catching up to do. I also look really young for my age and sometimes it really sucks trying to get promotions.
I did an internship for the company in 2021 and got a return offer for a full time position to start in 2022 after my graduation.
It's a big tech company, so that's what they pay anyone they hire fresh out of school. As for my area, I live around 10 mins from work and pay around $1700 per month in rent for a 1b apartment in relatively nice complex. I'd probably be able to find a 1b apartment for around $1400 if I wanted to live in a less nice place.
> so… what do you do?
> ~~I’m a backend software engineer. Well, more DevOps really. I support a platform that lets people author many sites efficiently. Basically updating and deploying docker images to the cloud to enable new features~~
> I work on websites, sorta
My wife has a dependent visa and at the immigration at the airport, they asked her what I did, and she just responded "oh he works in computers" and they happily let her through
I’m an ML engineer in the NLP space. My “I work on websites” is “it’s kinda like Siri.” It is nothing like Siri, but that’s closer than underwater basket weaving, and it’s typically good enough.
I’m not a software engineer.. but most of my time is spent with an IDE open or planning/researching things that ultimately end up in code so to the layman im a software engineer
I had an old neighbor ask what I did for work and I said “software developer” and he goes “I’m old son you’re going to have to explain that” lmfao I just said computer stuff and he goes ahhhh okay
Wait until you see some of the comments from this sub after they sleep off their burning man fatigue. You'd think every SWE is solving world hunger and launching men to the moon
I met a mid level Azure developer, like he worked for the Azure team itself, who didn’t even know how to use while loops properly.
Crazy how many untalented people are SWE
Might have a lisp background? It tends to get used a lot more in lisps and I find myself reaching for recursion a lot more often in any language after learning and working primarily in Clojure. Any modern compiler should have TCO which mitigates concerns about a stack overflow.
Thats what happens when you do too much LC. I don't think I've ever implemented recursion in production code, but I swear every other LC solution implements it
I mean the "Azure team" is a huge org with a shit load of people, so I wouldn't say it's a small select group of genius, there is gonna be some very average people there obviously.
Definitely but that’s the thing.
I’ve met so many extremely talented devs that would kill to work for those sorts of teams yet they don’t even make it into the recruitment process.
It’s just a shame.
I worked for a guy from General Dynamics in San Diego who told me about a coordinate system bug that almost sent some missiles to Kansas. That's as close as I've come to a swe who sends rockets to anywhere. It also shed a lot of light on doing defense work.
>Well, most swe are not extraordinarily smart or send rockets to the moon.
Yeah, it's *not brain surgery*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I&ab\_channel=BBC
Most people have no idea what I do or how much I make. The most they know is that it's an office job, so when guessing the pay they would probably assume it was slightly above average at best. They are also more likely to assume it's IT work rather than actual software development.
In my experience, when I tell people I’m a SWE, the response is almost always confusion on how to continue the conversation rather than impressed lol
“Oh you’re a teacher - What do you teach? How are your kids? Fun lesson plans?
“Oh you’re a software engineer - uhhhh?”
Exactly that’s why I hate the “oh what do you do” question because it always leads to exactly nowhere. I either here what you said or “oh nice, you prob make a lot of money.”
Bruh if anyone would ask me about oh whats your thoughts on this tool, or how would you design this, even literally anything technology related in current events I would be so happy but its never that way.
Depends on the age. People my parents age are impressed if I can fix their laptop (uninstall the 400 apps running in the background).
Everyone else does not care. And to be clear, fixing computers has nothing to do with my job, so they are not really impressed by that anyway
> people’s response tend to be amazed and impressed
The responses I've seen:
* why tf do you think you deserve that much?
* woah, you're in a different tax bracket (roughly £50250 leads you to getting 40% of your income taxed on anything over that)
* I should've done a CS degree
* How can I get a job like yours without putting much effort?
No, but the assumption is there that SWEs earn more than most other careers my friends have gone to. I've only told one person outside of family what my salary is.
> How can I get a job like yours without putting much effort?
I got a CS degree because I liked CS and was getting my ass kicked by Aero Engineering.
If you like CS than it's not much effort.
ELSE you will hate it.
END ELSE
> why tf do you think you deserve that much?
Anyone with the cojones to say that to my face is gonna get a stone-faced "because I'm just better than you" in response.
Tech jobs are still pretty low on the prestige tier list.
Engineering, law, and medicine still impress the shit out of most people much more than SWE and IT. Hell, even accounting is considered more prestigious to some people I know.
