Never could tell the difference...

Now, this gets me a little curious. I could never figure out what the difference was between a software architect and a software engineer. I know that Bill Gates has always been known as the Chief Software Architect, which appears to be a big title, as most well know. However, there are other companies that have a senior, or lead software engineer. To me, I don't see where the difference in title could mean the difference of what they do. Are these one and the same, or ARE there differences that I don't know about?

My guess:

Architect = Designer.
Engineer = Grunt implementing design.

Hmm, that could be true, I guess I never gave that any thought until now. I knew it had something to do with software design somewhere, just that those two position titles sounded like they were very similar to each other. It gets rather mind boggling.

Architect Tells you what you are going to figure out how to do.
Engineer tells you how you are going to figure out how to do it

semantics... probably not, but heck, i can just barely speak enough ameriglish to get by in my daily goings on...

my last job description read software engineer... hey, it sounded good, so i didn't really go into it...

sanitation engineer sounds a lot better than garbage man on a resume anyways... just like software engineer sounds better than programmer...

--Mike

Architechs are the designer....the ones who think it up. Usually senior level programmers or very experience system analysts.

Engineer is just another fancy word for developer or in any case, a programmer.

At work my title is "Software Engineer", but my work business card oddly states i'm a "Consultant", my email signature states i'm a "Developer", and all I ever do at work is code a little here and there, occasionally finding myself surfing the web.....playing games..etc....
Ahh yess....the programmer's life....and they actually pay me for this crap....lol...

developer = does both ;-)

Yeah, it's all just semantics, really. My last job I was a 'software engineer', which I didn't realize that was the job I was applying for until I saw it on the contract. :)

I hope you didn't post that from your machine at work?! Walls have ears. :P

lol... reminds me of my hectic schedule...

show up at 10am... have a coffee break... check emails... have my first smoke break... the usual morning meeting... go to lunch... after lunch smoke break... code for an hour or two... afternoon smoke break...

then make myself available for the daily grief counseling and general abuse session (me and one of the girls in our glass enclosed cubicle were the unofficial phsyco therapists, grief counselors, and fashion consultants of the group), for which we charged $5 per hour for couseling, $10 extra for abuse... or they had to buy us lunch the net day...

evening smoke break... and then the evening meetings...

the crowd usually left at around six, except for the crazy few that actually did some real work until about 9PM...

... or played DOOM on the company net till about 11 :)

yup... tough life being one of those there software engineers...

--Mike

well currently my software developer life is great but in the past I've had to work like a nutter all day long, and into the evening and at the weekend often and I've had to work on Christmas Day and News Years Day etc. The difference between then an now is the money by a factor of around 10! However, I'm aiming to reduce that gap and finally make it a -ve gap...

Both are aspects of bringing a product to the market, or a process... or anyting... Arcitecture is design , the design of something, like a building, while engineering is independant of what you are designing, but makes the creation of that product possible.

It isn't about one being creative and the other being grunt labor... Neither is true.

One designs what a product will do, the other designs how it will do it.

In general. Houses tend to have an Arcitect and no specific engineer, because how you put the house together in standardised.... so a better example would be a bridge.

Bridge design teams tend to have Arcitects and Engineers, both work together to produce the creative out put... In this case, a bridge design.

Engineers care about how the bridge will stay up and hold its load, the arcitect cares about how the bridge will look.

Sometimes, people can be both...



For example... Most of the coders who hang out here are both. They think up the game idea, then work out how to do it, and they even go as far as to do it... So, they are Architects, Engineers, Skilled workers, and Unskilled workers all rolled into one.

Uh-oh....



Heh sounds like a lot of folk's daily work schedule. Just a couple more smoke breaks and its time to go home!

I do exercise breaks instead... or sunlounger breaks.

I just don't have a job, that seems to work out best for everyone.

In most projects I've been involved in, the architect position pays more. The jobs are usually only divided on larger projects. The architect generally creates the documents, uml/visio diagrams, wireframes, etc. that get talked about in meetings and get signed off on. Usually the architect creates the object model, and sometimes creates stubs for classes, and the general (basic) database diagrams also. The engineer might finish the architect's documentation, and do more technically detailed documentation, but also actually does the development.

Dependent on the project, the architect might also take part in the development, and keep in control of changes to the software and database architecture during the development process. Sometimes the architect is out of the picture after development starts in earnest, and almost always by go-live. It is the engineers that are responsible for the rest of the product lifecycle.

On smaller projects the developer/engineer is also the architect, but usually doesn't have to go through the same type of rigorous design and approval process.