And the difference will be as stark as steak is from stew. To be clear, “engineering-like” is not “engineering”.

dogleash 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I worked on projects with EEs and MEs for years. Were they not doing "engineering" because they built custom PCBs and the devices they go inside, rather than drawing the wiring plans or HVAC plans for a construction project? Most of them didn't even have a PE.

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skydhash 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’ve studied Electronic Engineering (and interacted with the Civil Engineering classes). And the main difference is that physical laws are inflexible and failure cases may result in deaths, maiming, and material damages. Software constraints are more forgiving in most cases. But that does not means a total lack of discipline has no negative impact. Au contraire, an engineering mindset greatly improves the chances of successfully delivering a project.

	▲	travelalberta 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think non-engineering mindsets in any sort of engineering/engineering adjacent role is the cause of a lot of friction. >Very, very, very little of real-world software dev is anything close to "engineering". I mean same principles apply in general. > If there’s one thing I would like to add is that engineering is a much of a mindset than knowledge. Amen. > I won’t say “follow your passion” (which is often a terrible advice). But if you can’t take some joy in what you’re doing (either the act or the goal), your body will rebel in various ways. The official definition of engineering is: "Engineering is the application of mathematics and scientific principles to design, build, and optimize structures, machines, systems, and processes." Software development falls into this definition. If there isn't something in this definition you like then you're in the wrong job. I find joy in optimizing processes. No matter what scale, a well designed and optimized system brings me joy.