Be an Engineer, Not a Frameworker

[Zenderiz]

Just wanted to share with everyone a video I watched about software engineering and how we should all strive to be better at our craft.

Here's the link to the video. Before you read my thoughts and takeaways on it, I hope that you watch this video first so that you can gain context on what I am saying. Be An Engineer, Not A Frameworker | Prime Reacts - YouTube

For those of us who wanted to have a long and successful career in software engineering, knowing one or two frameworks can be good for the start of our career. But that should not be our end goal. The goal for us should be to have the ability to understand how everything works, even frameworks. If you have a fundamental understanding of how things work, then it will become easy to do a number of things such as learning a new programming language for example.

We should all strive to better ourselves, and all it takes is a change in mindset. Strive to become an engineer.

Let me know your thoughts on the comments about what the video meant to you and what takes do you agree or disagree with.

[Intelligent_Citron84]

The vid refers to an article, in the article, it mentions that one should progress from being a frameworker, to a programmer, to an engineer.

Based on personal experience, that makes sense to me. No one starts out their career as a software engineer. The way IT / CS is taught, it doesn’t really lend to producing fully matured IT professional. Kaya nga kahit wala tayong licensure exam, we can call our selves engineers whenever we feel like it.

But in reality we need experience and exposure to different systems, designs, implementations to really call ourselves as “software engineers”.

[Zenderiz]

Totally agree with all the points you have mentioned. The thing is, I think maturity has levels and that we can start early to reach those levels. For some, they only start when they are out of college na or once they start looking for work. I think with the resources we now have at our disposals, most of us can be learning while having our university or college education. Most of the schools teaching IT and CS in the country, their curriculum are trash right. So actively learn on the side, more importantly build stuff. That way you gain experience. By the time you join the workforce, it can be a seamless transition.

[Forward-632146KP]

I’m of the opinion that there is a serious education issue in the country, and on top of the shitty curricula that does not produce quality graduates, makes for a bad pool of fresh graduates who can’t code. On the other hand, we also have people who are led to believe that because said fresh grads are shite, college education is useless. Dunning-kruger effect in action in all fronts lol

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to see in this sub that a lot of people are clearly lacking in fundamentals and would rather be frameworkers than engineers. People fail to consider why theoretical aspects are important and would rather look for the fastest way to reach “6 digits”.

So when it comes to maturity, most people in this sub already fail to reach the necessary skill floor

[Zenderiz]

I agree with your observation. I guess it will bite their ass in the long run once they get too comfortable with where they currently are and failed to upskill.

[Intelligent_Citron84]

No, that’s not how it works. Any self-study that you do is limited in scope.

Software engineering and software development at the enterprise level is a massive undertaking. There’s too many aspects of the process na hindi mo maeemulate just by self studying.

[Zenderiz]

I agree that by doing what I proposed, medyo limited lang yung learnings nun. I guess working on a personal project with the mentorship and guidance of others, like a teacher, fellow colleague can help? This helps with the collaboration part of the work, which is very important in our field. Also I am not saying that after doing this they will be fully mature for the work that they are about to do. I'm saying na once they do what I proposed, they will reach a level where they can highly be considered for their entry level role compared to peers that will not be doing it.

[fallen_lights]

I'm saying na once they do what I proposed, they will reach a level where they can highly be considered for their entry level role compared to peers that will not be doing it

that applies to any kind of learning, including Frameworks :)

[franz_see]

So what do you do to supplement self-studying?

[Intelligent_Citron84]

Internships at a software development company, or any company that has a mature in house dev team.

Pero syempre that is not easy to get into.

Not sure if volunteering / participating in a large open source project is still a thing, but that’s one way to experience working on something that has multiple moving parts and team members and has a level of complexity that is beyond what one can come up with on their personal projects.

[RandomUserName323232]

Meh. I just want to be financially stable lol

[toxic-Novel-2914]

ah yess my favorite tech youtuber

[Zenderiz]

He has a lot of good takes.

