/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10100167]

Why do Computer Scientists/IT professionals call themselves Engineers?

They are not Engineers...

[Anonymous No.10100177]

>>10100167
Dumb engineer, you're no better than those code monkeys

[Anonymous No.10100223]

>>10100167
google, amazon, etc. calls them general software engineer (SWE) but they specialize in site reliability engineer, data engineer, research engineer, ML engineer, SDIT engineer, etc.

[Anonymous No.10100227]

>>10100167
because you don't understand what the word engineer means

[Anonymous No.10100228]

>>10100167
Also engineer is not a protected term in USA. What would you call them instead? Engineer is just a generic catch all term for technical positions like analyst.

[Anonymous No.10100278]

>>10100223
stop using the word engineer to give clout to your data entry or code monkey menial bullshit

>>10100228
>Engineer is just a generic catch all term for technical positions like analyst.
>Engineer is just a generic catch all term

WEW
E
W

[Anonymous No.10100300]

>>10100167
I'm not for calling random software developers engineers, but also this is pretty funny. That being said, I've seen CS PhD's (theoretical mostly, but some systems people too) on my team who are insanely smart and solve a lot of interesting, hard problems that your average engineer could only dream of doing. A lot of these guys already pick up the skills to do further engineering research if they so please.


>>10100278
>>10100227
>implying that engineering that isn't in R&D amounts to anything more than code/CADmonkey, MATLAB equation checking, cadence monkeying, or maybe an old fortran loop if you're in aerospace

MSE research is pretty legit though.

t. EE R&D

[Anonymous No.10100306]

>>10100167
Also, CS and IT are two different fields. One has a research presence and exists beyond any industrial demand or physical computer, and the other is IT

[Anonymous No.10100321]

>>10100300
Much like Law and Medicine Engineering is legally defined and rigorously regulated, PE's carry the sanction of the state. CS monkeys are plebs who think themselves apart of the white collar aristocracy.

[Anonymous No.10100327]

>>10100278
funny how software "engineers" are paid 2-5x more than proper "engineers", isn't it? Go look at the salaries on Blind if you want to feel worthless

[Anonymous No.10100330]

>>10100167

[Anonymous No.10100336]

>>10100327
mhmm. they sleep in their lambo's because an apartment in silicon valley or seattle is $4k a month.

[Anonymous No.10100342]

>>10100327
yeah its because its inflated by basedcuckbois in San Frangaycisco, drinking lattes, while making a couple for and while loops, then getting funding for 10 billion dollars for their great new "idea"

anyone in IT in San Frangaycisco is not an engineer

[Anonymous No.10100343]

>>10100321
The tech elites control the world. The tech billionaires and their companies have redefined the term "engineering" to mean whatever they want. AI is already automating paralegals and radiologists out of jobs

[Anonymous No.10100347]

>>10100228
only graduates of ABET accredited engineering programs can call themselves engineers

[Anonymous No.10100352]

>>10100343
AI cannot assume liability, which is one of the reasons why engineering is legally defined. As long as someone is to be held accountable for a design, engineering will always be engineering.

[Anonymous No.10100353]

>>10100336
>>10100342
you can always work remote and big tech companies have offices all over the country and the world. Amazon's HQ2 is supposed to be in the DC metro area. I know some senior engineers making 500k base working for financial companies in the midwest.

[Anonymous No.10100358]

>>10100347
most decent CS programs are ABET accredited

[Anonymous No.10100360]

>>10100353
most of the CS guys i know who work remote live in thailand

[Anonymous No.10100373]

>>10100360
that's cause most CS weebs are sissy neet fagots who are into ladyboys

[Anonymous No.10100378]

>>10100353
Finance fags get the rope just like software "engineers"

Finance is nothing more than automated code trying to execute trades faster than the other guy. Possibly the most mundane career field there is, but hey, at least you make tons of money!!!!

another really vital and important part of the economy!!!

[Anonymous No.10100379]

>>10100321
Civil engineering and some mechanical engineering projects are protected by law and name since they're part of public safety. I've seen very few, if any, EE, Aerospace, and MSE conracts that require a PE. The FE and PE exams aren't too bad, and they're mostly there as a basic milestone/pay raise.

Regardless, CS and code monkeying are two different things. I'm telling you from industry experience that CS PhD researchers in R&D are the future of engineering and industrial mathematical research.

[Anonymous No.10100381]

>>10100352
Corporation are living entities; they assume liability for their products.

[Anonymous No.10100387]

>>10100379
>I've seen very few, if any, EE

wut? Electrical PE's are more prevalent than mechanical or civils due to how hot work is regulated.

[Anonymous No.10100389]

>>10100381
thats not how designer of record works. AI can't be called to testify in court or justify its due diligence.