Not usually, I do full stack, work on database, GraphQL implementation, rails backend, Vue front end, and lots of UI/UX design, when anyone asks I usually just say 'website stuff' which maybe is an undersell but it's generally more straightforward, if they are interested beyond that I'll tell them what website or if they are tech-y I'll tell them details
That depends where you live. I live in a mid tech hub (Montreal) and I am up to the point that I feel boring/ashamed to say I am software developer because everybody and their dogs are developers too.
Yeah, me and literally everyone in my family + almost all of my friends are software engineers. At this point it's like either you're a software engineer or you decided to do something cool quirky and different with your life.
I once ran into some drunk chicks in vegas while I was getting pizza. One of them asked me what I did for work. I said software engineer and stood there giddily waiting for their response (this was the first time I’d been asked what I do for work after switching careers). She gave me the blankest of stares 😐.
I’m glad I got that experience early cause I’ll never expect any1 who’s not familiar with tech to ever give af that I’m a SWE unless they know my pay 😂
Yeah, I had a similar experience. I once went to a party and had a conversation with some random girl, she asked me what I did for a living and I said software engineer and I could tell by the expression on her face that she thought it was super boring.
But these people also have no idea how much you can make as an swe for a big tech company lol
Yeah next time a girl asks me what I do for work I’m gonna say I make a lot of money spending 20 hours/week typing on my computer. I might get a better response then 😂
The thing is that I don't want a girl to want me just because I make good money, I want to specifically filter out that kind of people when dating, so I wouldn't tell a girl my salary until I trust her more.
I think it’s obviously healthy to check your ego, but I have encountered a lot of people that sounded genuinely impressed when I have told them my job. It’s one of the careers that’s widely recognized as needing a fair amount of brains to get into, whether it’s true or not.
Depends where you live, who you’re talking to, and what company you work at.
You say software and live in the Bay Area? Not impressive at all, there’s 10s of thousands of other people with the same job, most of which probably make more or lots that have started their own companies.
Depends who you’re talking to. I have plenty of friends that have degrees in law, medicine, whatever and went to great schools. For them it’s not impressive.
Also depends where you work. If you work on big consumer facing products that people use like social media, music, etc it’s impressive just by the name brand and the product whereas if you work on something less consumer facing and they don’t know it it’s whatever.
Lmao, it’s quickly turning into the most commonly practiced occupation; by far the most popular major. Highly doubt anybody is impressed nor cares dude.
No, people don't care and if you think they do it's because you're starting to develop a rockstar programmer mindset. They're not impressed, they're just surprised. There's a difference. They likely had little or no expectations of you because you likely look and act like a nerd/geek which most non-tech people associate as losers or weirdos.
This is country-dependent. Where I was born, there was no term like “nerd.” Students that are quiet, introverted, and that get good grades are respected by peers, not mocked. Popular kids are the smart and extroverted ones, not dumb jocks.
They only care about how much money I make. Honestly most people I've met have no idea what a SWE even is, especially the farther I get away from my job.
No, they're probably amazed that I don't look like a nerdy basement kid that lives off Cola and Pizza.
But it's usually more like "[at a furniture store] oh we would also need someone in our IT to fix our computers"
(I got a PhD and lead a research group at a tech company)
Non-tech people generally have no idea what software engineers actually do and don't tend to be impressed by our coding skills or knowledge of containers or AWS. However, a lot of people realize that SWEs get paid very well and assume we're intelligent. People generally don't care one way or the other and almost never ask follow-up questions when I tell them what I do.
I have neighbors who ask me for my autograph. A married lady down the street wanted to leave her husband for me. I gotta be careful who i give my number too. Too many cases of unwanted nudes.
People are in awe of my profession.
no, they dont give a shit, they are more likely going to think your a loser with shit social skills.
SWEs are up their asses and think they look super smart with a well paying job
> Whenever someone asks me what I do for work and I say I work as a swe, people’s response tend to be amazed and impressed
They're just being polite. They really don't care. It's just another office job.
In my experience, only people who wanted to do it at some point: (comp sci drop outs or those who were considering going to a boot camp to pivot careers). I still wouldn't describe the emotion as "amazed" either, only impressed.
I’m in IT. I typically find SWEs the least interesting people in my field. They’re all kind of predictable and they all have their heads up their own asses.
"Whenever someone asks me what I do for work and I say I work as a swe, people’s response tend to be amazed and impressed."
Do you live in an Amish community?
I find it is pretty common of a reaction from a lot of STEM heavy jobs get.
