<story><title>Not a real engineer (2019)</title><url>https://twitchard.github.io/posts/2019-05-29-not-a-real-engineer.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>exclusiv</author><text>I just recently got into Steve Howe. He&amp;#x27;s considered one of, if not the best guitarist of all time and I came across a quote he had that said something like he wished guitarists would focus on being musicians. Same thing as coders to engineers.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve come across more technically able programmers than I am. But they aren&amp;#x27;t better engineers. And a lot of that is because I&amp;#x27;m an entrepreneur and have a marketing secondary background as well.&lt;p&gt;So many companies discount non coding skillsets that actually make one an engineer in my opinion.&lt;p&gt;They hire the butcher instead of the chef and then wonder why it tastes like shit when it&amp;#x27;s cooked.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mp05</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re onto something but it flies in the face of a bit of convention as you&amp;#x27;re probably not the standard personality that gets into engineering.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s a fine career to go to school, get your BS in whatever technical field you choose, and work as engineer #52354 at Ingersoll Rand, or Boeing, or whomever, and retire after 30 years of being master of your highly complex but perhaps limited domain. That is a very valid definition of an &amp;quot;engineer&amp;quot;. These people probably have very fulfilling personal lives that you&amp;#x27;d probably see as miserably boring, and that&amp;#x27;s okay.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve thought hard lately about this sort of thing, and one thing that seems clear to me is that management likely sees the &amp;quot;standard engineer&amp;quot; is a cost sink where someone like yourself may escape that sort of criticism as your value transcends just engineering and into other departments that directly generate revenue.&lt;p&gt;For what it&amp;#x27;s worth, we sound like the same type of engineer but I&amp;#x27;ve worked to try and turn what may be contempt for the stereotype into something more... collaborative.</text></comment>
<story><title>Not a real engineer (2019)</title><url>https://twitchard.github.io/posts/2019-05-29-not-a-real-engineer.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>exclusiv</author><text>I just recently got into Steve Howe. He&amp;#x27;s considered one of, if not the best guitarist of all time and I came across a quote he had that said something like he wished guitarists would focus on being musicians. Same thing as coders to engineers.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve come across more technically able programmers than I am. But they aren&amp;#x27;t better engineers. And a lot of that is because I&amp;#x27;m an entrepreneur and have a marketing secondary background as well.&lt;p&gt;So many companies discount non coding skillsets that actually make one an engineer in my opinion.&lt;p&gt;They hire the butcher instead of the chef and then wonder why it tastes like shit when it&amp;#x27;s cooked.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ponector</author><text>But that is the market. 99% employers don&amp;#x27;t want engineers, they want cheap modern-framework-coders.&lt;p&gt;Real market values more Spring java coders than C++ engineers who work with hardware.</text></comment>