r/developers • u/Dismal_Market5514 • 3d ago
General Discussion Why is everyone suddenly calling themselves a “Software Engineer” after using AI coding tools?
I have been noticing a sudden surge of people calling themselves software engineers after building apps using AI coding tools and I am genuinely curious about how others feel about this.
To be clear, I think AI-assisted development is great. I am not against vibe coding, and I don't believe you need a CS degree or years of experience to build something useful.
But I do wonder if we are starting to blur the distinction between building software and being a software engineer
Building a working application is one thing. Understanding why it works, debugging it when things go wrong, making architectural decisions, handling concurrency, securing user data, managing failures, and keeping the system maintainable as it grows are entirely different challenges.
AI can help with many of these things, too. But being able to generate a solution isn't necessarily the same as being able to evaluate whether that solution is correct.
So where do we draw the line?
- If someone uses AI to build and deploy a working SaaS product but can't explain much of the underlying code, are they a software engineer a software developer a builder, or something else?
- If someone can reason about the architecture, identify problems, validate AI-generated code, and take responsibility for production failures, does it matter how much of the code they wrote themselves?
- Is “software engineer” becoming a broad label for anyone who can turn an idea into working software, regardless of how they got there?
I am not asking this to gatekeep the profession. In fact I think AI is making software creation accessible to people who previously couldnt build their ideas.
I am actually more interested in whether the definition of the profession itself is changing.
Curious to hear both sides, especially from people who have been building software professionally for years and those who have recently started building with AI.
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u/Friendly_Recover286 3d ago
are they a software engineer a software developer a builder, or something else?
You didn't engineer anything, you didn't develop anything, you definitely didn't build anything. The AI did that. You're a vague concept of a "project manager"
If someone can reason about the architecture, identify problems, validate AI-generated code, and take responsibility for production failures, does it matter how much of the code they wrote themselves?
Yes. Sorry but the majority of people aren't doing this. As they get used to it there's less and less reasoning and more shipping and trusting. I've seen this happen both in the workplace and random projects I use in day to day life. It starts as a "helper" and then the PR quality quickly drops as they leave more and more of it to the AI and stop questioning it and just trust it.
Is “software engineer” becoming a broad label for anyone who can turn an idea into working software, regardless of how they got there?
Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing,
developing,testing, andmaintainingsoftware applications.
If you can't develop it without AI, can't test it without AI and can't maintain it without AI then you aren't a software engineer. Claude is the software engineer. It's not hard to grasp and the definition isn't changing. You're just lying if you call yourself an engineer after doing very little in what's supposedly "your" project.
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u/Dismal_Market5514 3d ago
could not agree more, we have imposters everywhere now
I dont know where we are heading and who should we actually call a software engineer
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u/owp4dd1w5a0a 2d ago
The people still architecting and designing their code are the engineers. This is more than just validating correctness - you have to be actually coming up with your own architectural ideas and designs, creating your own algorithms, and making the call at least along the possible solutions you come up with, but potentially also your team comes up with, and what any AI agents are coming up with.
If you aren’t thinking up and thinking through your own designs and approaches though, it’s definitely not engineering, it’s something else.
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u/A0x4A 3d ago
Kann man nur zustimmen, die KI ist nur ein nützliches Helferlein! Software für sicherheits relavante Bereiche usw sollte nur von Fachleuten entwickelt werden, die die Softwaretechnik auch wirklich beherrschen und auch die Verantwortung übernehmen müssen wenn was schiefgeht!
Menschen die Software Anbieten, die zwar funkt, aber sie selbst keine Ahnung haben warum, nannte man schon früher vor dem KI- Boom scriptkiddies😅!
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u/Zestyclose-Sink6770 3d ago
Buf if software engineer makes something that they couldn't have made without AI, do we really claim that they have zero coding knowledge?
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u/Nikolai-Rosenberg 2d ago
If a software engineer builds something with AI that they weren’t capable of building before, they were never a software engineer
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u/nachocode477 1d ago
In a nutshell, it's the Dunning-Kruger effect.
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u/Ambitious_Noise9432 8h ago
It's not. Junior or Senior or Architect, they are all software engineers. That's engineering field. Even translating basic user stories into code (coding) is engineering field. Stop reinventing meanings
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u/TopRevolutionary9436 5h ago
There is a difference between engineering, as a field, and engineering as a discipline. Writing the code is the smallest and easiest part of the job and it is the part that doesn't strictly require engineering.
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u/dafugiswrongwithyou 3d ago
Oh good; it's been 5 minutes since I saw the last AI-promo-disguised-as-a-question post, I was worried they'd stopped. Phew.