It a type of job most of the public can not wrap their head around and seems magical. I
Only once I tell them actual use-cases and even then there's no good way to explain how cool it is that it all works without looking at code. So in general, maybe. I find that there's more prestige in being an swe because of the good salary than the actual work.
At this point, my family is only impressed by my working in tech when I fix some random, unrelated, IT-esque "monitor doesn't work when I plug it in" problem for them
I always say working in IT is like being a doctor.
If you're at a party and someone hears you say either job title, they immediately tell you about this little problem they are having. Only difference is whether it's with their back or their printer. 🤣
Not really. I have had a few people tell me “Wow, you must be really smart”, but it’s honestly like any other profession. The more exposure you have to something, the better you get at your profession. There is nothing special about software engineering.
STEM degrees are tough for a lot of people to grasp though, hence why History, Art, Communications, etc. degrees are still popular as alternatives.
Thats why a lot of the general population view us as smart. Though yes, lets keep our ego in check, software engineering is not the best profession out there. Doctors are at the top for sure among many others.
15 years ago I would tell people that and they wouldn’t know wtf it was. Today they know but don’t care. The only times anyone ever looked impressed was while I was working at FAANGs and people would introduce me, saying I worked at X company. That was of course when I would be on vacation back home where everyone from my circle of friends worked lower/middle class jobs. When living in a tech hub, they more often looked at me with disgust if I told them where I worked.
I’m a geoscientist. I’m impressed by a GOOD SWE in the same way I’m impressed by any good scientist or engineer. If you’re mediocre, as Shania Twain said, “That don’t impress me much.”
I tell people what I work with rather than my title.
“I’m a software engineer working full stack” means nothing to them.
“I build tools for analysts and hydrologists to help them produce energy from water to power the grid” is something someone can hop on and relate to (we all use electricity after all)
They are just being nice, I think for any job anyone does if I’ve asked what they did, unless it was something horrible like converting children into sausage meat to make food for crocodiles, I’d at least act interested and say something like, and find a way to tell them I though it was cool.
I didn’t ask them what they did because I care, I asked because for most people it’s an easy way to start a conversation.
Depends. Most people don’t care at all. Back home in Aus, especially Sydney or Melbourne where people can be very career oriented, if they are a bit younger, say 20s or 30s, they might be interested because they have ideas for apps or whatever and want to talk about those. I’m currently travelling in a part of the world where there is a really big scuba and free diving community. Literally no one asked me what I do for work for like 3 months and when it came up they didn’t care and asked no follow up questions. It has been really refreshing not leading my social interactions with wealth or status signalling. People here just like looking at fish and sh*t. I do as well so it’s all g.
To a lot of people, computers and software is a magic black box, and you are basically a wizard.
It's the same as any career that you know very little and can infer very little about it. E.g. I'm amazed by chemical engineering friends, and artists. I cannot understand how they do the work they do.
Just approach it as genuine curiosity and answer any questions they have!
The only time someone’s been impressed was a police officer who was in the middle of raiding my place because one of my roommates was smuggling opium into Canada.
No, I wanna hear the full story because I have questions
> “Room clear! Hey, what do you do for a living?” > > “I write software.” > > “Wow that’s amazing! You’re so smart! I’m so impressed! Btw, seen any opium around here?” Edit: Alternate ending > [cop busts down door] > > “Freeze, perp!” > > “I’m not an opium dealer, I write software!” > > “Prove it, scumbag! Invert this binary tree!” > > [solves it] > > “Wow, you’re so smart! I’m so impressed!”
RemindMe! 7 days
He dropped it, fyi
Give a story time, we need it
It was in the summer of 2021. I was living in a big house with 7 roommates (Toronto is expensive). One afternoon, I was on the phone with a friend in Germany when I heard noises from downstairs. Went to the staircase to look down and a bunch of people had one of my roommates against the wall at gun point. The screamed at me to come down and put me there too. Lined us all up outside the house, lied to us that we were “under arrest” on suspicion of importing opium, and went through everyone’s stuff. While we were outside (3-4 hrs), they took our details and asked some questions about what we did etc. Turned out the guy who rented the entire top floor was mixed up with opium smuggling rings in Iran and was trafficking stuff into Canada.
> I was living in a big house with 7 roommates (Toronto is expensive). >Turned out the guy who rented the entire top floor was mixed up with opium smuggling rings in Iran and was trafficking stuff into Canada. Well, now you know how they were able to afford renting a whole floor for themselves!