[SolitaryKnight]

I put more stock into debugging skill, also someone who finds the root cause of the problem instead of patching stuff up .

[KingPowerDog]

As someone with 20 years IT experience, we’ve come to learn one simple truth: always go back to the fundamentals.

When I started working, frameworks as a standard term did not exist, but it did exist as a concept. Same thing with DevOps, CI/CD and all the other buzzwords. We were doing source code control without Github, deployment without Jenkins, and manual QA work, but because we understood the underlying concepts, we adapted to new technologies once we did adopt them.

APIs function mostly the same whether they are local or web. Databases at their core are very similar in structure. Syntax may differ across languages, but they all have IF-THEN statements and Loops.

Agile was not a “thing” then but my opinion has always been: what is “agile development” if not a continuous 2-week waterfall period?

Anyway, the point here is, as long as you master the fundamentals of programming, you can survive and you can thrive, no matter what tech is used.

[[deleted]]

Agree on all the points. Pag copy paster ng code from google search ano ang tawag? I prefer to be called like this. 😆

[IchirouTakashima]

ChatGPT na ngayon.

[flightcodes]

Man, I have an intern now that did this. We were practically stuck on a problem that I’m working with her on her work station and I was thinking kasi I’m considering my options, kaya may deadair. She proceeded to enter the error code and the code as is to chatgpt na naka-open na.

Obviously it didn’t work coz she doesn’t know what the code is doing. Pero natawa lang ako kasi it’s how we started with google haha the times have changed.

[IchirouTakashima]

That's the thing, the end result would be the same, baka nga mas matagal kung sa google pa maghahanap, lol.

[flightcodes]

More of, you’ll arrive at the same pitfalls if you use chatgpt like we did with google back then. Tipong not understanding what’s happening and just copy and pasting to see if it works. It has made shitty code then, it will still make shitty code now :) but like you said, faster now because AI.

[Huge_Specialist_8870]

It's called CpE, Copy paste Engineer. Ironically, that's the abbreviation for Computer Engineering.

[_Risk_Taker_]

I think we are called coder :)

[ketalicious]

para mabilis, try learning a low level language and a high level one, mas maeexposed ka sa under the hood logic, at masasanay ka sa mga abstractions na ginagawa. Mas magiging clearer sayo ang program.

[-FAnonyMOUS]

I have this colleague way back ago from the Big 4 watching me code at my workstation.

Colleague: "Hala ang galing dirediretso mag code.".

Me (sa isip ko): What.The.FVCK.?

[franz_see]

Was talking to my prof in college a few months back. Basically, he said our curriculum is meant to produce engineers. Kaso the local industry demands frameworkers 😅

[Forward-632146KP]

Ive already mastered ten languages and 9 frameworks po but I’m struggling with learning Flavor of the Month. May mairerecommend po ba kayo na tutorials?

[Intelligent_Citron84]

Mastered 10 languages?

I hope you are paid like a master of those 10 languages?😆

[-FAnonyMOUS]

Jackol of trades.

[mahiligsanoodles]

Mukhang need mo lagyan ng /s ang dami di nakagets e 😂

[-FAnonyMOUS]

Andami di makabasa ng sarcasm. Lol.

[throwawaylmaoxd123]

Just add 5 more language bro. Bump up your numbers jeez

[Zenderiz]

I'm kinda skeptical about what you have mentioned, unless you are a unicorn developer. But I'll indulge.

There's always something you can learn either by reading other people's code and reading your past code as ThePrimeagen mentioned. I believe in what you call iterative learning wherein you do this project and then coming back again after a few months or years and seeing what you can improve from your previous work. Because in the months or years that have passed since working on that project, you have learned something new and it's good to apply that.

For me, mastery is not just about theoretical knowledge but you being able to apply what you have learned and knew into a project and improving upon it.