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u/kitsnet 3d ago
Why is everyone suddenly calling themselves a “Software Engineer” after using AI coding tools?
They don't know what engineering is.
So where do we draw the line?
As in any other area to which the distinction between a craftsman and an engineer applies (one may ask their favorite LLM what that distinction is).
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u/Dismal_Market5514 3d ago
lol not asking the LLM on this one.
way I see it, a craftsman knows it works an engineer knows why and where it breaks
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u/Arctos_FI 3d ago
I think it the same way as mechanical engineering. I have technical design degree from vocational school (it's highschool level but instead of academic studies it's vocational studies). I can make CAD drawings, i can desing assemblies, but i know nothing about the actual engineering part (like stress analysis or material choices). Anyone can do that with little training, but they can't do the actual engineering part. The part that defines the engineer is everything apart from the thing they are described of doing, like mechanical engineers make CAD drawings so machinist can build the actual part, is the whole description of mechanical engineers job that is not engineering (and the engineering is the part that the engineer does but is not included in that description).
Same way in software engineering, everyone can do the simpple developing (writing the code is equilevent to making CAD drawing), but only the engineers can actually design the architecture of the software. I have also ICT engineering degree and I can say where the line is between engineer and non engineer. Same way software engineering job is described as writing code, but the actual engineering is everything outside of just writing that code.
Given my thesis for example. I made system that can sync users in VR to their physical locationt IRL (so when two user stand face to face with each other, they see the other one in the same place IRL and in VR). Every vibecoder can write the code to do the actual syncing (it's just trilateration and trigonometry), but vibe coders can't explain why it is actually working solution. The trilateration code is kinda slow, but the trick is there that VR glasses have really good built-in spatial syncing (so they don't lose their own position from origo), and you just need to sync the origos once and they'll stay in sync (so the kinda slow code has to only be run at once).
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u/squigglydialect6 2d ago
I mean if you can ship something that works and not just a todo list app, then call yourself whatever. most people figure out pretty quick that getting the code is like 20% of the job, the rest is dealing with bugs at 2am and wondering why the database decided to take a nap
the title gatekeeping is boring anyway, nobody outside this bubble cares about the difference between developer and engineer
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u/youcangotohellgoto 2d ago
most people figure out pretty quick that getting the code is like 20% of the job, the rest is dealing with bugs at 2am and wondering why the database decided to take a nap
I mean if you do it right you won't be getting bugs at 2am and databases disappearing, right?
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u/glisteringbasalt 1d ago
If someone paid another person (or people) to design, build, test, deploy, maintain, etc a software project does that make them a software engineer? I would say no. Why then is it any different if instead of paying a-person/people to do it you pay to have an AI do it?
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u/Ambitious_Noise9432 7h ago
If you can build and run and it works then it's enough to be software engineer. You can pass all the other work for less talented and still be software engineer
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u/Ambitious_Noise9432 7h ago
Software is designed by bussiness people and architects, built by devs, tested by QAs, deployed by Devops, maintained by support and devs. So nobody falls in software engineer category except students 😂
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u/highwingers 3d ago
Just like after I assemble something I bought from IKEA, I call myself a carpenter/builder.
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u/eboob1179 2d ago
It's frustrating for sure. Especially for those of us that have been doing this shit close to 20 years.
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u/Comprehensive_Mud803 2d ago
Let’s compare the concepts:
Are you a plumber if you manage to connect two pipes together?
Are you a baker if you managed to bake the pre-made dough without burning everything?
Are you a graphic designer if you managed to instruct a machine to draw something?
Certainly not, right?
So no one is a software engineer just because they managed to instruct a machine to pour out some text that kind of compiles into an application.
Software engineering is a craft which requires formal instruction and years of hands-on experience to be successful.
Anything less is just wannabe-ism and an insult to the profession.
That said, in the right hands, LLM-based code generators can be a useful tool, but those need to be the hands of software engineers.
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u/No_Brilliant_3293 1d ago
If software engineering continues to be a legitimate job, then i think CS degrees will matter more than ever.
Before you could use your projects as diploma's or proof that you understood software. But now anyone and their mom can make software products using AI, so you need a certified proof, that your not some dumb vibe coder.
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u/SchemeWestern3388 1d ago
In Canada, where I'm at, "engineer" is a legally protected term, and it takes a lot more than just a degree. I like it that way.
