Employed

I think "prompt engineer" is the best job title on multiple levels

A, A, A, A

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(Techno beat drops)

My boss once referred to me as “code bastard”. I’m keeping it.

I have rotated between countless titles over several decades. What I do hasn't really changed. Currently I'm not even aware what my official title is and when someone asks I usually say something along the lines of I make IT go but in my native language.

A load of the devs at my original dotnet shop are still there, but are now called stuff like “Vice President Regional Director Lord Protector Master Technical Architect”. I suspect they’re all still writing VB.

I usually say "I'm a computer toucher" or "computer programmer" if I don't want to talk about what I do. If I want to flex some nerd cred, and/or boast a little, I'll usually say "I work with machine automation" or "robotics". It tends to get a more curious response and I can talk about some of the weird stuff I've helped make.

Ummm, keyboard jockey??? Code monkey??? can we get some respect here?

Button pusher

You may call me Computer God. Or God for short if i deem it acceptable.

"resource"

I know a guy who just says he stacks shelves at Tesco as he cannot be bothred to explain 😂

I like Computer Programmer. No mistaking it. Developers are people who organise houses to be built. Engineers work on trains. Coders encrypt data. No matter what nonsense word salad it says on my email signature, when I'm at a barbecue I say I'm a computer programmer.

CopyPaster

I would prefer that I was not referred to at all. Especially if you are a PM.

"Software craftsman"

Consultant

I hear the voice of the machine spirit!

I have always considered myself an engineer because I’m part of a multidisciplinary engineering organization designing a physical product that has embedded software. And “engineer” is the word at the end of my degrees, I guess.

But if somebody called me by any of those terms in the OP I would answer. And if somebody who works on an app or a video game calls themselves an engineer, it wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.

My only conclusion is that we here, who spend our days specifying exactly what we want computers to do, are not so great specifying ourselves exactly.

It depends who I'm talking to and where I live. Where I live, engineer is a protected title and requires certification/etc so that takes it out of the race. That leaves the other options. Generally I am a Web Developer to people my age or younger, to people older than me I am usually a Computer Programmer but also sometimes a Developer or Software Developer instead. Realistically, I am a Full Stack Website Developer.

Referring to my job doesn't get any easier even as someone in tech.

If they have a degree in engineering, then they are an engineer.

I like to call myself a codemonkey

I only want to be called darling. Or a filthy worm, depending on the situation

At some jobs, I can get away with "Señor Developer" or "Computer Toucher". Those are the nice ones.

Otherwise it tends to be "Senior Software Engineer" that carries the least constricting baggage.

I SWEAR big company middle managers hear "developer" and they can only ever see you as an infant who without guidance would just keep coding some absolute random shit and not think about product, market, customers, integration, or prioritize their own work.

IMO if they're not an educated Computer Engineer, or at a minimum have a math-focused degree, then calling them Engineers is more than a little generous.

The Plague.

I'm technically an aerospace engineer, but all I do is code most days. I think it depends highly on what you do, since my job also involves doing things not strictly coding related as well, I always slap the engineer title next to it. If you only code, then it's more appropriate to say software dev, or programmer. But, again its highly dependent on your role.

And as other people have mentioned, seems like outside the U.S. the term engineer is a protected title, so my take really only applies within the U.S.

I would say tho, a lot of programmers in the U.S. do get called software engineers. Just depends on where you go I guess.