Monday, November 12, 2007

Development vs Engineering

Our whitebox test lead and I debate how to best attract good whitebox testers. The question is, are they "Test Engineers" or "Test Developers?"

The Lean Software Engineering blog writes about difference between software development and software engineering:
Software development:

The system performs function A.

Software engineering:

The system performs function A under operating conditions B with operational performance parameters C with tolerances within the probability distribution D and reliability within the probability distribution E and we are legally responsible if it doesn’t.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Software engineer is too general, like medical doctor.

The title "Software Developer" tells the candidate they will be creating software applications. This title is one of many types of software engineers.

We say software development life cycle, software development process, and software development best practices. The title "Software Developer" works and I would expect the candidate to practice software engineering skills.

9:16 PM  

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