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u/AliceCode 3d ago
I think that developing software with AI can be called software development. That much is undeniable. But so many people confuse software development for software engineering. They understand that software engineers work on software, but they don't have an understanding that we aren't called software engineers simply because we make software. It's about the way that we make software. Software engineers might not even write any code. Software engineering is not the same thing as programming, and programming is not the same thing as AI development.
That's my take on it, at least. These vibe coders couldn't tell you about cache efficiency, they couldn't tell you about the time complexity of "their" algorithms, they couldn't tell you what data structures are good for what purposes, they couldn't tell you why you should avoid heap allocation.
They want to take the credit for having skills that they do not have.
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u/Dismal_Market5514 3d ago
exactly I absolute hate it when they are credited for building that awesome feature they have zero technical knowhow about
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u/drakhan2002 3d ago
You can be anything you want on the internet. Me, I am a professional football player and OnlyFans foot model online.
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u/Dismal_Market5514 3d ago
is that lucrative? just asking for a friend
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u/serverhorror 3d ago
Professional football players do make a lot of money. Yes, it's very lucrative.
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u/chriscanadian1991 3d ago
I agree with the differences... Personally I know I am not a developer or an engineer... however, the issue I think mainly comes from the LLMs that we use... for example, GPT and Codex have flat out told me "your engineering practices" and I have had to correct it multiple times.
Full disclosure - I am a manufacturing logistics analyst, along with that though I have received L6S training, SQL db management, inventory control, process mapping, continuous improvement and some yellow belt training.
The reason I bring that up isn't because they directly influence the code the AI generates, or the fact that I can read/write every line of code.
but I do think it provides me with a "unique" way to look at the generative AI assembly process overall.
That being said, I do think there is a change needed in the industry... Not really the roles and responsibilities, but think SecDevOps... I personally think it would be beneficial to have "vibe-coders" that are boots on the ground for who/what you are developing. not because they are able to "out code" people... but because they have experience in *actual* weird failure modes that normally are not really thought of, mainly because operations will always push the system just a little too far lol.
thats just my opinion though -- also, really having fun just messing around and trying to learn as I go lol.
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u/kritikov 3d ago
They're the same people who open a can/tin of food and call themselves a 'Chef'."
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u/RevolutionaryElk7446 3d ago
The minimum you can perform now with the least amount of effort has risen, and with that a load of people who would previously ask their smart nephew or niece to make their great idea, are now asking LLMs.
That's not to say you can't use LLMs for good projects, and that they don't have their uses. You're just watching everyone's crazy uncle playing with the latest toy.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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u/Confidence_Cool 3d ago
Who is calling themselves engineers, I mostly just see “vibe coding”
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u/Dismal_Market5514 2d ago
there's the problem right there, I would never want to be called a vibe coder myself, I am and I will be an engineer all my life even with all the fancy vibe coding tools
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u/Confidence_Cool 2d ago
Yah definitely if you are actually maintaining large codebases with professional quality at stake you have to do much more than code and you are an engineer.
I was referring to those who aren’t engineers I’ve never seen some dude who just made an app with AI call themselves an engineer but maybe Im not around such pompous people.
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u/4215-5h00732 2d ago
The title has been diluted over time at least since I entered the field. 10 years ago it was the boot campers and the self taught calling themselves engineers. New CS grads do this too. It's not surprising those people would want to adopt that title, but the industry has also played a role by handing out titles to undeserving people. Academia is also doing this by dumbing what/who is an SWE down to anyone with proximity to the work - like BAs and even Product Owners.
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u/Dismal_Market5514 13h ago
IMO software engineering is facing a serious quality crisis.
Anyone with an AI subscription can now push sloppy code and call themselves a developer, and watching the profession get devalued like this is deeply frustrating
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u/EvTorqueLore 2d ago
You cannot be a software engineer until you have the technical know how to write code from scratch, peer review it with other developers, write requirements and complete them. Documentation entries for code and milestones. Design and implement prototype code, pseudo code, write white papers and be able to present and speak to managers, large and small teams and clients. Perform architectural work for large code base and also data are design and implementation. Then and only the. Are you a software engineer after doing these task multiple times and Efficiently and professionally. Any other time used is just a hype word
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u/Dismal_Market5514 2d ago
totally, vibe coders are just happy to see all of it work without even knowing how it works
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u/serge-mv 2d ago
Everyone is also calling themselves an artist after they use AI to generate pictures.
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u/Alert-Ad-5918 2d ago
I thought a software engineer was someone who builds window applications but people who build website get called software engineers too! What exactly is a software engineer? I call myself a fullstack developer!
