Coder and Software Engineer

I have always wondered about the difference between the two, the more I looked in other industries the more I under why a software engineer is not the same as a coder.

Different roles

If you look at building a house or an apartment, thanks to the diversity of labour, an architect will not be handling the cement, and carpenters are calculating the force. Everyone has their own role when it comes to building an apartment. A coder is like a carpenter then delivers what needs to be done according to the engineer and architect, that person doesn’t need to know the reasons behind the decisions, they are here to build, like much junior dev without a college education or people have no intention to learn deep than npm i another-npm-package.

Go Deeper

As an engineer, I assume just other engineers their job is to calculate the the risk, find the best solution economically, efficiently, and safest for the project, and that requires a knowledge that goes beyond delivering the facade of the project, but a deeper understanding of the potential risk and how to optimize for better, which requires a decent amount of computer science knowledge, for sure.

Go Higher

For architects, after talking to one, they are going one step higher, not only the look and feel, or the mechanism inside the system but also how the infrastructure design will affect the underlying risks, ability to scale, and cost for the business as it grows.

More than Code

Software engineering involves more than centring a “div”, coming from an F&B background taught me that, being a chef, is not just about cooking, there is the cost we need to calculate, are potential hygiene risks, and if the restaurant gets very busy what’s the next step.

Working in software development doesn’t mean we need to be good at all of them, we should have both front and backend development so we can find the right path for ourselves, and go deep and beyond what the code does, but what does it do for the clients and turn code into great product and profit.