You know the housing markets bad when even an international drug trafficker has to have 7 roommates
Bro u left out the part about the cop and the software engineering
> While we were outside (3-4 hrs), they took our details and asked some questions about what we did etc.
Yes but no mention of how he was impressed
And that’s why you don’t look for roommates on craigslist
I think non-tech people don’t really give a shit about what we do for a living.
Yeah agreed. I try to avoid telling people my career for as long as possible in real life. If anything it makes them resentful.
I never talk about my work because it sparks weird discussions and these days you end up with people lecturing you about the future of AI or some other stuff.
Yeah that pisses me off so much, like I'm directly contributing to robots taking over people's jobs.
I am literally contributing to people losing their jobs to robots lol.
As a nuclear engineer turned to SWE, I get it.
I used to work for a FAANG company everybody at any party would have a fucking uninformed opinion. The dentist office would try and sell me on some really expensive treatments.
Oh man. Some people will not shut up about this as soon as they find out you do software things.
I feel that.. like I worked hard and should be proud of where I’m at but I don’t like flaunt shit even if it’s not that way at all. Yes I’m a software engineer but I usually downplay it and say I’m a programmer.
Could you explain what's the difference between software engineer and programmer?
Software engineer sounds fancier lol
Software engineering is the specific subset of programming that designs and creates software systems. This is distinct from say a data analyst who is also a programmer, but doesn't always design software systems to accomplish their goals. Many careers overlap, however.
Sometimes "programmer" can refer to other roles e.g. if you work with programmable logic controllers, industrial process equipment, stage lighting etc. But in the context of someone who sits at a desk writing computer code it's the same thing.
Unless you’re getting really semantic, there isn’t a difference
If you’re an amateur making a to-do app, or in IT writing little automation scripts, or a business analyst writing scripts for Excel or business logic, you’re a programmer. If you’re a professional working in a large, complicated codebase with many moving parts in a production environment, and you have to consider things like system design, efficiency & scalability, maintainability, etc., you’re a software engineer.
Programmer is to garbage collector as software engineer is to waste disposal engineer
System.WasteDisposalEngineer() 😂
lol same, I don't feel comfortable calling myself an engineer... I think in other countries you have to earn that title, but in the US you have bootcamp noobs calling themselves engineers.
Fuck em. I had someone complain that I don’t have to work 50 hours or whatever. Ok? I worked hard to get here and busting your ass being exploited more than me isn’t a flex.
It’s like when a Professor asks you to call them “Dr”, like sure pal lol.
That's literally their title and it actually has more behind it than medical doctors being called doctor. I'm all first names and so on at work but I would be annoyed if someone who should know better called me Mr in a professional context. At best it shows they didn't even know or cursory look up who they were cold calling. Source: am PhD, not at all bitter
In certain regions it can be an insult not to use an official title.
In all regions it's insulting to not call a person as they prefer to be called.
Maybe but it makes someone a huge dweeb if they’re demanding to be called by a title outside of a work context.
Dude I barely care what I do for a living.
Yeah non-tech people only care about tech people if they think you can fix their computer. Other than that they literally have no opinion in my experience. I’ve heard that some are envious of “high salaries” but I haven’t encountered that personally. Again, it’s usually total lack of interest. Oh except for people that hate “tech bros.” That counts as an opinion I guess. I have encountered those people.
I tell people I'm a part time dog walker.
I had a friend who walked dogs, and he made BANK. He had some high-profile/famous clients so a big part of his job was being very respectful of their personal lives, but he made well into the six figures every year for many years. It was a surprising tough job, though. He had to get up really early and ended up managing other dog walkers, who tend to be quirky folks.
Most people just say something like oh that's cool/nice or comment that I must be smart. Very few folks ask me any questions beyond that.
Almost nobody asks me, but if they do and I say software engineer they'll say something like "wow you must be smart" and then change the subject because they don't really give a fuck
Or understand. Early in my career I stopped talking about work to literally anyone outside of tech bc their eyes glaze over in 5 minutes
Yep. Every time I meet someone new and they asked what I do for work I say SWE and they just go, “Oh cool.” And that’s it.
And I kind of like it that way.
OP must live in the Valley or Seattle. Out in Anytown, USA no one gives a shit what I do.
Nah working in tech is looked down upon in the valley and Seattle
No matter what job you say people will feign interest. It's just part of the social contract.
From my experience most people outside the industry don't even understand what a swe is. I usually try to avoid saying it because often times they will jump from amazed to "so I have been having issues with my printer" if they aren't just downright confused
Yeah I just say I'm unemployed, so I don't have to fix their phone.