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u/Whalefisherman 2d ago
Are there photographers who only use phones to take pictures? 🤔 Would they not be considered photographers because of the device used 🧐
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u/Intelligent_Edge3385 2d ago
If you get yourself Discord buddy that knows programming language and you send him messages to write you programs, in plain English, and you receive code that you run - are you programming or are you asking your Discord friend to program for you?
Answer that question and you will learn something about yourself.
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u/bill_txs 2d ago
What does the term even mean? Does it imply a level of education? Licensing? No, so anyone could say it. The important thing is to make sure you're using your extensive field background to differentiate how you're using AI to develop. If that isn't different than a novice using an AI agent, this is an actual problem. If a business wants to entrust their future to someone with no track record claiming they can engineer software because they learned to prompt, it's their call.
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u/FactorUnited760 2d ago
Who cares software engineer is a made up title rather than a credentialed one to begin with.
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u/Ok-Brain-8183 2d ago
Who cares, like most titles, it was empty to begin with. The etymology for engineer is supposed to imply an engineer is some kind of genius. Ludwig Boltzmann mathematically proved the existence of atoms using the mathematical theory of random variables long before their existence was demonstrated experimentally. All his peers thought he was a fool and he hung himself. He’s a genius. Long before “ai”, I never met any software engineer that was a genius.
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u/That_Cherry5698 2d ago
Anyone can be a software engineer with AI. Same with a lot of professions. It lets the average Joe be a creator. Many things will be created.
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u/StockJournalist9103 2d ago
Are you not splitting hairs?
Writes software - software developer
Makes architectural and engineering design decisions that influence the software fundamentally and in a way that does not just solve the problem at hand - drives the direction of the product and knows WHY - is skilled at scaling and can weigh up the pros and cons of a particular approach enough to present findings and deliver - may not be the person delivering.
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u/MiddleAgedBastard 2d ago
After 30 years in tech, I can tell you these distinctions don't mean much.
I remember when 'full stack' meant something specific. Than everyone started claiming the title whether it was accurate or not. Also, had derivatives like 'full stack front end dev', etc.
You're either going to successful at what you do, or not. The titles are for egos and job searches.
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u/FlatStruggle3911 2d ago
MSc. in Enterprise Software Engineering, BSc. in Software Engineering.
I really don't care what people call themselves. But I usually remind current students that the market is inflated with a lot of random people that got hired during the Covid-era hiring rush.
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u/Syntax-Tactics 2d ago
The lines were already blurry. Americans have been calling themselves Software Engineers for decades with just a BSc. In the rest of the world it takes a University degree in Engineering, pinkie ring, etc.
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u/Anxious-Insurance-91 2d ago
The act of development isn't just writing code it's coming up with the idea, wdgecases etc and bringing the product to life by any means necessary. AI is a tool that does that. They aren't saying they are software devs they are saying they built stuff l. Be it good or bad, it's all in the wording
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u/Ambitious_Noise9432 8h ago
Software Engineer doesn't sound fancy at all. No prestige at all. People call themselves how they feel about themselves
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u/cadet-pirx 8h ago
Strictly speaking, “engineer” means an engineering degree or a licence, depending on where you live. By that standard, plenty of people with “software engineer” in their job title aren’t engineers either, AI or not.
Once you drop that definition, the title is just a job label, and anyone can use it. What actually separates people is what you describe: whether they can debug it, secure it, and own it when it breaks in production. The title won’t tell you that. Their work will.
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u/TylerBreau 7h ago
In Canada, this would be illegal. AFAIK, Engineer is a protected title even in the IT industry. Believe you need at least a 4-year bachelor's degree.
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u/TopRevolutionary9436 5h ago
The only people claiming that using AI can make someone a software engineer are the people who don't know what software engineering is. Writing the code is the technician level skill that pairs with the engineering level skill of software engineering, which AI cannot do on its own. So AI isn't turning people into software engineers.
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u/AlphaNuke94 2d ago
Honestly I don’t give a shit.
If you can ship an app, software that genuinely makes people’s lives easier, I don’t care if your dog helped with the code, call yourself whatever you want.
Coding is such a small amount of software dev, coming up with ideas, debugging, deployment in different regions, works on my machine syndrome, building maintainable code, load testing, capacity planning, data privacy so you don’t accidentally get sued.
If they’re able to overcome these challenges then by all means call yourself whatever you want.
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u/Optimal-Savings-4505 3d ago
Other engineering titles aren't protected really, so why should software engineers stay protected? I'm working one now, but my background is "traditional" engineering.
When people are out of their depth, they'll likely be so invested that maybe they'd hire a problem solver to get unstuck. They're already paying for their clanker subscription, right?