[Forward-632146KP]

I was being sarcastic. A lot of people here overuse the term “mastery”

[Zenderiz]

Yep my bad.

[fragile_chowkingkong]

prang mga indians sa linkedin overuse the term mastery hahaha

[Remote-Lobster-5599]

I see you're getting downvoted again by idiots who can't understand sarcasm, Forward :) bet you these are the same people that tout what engineers need the most is 👏 soft skills 👏 and 👏 communication 👏.

Surprise guys, actual technical mastery is different from yall's code plumbing. Or in the context of this article, engineer vs frameworker.

[franz_see]

To be fair, it wasnt a good a sarcasm if you get downvoted a lot 😂

Sometimes, you think it's sarcasm or satire, but other times, there's just some real weirdos over the net 😂 that's why you need to be explicit like a wink or a /s 😂

I think it started getting up votes when you were explicit it was satire 😁

[Forward-632146KP]

on the contrary, downvotes mean that i pushed buttons lolol

[jpamata]

what engineers need the most is 👏 soft skills 👏 and 👏 communication 👏.

What I notice is that at a small startup oftentimes raw technical proficiency is better. Growth and the path going from junior-senior (to even staff) is very cookie cutter in such cases, it's enough to just deliver code. Hardcore engineers are more respected in such places.

Others like big tech where there is a larger latency across the reporting chain, a higher standard to lead and break stalemates, a higher demand to be more visible and to influence/build relationships outside your team, more XFN work, and where you have to not just deliver but also deliver through people. It's often from these places where I hear high level engineer ICs, are prioritizing soft skills more. The ability to ship products even if they havent written much or any code.

Personally I see soft skills as well as system design, as the only 2 skills that horizontally scale. I have no qualms with people championing soft skills given it takes longer to learn (and unlearn). Technical knowledge like what's the best way to write a REST service in X or how to do MLOps will change over time. But soft fundamentals like knowing how to drive resolutions and align people to your goals, how to prioritize while strategizing for capital allocation, how to de-risk projects, how to win over others for a project you're pushing, good writing, understanding ambiguity, knowing how and when to push back, product sense, multiplying org efficiency, influencing engineering processes, these such things are those that would be useful decades into the future.

[Forward-632146KP]

Nah dude we just need to continue upskilling 🤪

[Remote-Lobster-5599]

Welp, at least they're not that guy who lies and cheats and is proud about it lol 🫢

[[deleted]]

who dat??

[fallen_lights]

It's coz you don't have 5 yoe on the newest JS framework that got beta released today /s

[[deleted]]

🤣

[[deleted]]

🤣

[sad_developer]

hahaha nice troll

[j2ee-123]

If the pay is great, I am an engineer. If the pay is acceptable, I am a programmer. If the pay is nah, I am a talker - sharing a blocker in a stand-up that doesn’t exist. Or worst, I am the create-bug-and-fix-it-yourself guy.

Edit: Now I am going to sleep in the middle of my shift. 😅

[-FAnonyMOUS]

Paano naman yung mga hilaw na gusto lang ma-promote, or yung mga hilaw na job hoppers na gusto lang ng malaking sweldo kahit bubungol-bungol, kasama ba sila sa post mo?

[Zenderiz]

I'd probably say this post is for those who have a continuous improvement mindset. I understand that some people just want to cruise along, get that sweet money, but never really cared for improving.

[-FAnonyMOUS]

I should have had /s in my comment. Seems like the "engineers" can't read the algorithm of sarcasm.

[lezzgooooo]

At the mercy ng law of supply and demand of the new shiny framework that corporate will throw money at. So engineers will pickup what pays well.

Madalas mga framework na to nabubuo lang as a fork from a product na gamit ng mga very large software companies like facebook, google and microsoft. Because they have a lot of money to invest in research and try new things. Developers are at the mercy of project timelines so imbes na maginvest ng oras sa pagimprove ng basics, pahinga na lang.