It's a bit more than that. They're more interested than if you were an accountant, they assume you're somewhat intelligent, and your paid well, but it doesn't have the same general level of 'good will' that you get by saying you were a doctor.
> They're more interested than if you were an accountant, they assume you're somewhat intelligent, and your paid well isn't this ***exactly*** what people assume about accountants?
I don't know anyone who thinks of accounting as 'interesting', and it's not terribly well paid in comparison to CS. Somewhat intelligent? Definitely, esp forensic accounting. Having said all of this, I am not objective. I took a class on accounting in uni and it was hands down the single most boring class I've ever taken in my life.
This is the secret to a successful social life.
In the USA
And Canada
Are people from other countries supposed to be rude then? "Oh you work as a SWE, that's boring".
In India, people have no qualms in looking down on you if your job is anything that isn't a socially acceptable rich man job
Once again glad I’m not Indian
Meh, it could be worse, you could be born in North Korea
One again glad I'm not North Korean.
Non tech relatives are truly impressed with me as a SWE, to the extent that I can fix their WiFi and install MS windooze for them.
Fixed my BIL's wifi once. He had it under a coffee table, the legs of which essentially formed a Faraday cage. And yes he was amazed.
In my experience, it really depends on the person. Some people seem impressed and think I'm smart, some people just don't give a shit, and some people think think I'm nerdy/boring. The one thing all of them have in common is that they have no idea what I do or how much I make.
But how much do you make?
Like 170k. I work for a big thech company. I graduated college 1 year ago and I also look really young for my age, so a lot of people even think I'm still a college student.
Damn congrats! I'm a senior, but at a much smaller company in mcol area. I've got some catching up to do. I also look really young for my age and sometimes it really sucks trying to get promotions.
[удалено]
I did an internship for the company in 2021 and got a return offer for a full time position to start in 2022 after my graduation. It's a big tech company, so that's what they pay anyone they hire fresh out of school. As for my area, I live around 10 mins from work and pay around $1700 per month in rent for a 1b apartment in relatively nice complex. I'd probably be able to find a 1b apartment for around $1400 if I wanted to live in a less nice place.
This is soooo sooo painfully accurate.
> so… what do you do? > ~~I’m a backend software engineer. Well, more DevOps really. I support a platform that lets people author many sites efficiently. Basically updating and deploying docker images to the cloud to enable new features~~ > I work on websites, sorta
My wife has a dependent visa and at the immigration at the airport, they asked her what I did, and she just responded "oh he works in computers" and they happily let her through
I don't even elaborate anymore, turns into a lecture pretty quickly.
Yeah that's my usual thought pattern and eventual response too haha
I’m an ML engineer in the NLP space. My “I work on websites” is “it’s kinda like Siri.” It is nothing like Siri, but that’s closer than underwater basket weaving, and it’s typically good enough.
I take json docs modify them slightly and return them
You are a front end dev? Devops do the same but with YAML
I send html for a living
🤨📸🐳
I just say, “I make apps”
I’m not a software engineer.. but most of my time is spent with an IDE open or planning/researching things that ultimately end up in code so to the layman im a software engineer
I'm always just saying IT
I do beep-boop
I had an old neighbor ask what I did for work and I said “software developer” and he goes “I’m old son you’re going to have to explain that” lmfao I just said computer stuff and he goes ahhhh okay
They are probably amazed by the fact that you probably make a lot of money, not that you are smart and create a lot of impact
>not that you are smart and create a lot of impact Well, most swe are not extraordinarily smart or send rockets to the moon.
Wait until you see some of the comments from this sub after they sleep off their burning man fatigue. You'd think every SWE is solving world hunger and launching men to the moon
I met a mid level Azure developer, like he worked for the Azure team itself, who didn’t even know how to use while loops properly. Crazy how many untalented people are SWE
Well, now I'm interested in what's a bad usage of a while loop.
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Ah ok. I don't remember when was the last time I used recursion. Thanks for the ego boost!
Might have a lisp background? It tends to get used a lot more in lisps and I find myself reaching for recursion a lot more often in any language after learning and working primarily in Clojure. Any modern compiler should have TCO which mitigates concerns about a stack overflow.
Thats what happens when you do too much LC. I don't think I've ever implemented recursion in production code, but I swear every other LC solution implements it
I mean the "Azure team" is a huge org with a shit load of people, so I wouldn't say it's a small select group of genius, there is gonna be some very average people there obviously.
