logoalt Hacker News

probably_wrong • yesterday at 10:07 PM • 4 replies • view on HN

Recently I spoke to someone who wanted to know what they should call themselves seeing as they never learned software development, formally or otherwise, but that's not stopping them from releasing AI-powered Python projects in GitHub. I suggested Project Manager, but they took offense to that because (I think) they wanted to hear Software Engineer in order to apply to those jobs. My counter-argument was that, legal rules aside, a S.E. should be able to differentiate good code from bad, but my suggestion wasn't super well received.

The point being: I'm always amazed at the cross-purpose impulse of arguing "the title is not important" while, simultaneously, really wanting to use the title.


Replies

pcthrowaway • yesterday at 11:06 PM

As a software engineer (CS degree and ~10 years of pre-AI experience), I'd feel uncomfortable saying I was a Project Manager

yieldcrv • yesterday at 11:12 PM

Member of Technical Staff, Applied AI

layer8 • yesterday at 10:36 PM

You could have suggested “prompt engineer”. As in “engineering by prompting”. :)

Buttons840 • yesterday at 11:20 PM

Software engineers keep software on the tracks like train engineers keep the train on the tracks. Nobody thinks the train engineer built the train...

➕ show 2 replies