There is quite a big difference between a software developer and a software engineer. Most of the time, a developer just does what has been assigned to them. An engineer will be taking part (or completely doing) the architecture/design process as well.
This is not true at all, except maybe in very specific places (e.g. some jurisdictions do not allow you to call yourself an engineer without a specific qualification).
Software Engineer and Developer are essentially interchangeable terms and largely a matter of taste.
Those terms really aren’t interchangeable over here. At all. (NL). For the reasons I listed above. “Developer” (or “ontwikkelaar” in Dutch) is monkey get instructions, monkey do things. A software engineer would get a request for something, research and figure out the solution, then build it. Source: I’m a software engineer.
It may well be different in NL, I’m not going to argue with that. But ‘ontwikkelaar’ is literally a different word in a different language - no surprise that it may have different semantics to the closest word in English!
Eh, as someone who’s first software job was as an “Associate Software Enginner” while still in school (undergrad), I’m pretty sure I can say it’s not that cut and dry. I’ve actually never had a software job that didn’t use the “engineer” title. I’ve found “developer” and “engineer” are used interchangeably.
this seems to reflect the simultaneous co-opting of the titles “architect” (one who designs physical edifices such as buildings) and “engineer” (one who applies math and science principles to problems of infrastructure and industrial production). We all understand what is meant by design, but that does not mean a software design must be devised by an “engineer” or an “architect” anymore than an interior design (though there are also some self-styled “design architects” roaming about). So is it possible to say what is different about software development and software engineering without saying the engineer is an architect? Is it that software developers do not design anything (which in its simplest terms is ‘artful arrangement’)? That seems arbitrary - though I agree that there can also be a fine line sometimes between, say, architecture and structural engineering.