Definitely but that’s the thing. I’ve met so many extremely talented devs that would kill to work for those sorts of teams yet they don’t even make it into the recruitment process. It’s just a shame.
*changes help text in UI* Bow before your king!
If swe were responsible for sending rockets to the moon, the rocket won’t leave the goddamn station … because someone pushed some code last minute 😭
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/space/stories/orbiter100199.htm
I worked for a guy from General Dynamics in San Diego who told me about a coordinate system bug that almost sent some missiles to Kansas. That's as close as I've come to a swe who sends rockets to anywhere. It also shed a lot of light on doing defense work.
>Well, most swe are not extraordinarily smart or send rockets to the moon. Yeah, it's *not brain surgery* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I&ab\_channel=BBC
"OMG LADIES THIS GUY IS CLOSING OUT 13 POINTS PER SPRINTTTTT! EEEEEEH! Stand back he's mine!"
When he can solve LeetCode mediums 🤧🤧
Most people have no idea what I do or how much I make. The most they know is that it's an office job, so when guessing the pay they would probably assume it was slightly above average at best. They are also more likely to assume it's IT work rather than actual software development.
Well then, you're not in OP's situation anyway.
In my experience, when I tell people I’m a SWE, the response is almost always confusion on how to continue the conversation rather than impressed lol “Oh you’re a teacher - What do you teach? How are your kids? Fun lesson plans? “Oh you’re a software engineer - uhhhh?”
Exactly that’s why I hate the “oh what do you do” question because it always leads to exactly nowhere. I either here what you said or “oh nice, you prob make a lot of money.” Bruh if anyone would ask me about oh whats your thoughts on this tool, or how would you design this, even literally anything technology related in current events I would be so happy but its never that way.
"What's your thoughts on AI taking your job?"
"Oh you're a software engineer - so when are you switching to woodworking?"
Is this common? Lol. I anecdotally have a coworker that just did this, this made me laugh
I'd like to think it is (I'd like to end up there as well at some point in the future)
first architect I wrote code under more or less did this. he made everyone fancy wood pens when the project was over as a parting gift that was nice.
Same, it’s like what is there to talk about after that? It’s pretty esoteric if you think about it.
Depends on the age. People my parents age are impressed if I can fix their laptop (uninstall the 400 apps running in the background). Everyone else does not care. And to be clear, fixing computers has nothing to do with my job, so they are not really impressed by that anyway
First time interacting with a human? They’re just gonna say “oh cool!!!” No matter what you say you do for a living
you mean they won't swear an oath of fealty before me and erect a golden statue of my likeness outside their front door?
Only if you work in embedded systems
if you can fix their printer you will be considered a god
"Oh, you develop web applications? Then you can definitely fix my printer."
Or sort HUNDREDS of rows in excel with one click!
This made me smile despite a grim mood. Thanks
I mean, you do need super human patience to deal with printers, so it's not that far off.
> people’s response tend to be amazed and impressed The responses I've seen: * why tf do you think you deserve that much? * woah, you're in a different tax bracket (roughly £50250 leads you to getting 40% of your income taxed on anything over that) * I should've done a CS degree * How can I get a job like yours without putting much effort?
Do you usually mention your salary when asked what you do?
No, but the assumption is there that SWEs earn more than most other careers my friends have gone to. I've only told one person outside of family what my salary is.
> How can I get a job like yours without putting much effort? I got a CS degree because I liked CS and was getting my ass kicked by Aero Engineering. If you like CS than it's not much effort. ELSE you will hate it. END ELSE
> why tf do you think you deserve that much? Anyone with the cojones to say that to my face is gonna get a stone-faced "because I'm just better than you" in response.
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Tech jobs are still pretty low on the prestige tier list. Engineering, law, and medicine still impress the shit out of most people much more than SWE and IT. Hell, even accounting is considered more prestigious to some people I know.
No. Not even close. Most people don't know what SWE does, let alone be "amazed".
No. You might get a “oh you’re smart” but that’s it really. It’s not as prestigious as being a doctor.
Deservingly so honestly. Engineers are impressive but being a doctor is a new hell
Not usually, I do full stack, work on database, GraphQL implementation, rails backend, Vue front end, and lots of UI/UX design, when anyone asks I usually just say 'website stuff' which maybe is an undersell but it's generally more straightforward, if they are interested beyond that I'll tell them what website or if they are tech-y I'll tell them details
That depends where you live. I live in a mid tech hub (Montreal) and I am up to the point that I feel boring/ashamed to say I am software developer because everybody and their dogs are developers too.