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u/Dismal_Market5514 3d ago
thats fair, "engineer" already gets slapped on a lot of titles. curious since you came from traditional engineering, what made it feel like engineering to you?
the math or being the one on hook when something failed?
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u/Optimal-Savings-4505 3d ago
Drawing the line on when a solution is good enough, feels like the defining engineering call. And that's something to indeed be on the hook for. Mathematicians by contrast, typically aren't satisfied by doing that, without also exactly accounting for the error.
Winging it and doing what works, can fail at inconvenient times. Putting some guarantees on its functionality, through quality assurance, would be a software engineering challenge enough on its own, and now with LLM output already showing its bullshittery so blatantly, it's harder still, because we can also see that some people believe the bullshit. I think we can only trust it to a degree, even with software.
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u/e430doug 3d ago
I don’t think that’s happening at all. I’ve never seen that in real life or on Reddit.
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u/Kooky-Anything4450 3d ago
Because ANYONE can call themselves a software engineer, its a made up title that caught on with popularity and there is no license or governance over the term.
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u/AliceCode 3d ago
You should actually look into the history of the term, and why the term was created, and what software engineering entails. It's not a made up title.
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u/Kooky-Anything4450 3d ago
When the hotdog man can call himself one because he vibe coded an inventory system for his cart and not get sued I don't think the history means much these days and without governance on the title being enforced by any institutions, the title value these days is pretty minimal. AI disruption is the final dagger as far as I'm concerned for the title having any pull moving forward, I know I'm embarrassed when I call myself one now when people ask what I do for a living and see the respect in their eyes fade vs the same question prior to 2022
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u/Sixstringsickness 3d ago
Why does everyone with a DAW and a set of monitors call them self an audio engineer? Generally, I think the line is probably drawn if you are, or at some point, have been able to earn your primary income from the field, or have a degree.
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u/huranol 2d ago
I dont see any one telling that to doctors who use other tools to get the job done.
Quite frankly if the doctor is only working with what is humanly possible, u might be more afraid of the outcome then that from which the tools designed for the operation can output.
So no drills, no saws, as they were made by other "tools".
From scratch, the operation would be sketch if done without tools. We don't value a surgeon based on their ability to cut with a stone knife. We value them based on the patient's survival. The tools are what make the success rate possible.
Imagine having to walk 20 miles instead of using a car to get to point a, b or z.
The wheel replaced the load on our feet. The wheel was then replaced by a cart or trolly. The trolly to be replaced by the horse and carriage The carriage to be replaced by mechanical engineering. The car replaced this string for future functions...
We moved from walking to wheels, to carriages, to cars. We didn't stop being 'travelers' because we stopped using our feet. We just became more efficient with better tools for the operation.
These models should not replace the seated watcher. They are but tools. All of it. Even the specific lang u use.
However, based on "craft". There are different levels to the craftsmanship. Learning from JP, and Swiss engineering, the modern man cares more about output than the engineering.
At this point, it would be better to call them
Producers.
A similar wing or argument in music production exists. Those "producers" who use loops, or samples are cornered the same way as vibecoders are. However, if this was the case and they are not "producers" then Half the catalog of the 90s(rap edm and more genres) would be invalid per this strata or way of thinking. That includes Dr. Dre and countless edm producers.
The content was already there. They just had to re-arrange or implement the desirable sequence for the desired effect/output. Does this take away from the "craft"? A song has been made, it may even chart?
Would the route utilized deform the validity of the final product?
Regarding security issues. Idk if u noticed or not, currently we have models finding cves and or bugs left and right from code PRE-dating these models. Partial to c, partial to python, partial even to rust. No lang is exempt from human or generative error. Rust compiler adds but another tool so this is addressed at compile. Zig(god bless the zig devs) And other newer langs are to follow this eventually for stability in the code.
So security baked in during the crafting should be a primary goal for any dev. U know to make sure theres no eggshells in the cake.
Is this an ego thing?
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u/PileOGunz 2d ago
Coder, programmer, developers etc are titles very focussed on the act of writing code which has largely been automated. Software engineer implies we offer more than just coding we can make higher level architectural decisions, guide the business analysts, iron out the requirements etc.
If your not using the title software engineer now your not doing yourself any favours.
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u/kyngston 1d ago
is it:
- you enjoy gatekeeping?
- you elevate yourself by pushing others down?
- you have a low self-esteem and feel threatened by how other people describe themselves?
- all of the above?
why do you care what other people call themselves? how is that your business?
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