[Anonymous No.10100390]

>>10100167
>Computer Scientists/IT professionals

These are two completely different things

[Anonymous No.10100392]

>>10100379
CS PhD researchers are, at their core, mathematicians who can code

[Anonymous No.10100393]

>>10100378
So you wouldn't want to be a sellout like James Simons then? Some people want to make a ton of money to be able to donate, its called effective altruism

[Anonymous No.10100405]

>>10100387
It depends on your sector and the area of your research. I see a lot of people in power who needed a PE, but I generally keep myself away from power and closer to control theory and CPU design.

>>10100392
A PhD is CS has nothing to do with code in the traditional sense, because at this point everybody can code (maybe if they were doing compiler work and algebra, sure, CS PhD's can 'construct code'). Theoretical CS is mostly just mathematics of all kinds and flavors. Systems CS is a halfway point between engineering and theoretical CS. You have the theoretical underpinnings and some pretty pure topics, but then you bring it back to complex systems that have to scale. One very smart systems CS guy works on my team, and he helps a lot with everything from symbolic debugging to the heat equations.

tl; dr the CS PhD's biggest skill isn't code. It was never code. It's that a CS PhD launches you into some of the most interesting work out there. It's inherited a lot of the problems that came before it

[Anonymous No.10100438]

>>10100393
right, because donating 10 million dollars a year while your net worth is in the billions is altruism

[Anonymous No.10100446]

i wish i weren't an engineer.

[Anonymous No.10100452]

>>10100347
Lmao, no you need a PE license

[Anonymous No.10100454]

Isnt CS stem? If not what is it?

[Anonymous No.10100457]

>>10100167
To annoy you

[Anonymous No.10100458]

>>10100446
God, I wish that were me

[Anonymous No.10100464]

>>10100446
way to study yourself out of a job i guess.

[Anonymous No.10100473]

>>10100446
how are you not a highly specialized engineer doing consulting work and making $150 an hour minimum?

[Anonymous No.10100480]

>>10100458
no, you don't, and i'd strongly suggest that you don't even consider it.

>>10100464
all i wanted to do upon finishing was get away from academia and instead i ended up in a non-profit which is even worse than academia. no one in the industry wants to hire me.

[Anonymous No.10100488]

>>10100473
because that requires 10+ years of relevant, industry experience and desirable skills and not being a broke dick that pissed away 5 years of his 20s slaving away for some cunt doing shit absolutely no one cares about outside of those in white collar welfare (government funded research).

[Anonymous No.10100494]

>>10100352
I guess the law has to be rewritten then :^)

[Anonymous No.10100505]

>>10100167
>>10100228
When I was job searching I kept scrolling past Sales engineers and when I clicked it turned out that's what those dumb fuckers call the people that stand around in a store waiting to bother you.

[Anonymous No.10100516]

>>10100488
what research were you doing?

try defense contracting

[Anonymous No.10100521]

>>10100516
liquid fuel combustion experiments, and i tried. defense contractors, outside of government positions, are the only places where i can't even score a phone interview.

[Anonymous No.10100545]

>>10100167
I get paid more so who cares lmao

[Anonymous No.10100566]

>>10100454
CS is the T in STEM

[Anonymous No.10100581]

>>10100167
To legitimize their complete mess of a field.

It's actually very irresponsible because the term "engineer" means that standards and accountability are applied to the industry. Often quality assurance isn't very high in tech industries. They just want it to work and there's no respect for "clean code" or releasing a responsibly made product.

This is because there are few, if any, regulations on computer related infrastructure. So you're right "engineer" is often wrong or misused. That's why programs have glitches, or crash, or need to be updated constantly. They almost never work properly or completely without error. If a bridge was released for use and needed updates shortly after launch the builders would be crucified. But since CS/IT is so abstract and the processes invisible to the normal user, they don't have the wherewithal to pressure them for accountability.

That said quality assurance in the CS/IT field is a growing industry and there are a small number of people in this industry who perhaps might have earned the title, but most who use it are charlatans.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/programmers-should-not-call-themselves-engineers/414271/

[Anonymous No.10101648]

>>10100167
you're no scientist, buddy

[Anonymous No.10101663]

>>10100228
That's false. Engineer is a protected title with many facets that come with it. The (unlicensed) software/IT Engineers in the U.S. have that title due to "industrial exemption" are legally unable to represent themselves as being able to do engineering work for anything other than the firm that hired them unless an actual engineer baby sits them.

[Anonymous No.10101676]

>>10100446
You should get your PE and open your own consulting firm.

[Anonymous No.10101681]

>>10100278
*seething*

[Anonymous No.10101712]

>>10101676
yeah, i've been debating doing that but i still need to tough out 4 years at work and i really do hate my current job.