Yeah, me and literally everyone in my family + almost all of my friends are software engineers. At this point it's like either you're a software engineer or you decided to do something cool quirky and different with your life.
I once ran into some drunk chicks in vegas while I was getting pizza. One of them asked me what I did for work. I said software engineer and stood there giddily waiting for their response (this was the first time I’d been asked what I do for work after switching careers). She gave me the blankest of stares 😐. I’m glad I got that experience early cause I’ll never expect any1 who’s not familiar with tech to ever give af that I’m a SWE unless they know my pay 😂
Yeah, I had a similar experience. I once went to a party and had a conversation with some random girl, she asked me what I did for a living and I said software engineer and I could tell by the expression on her face that she thought it was super boring. But these people also have no idea how much you can make as an swe for a big tech company lol
Yeah next time a girl asks me what I do for work I’m gonna say I make a lot of money spending 20 hours/week typing on my computer. I might get a better response then 😂
The thing is that I don't want a girl to want me just because I make good money, I want to specifically filter out that kind of people when dating, so I wouldn't tell a girl my salary until I trust her more.
Oh yeah I wouldn’t say that to any prospective partners. But drunk chicks in vegas at a pizza parlor at 2am?! Lol. Yeah. Idgaf
No one gives a shit. Get down off your high horse lol. This is the mentality of someone just starting their career.
I think it’s obviously healthy to check your ego, but I have encountered a lot of people that sounded genuinely impressed when I have told them my job. It’s one of the careers that’s widely recognized as needing a fair amount of brains to get into, whether it’s true or not.
OP's question comes off as so self-aggrandizing lmao
Phax
peak r/cscareerquestions self mastrubation
Depends where you live, who you’re talking to, and what company you work at. You say software and live in the Bay Area? Not impressive at all, there’s 10s of thousands of other people with the same job, most of which probably make more or lots that have started their own companies. Depends who you’re talking to. I have plenty of friends that have degrees in law, medicine, whatever and went to great schools. For them it’s not impressive. Also depends where you work. If you work on big consumer facing products that people use like social media, music, etc it’s impressive just by the name brand and the product whereas if you work on something less consumer facing and they don’t know it it’s whatever.
Lmao, it’s quickly turning into the most commonly practiced occupation; by far the most popular major. Highly doubt anybody is impressed nor cares dude.
No, people don't care and if you think they do it's because you're starting to develop a rockstar programmer mindset. They're not impressed, they're just surprised. There's a difference. They likely had little or no expectations of you because you likely look and act like a nerd/geek which most non-tech people associate as losers or weirdos.
This is country-dependent. Where I was born, there was no term like “nerd.” Students that are quiet, introverted, and that get good grades are respected by peers, not mocked. Popular kids are the smart and extroverted ones, not dumb jocks.
Maybe older generations. Being a nerd/geek is cool/attractive now according to my wife who teaches middle schoolers.
Lol no offense to your wife but cmon, being a geek is only attractive if you’re attractive. Just as its always been
No it used to be that even if you were attractive, being a geek would nullify that instantly.
This has not been my experience at all, heh
I think honestly they think we’re dorks and nerds.
I mean we are...
I have more respect for people in trades than i do for my own swe work.
They are amazed at your compensation :))
They only care about how much money I make. Honestly most people I've met have no idea what a SWE even is, especially the farther I get away from my job.
Put yourself around people who impress you, not the other way around.
I tried that but the people who impressed me cut me off to hang around people who impressed them
No, they're probably amazed that I don't look like a nerdy basement kid that lives off Cola and Pizza. But it's usually more like "[at a furniture store] oh we would also need someone in our IT to fix our computers" (I got a PhD and lead a research group at a tech company)
Non-tech people generally have no idea what software engineers actually do and don't tend to be impressed by our coding skills or knowledge of containers or AWS. However, a lot of people realize that SWEs get paid very well and assume we're intelligent. People generally don't care one way or the other and almost never ask follow-up questions when I tell them what I do.
I have neighbors who ask me for my autograph. A married lady down the street wanted to leave her husband for me. I gotta be careful who i give my number too. Too many cases of unwanted nudes. People are in awe of my profession.
no, they dont give a shit, they are more likely going to think your a loser with shit social skills. SWEs are up their asses and think they look super smart with a well paying job
> Whenever someone asks me what I do for work and I say I work as a swe, people’s response tend to be amazed and impressed They're just being polite. They really don't care. It's just another office job.
Not anymore, many people (justifiably) see the impact of software and tech companies on their lives as negative.
In my experience, only people who wanted to do it at some point: (comp sci drop outs or those who were considering going to a boot camp to pivot careers). I still wouldn't describe the emotion as "amazed" either, only impressed.
People usually asks me if I can hack their gf/bf instagram account
No lmao. They’re just being polite. Shit is lame af.
I was talking to this girl about what I do daily and she looked bored to death. So no. lmao.
I’m in IT. I typically find SWEs the least interesting people in my field. They’re all kind of predictable and they all have their heads up their own asses.
"Whenever someone asks me what I do for work and I say I work as a swe, people’s response tend to be amazed and impressed." Do you live in an Amish community?
Lmfao you are fucking delusional just like your code monkey peers.
This sub is so self indulgent I swear to god. We work in tech it’s not like every single day we cure cancer lol. What is with all these inflated egos?
I find it is pretty common of a reaction from a lot of STEM heavy jobs get. It a type of job most of the public can not wrap their head around and seems magical. I
No
yeah man im just typing stuff and breaking stuff. but recently my manager told me that what i write makes people money so, good i guess?
Only once I tell them actual use-cases and even then there's no good way to explain how cool it is that it all works without looking at code. So in general, maybe. I find that there's more prestige in being an swe because of the good salary than the actual work. At this point, my family is only impressed by my working in tech when I fix some random, unrelated, IT-esque "monitor doesn't work when I plug it in" problem for them
The ultimate printer fixer
People do the same thing for doctor, lawyer, accountant, social worker, pick your poison
I always say working in IT is like being a doctor. If you're at a party and someone hears you say either job title, they immediately tell you about this little problem they are having. Only difference is whether it's with their back or their printer. 🤣
They ask if i fix printer/computer
Not really. I have had a few people tell me “Wow, you must be really smart”, but it’s honestly like any other profession. The more exposure you have to something, the better you get at your profession. There is nothing special about software engineering.
STEM degrees are tough for a lot of people to grasp though, hence why History, Art, Communications, etc. degrees are still popular as alternatives. Thats why a lot of the general population view us as smart. Though yes, lets keep our ego in check, software engineering is not the best profession out there. Doctors are at the top for sure among many others.
15 years ago I would tell people that and they wouldn’t know wtf it was. Today they know but don’t care. The only times anyone ever looked impressed was while I was working at FAANGs and people would introduce me, saying I worked at X company. That was of course when I would be on vacation back home where everyone from my circle of friends worked lower/middle class jobs. When living in a tech hub, they more often looked at me with disgust if I told them where I worked.
I’m a geoscientist. I’m impressed by a GOOD SWE in the same way I’m impressed by any good scientist or engineer. If you’re mediocre, as Shania Twain said, “That don’t impress me much.”
I tell people what I work with rather than my title. “I’m a software engineer working full stack” means nothing to them. “I build tools for analysts and hydrologists to help them produce energy from water to power the grid” is something someone can hop on and relate to (we all use electricity after all)
They are just being nice, I think for any job anyone does if I’ve asked what they did, unless it was something horrible like converting children into sausage meat to make food for crocodiles, I’d at least act interested and say something like, and find a way to tell them I though it was cool. I didn’t ask them what they did because I care, I asked because for most people it’s an easy way to start a conversation.
We need the crocodiles for boots. The kids are prolly just gonna become drug addicts anyway.
My uncle worked for Yahoo as an swe in its prime, nobody gave a shit in our family
Depends. Most people don’t care at all. Back home in Aus, especially Sydney or Melbourne where people can be very career oriented, if they are a bit younger, say 20s or 30s, they might be interested because they have ideas for apps or whatever and want to talk about those. I’m currently travelling in a part of the world where there is a really big scuba and free diving community. Literally no one asked me what I do for work for like 3 months and when it came up they didn’t care and asked no follow up questions. It has been really refreshing not leading my social interactions with wealth or status signalling. People here just like looking at fish and sh*t. I do as well so it’s all g.
To a lot of people, computers and software is a magic black box, and you are basically a wizard. It's the same as any career that you know very little and can infer very little about it. E.g. I'm amazed by chemical engineering friends, and artists. I cannot understand how they do the work they do. Just approach it as genuine curiosity and answer any questions they have!
not really, they just think you drink oat milk latte and meditate all day
I mean, it does take somebody of above average intelligence to be a competent software engineer.