[Anonymous No.10101716]

They are similar.
1. Both tend to be lolbertarian nutjobs.
2. Both think they are doing the "important" work.
3. Both think their Calc1-3 classes give them all the necessary skills to read and misinterpret scientific publications when the science findings goes against their lolbertarian ideology.
The only difference is that CS are openly gay and Engineer are closeted.

[Anonymous No.10101719]

>>10101712
Or maybe you could work at your uni under a PE for research.

[Anonymous No.10101732]

>>10101719
there is only one department that hires engineers at my university and they never responded when i applied. my adviser even called to put in a good word for me. in fact, i haven't received a single response to the 4 positions i applied for at my university (none were tenure track/teaching).

[Anonymous No.10101744]

>>10100488
>because that requires 10+ years of relevant, industry experience and desirable skills
Acquiring a doctorate in engineering should´ve granted you all the skills and experience needed for any and all industry projects.
>and not being a broke dick that pissed away 5 years of his 20s slaving away for some cunt doing shit absolutely no one cares about outside of those in white collar welfare (government funded research).
The knowledge required to conduct government funded research is exactly what well-paid engineering positions require, since such research makes use of the same mathematical foundations as any and all problem-solving tasks in industry.

[Anonymous No.10101749]

>>10100521
Are you a pajeet/chink, or a citizen? If you belong to the former group, you can kiss defense contractor positions goodbye for good.

[Anonymous No.10101754]

>>10101716
>uses the term lolbertarian twice
Are you, by any chance, a euroshit seething with jealousy over the superior, freedom-embracing American way of life?

PS. I´m not American, but I find foreigners (i.e. non-Americans) bitching about American politics to be very humorous - you never learn from your failed totalitarian ways, do you?

[Anonymous No.10101766]

>>10100167
Those are technicians, engineers don't know how hold a wrench lol

[Anonymous No.10101782]

>>10101744
that's only true if you do computational work where you were writing your own code/programs. experimental work (what i did) plus simulations with available (niche) software (also what i did) are not very desirable. i only wrote some minor scipts for processing/formating/parsing data. now, i'm doing exactly what i did in grad school plus cfd simulations with commercial software, which is about the only useful skill i've acquired at the new job. my best hope is to try to leverage the cfd work, or be stuck in lab positions for the rest of my "engineering" career.

>>10101749
i'm a citizen, which means that it was an even bigger mistake going for the phd.

[Anonymous No.10101909]

>>10100167
because computer scientists do a lot of engineering work

[Anonymous No.10101984]

>>10100167

[Anonymous No.10101989]

>>10100581
>t's actually very irresponsible because the term "engineer" means that standards and accountability are applied to the industry.
Engineer means related to engines... That means material science, fluid dynamics, and/or energy analysis. The only true engineers are mechanical, aero, chemical, and (arguably) hardware and nuclur. All other engineers are based on the tangentially associated properties of the true engineers and engineering. (or an attempt to imply those properties)

[Anonymous No.10103244]

I'm with you on this one. I prefer "software developer" or "programmer" over "software engineer". It's just... nasty.

[Anonymous No.10103288]

>>10100581
>If a bridge was released for use and needed updates shortly after launch the builders would be crucified.
You sound like someone who has never worked with bridges before. Emergency fixes happen all the fucking time. Recently near where I live, they had completed a new bridge over a reasonably important waterway, and then found out that they made it some 5cm too low to fit the tallest ships that use this waterway. They had to then raise the entire construction, at tremendous costs. And that is by no means an isolated incident.

[Anonymous No.10103372]

>>10100167
Explain to me again how a software engineer in computer vision isn't an engineer. They even use calculus/physics in their day to day profession.

[Anonymous No.10103660]

>>10101712
>4 years
with a PhD it should be 2 years max. you should be able to go take the FE/PE right now.

[Anonymous No.10103671]

Computer Scientist can be an engineer similarly to how an atheist can be vegan, a woman can be green-eyed and a Frenchman can be diabetic. Being something does not mean you couldn't be something else at the same time.

[Anonymous No.10104004]

>>10103671
Of course, but generally the CS/IT workers are only engineers in job title rather than actual professionals. It isn't always the case though.

I think of it like those people who are a 'sales engineer', it's a fancy title to raise your market value but it's legally worthless unless there is an actual professional engineer to check your work (In U.S.)

[Anonymous No.10104040]

>>10100321
>Confusing computer science with "information technology"/"software engineering"

I'm not even a CompSci fag, but studying CompSci (and working in it, at least at higher levels) entails a lot more than mindless coding. In fact other than math itself, CS (not physics) is the discipline closest to pure math.