Who is a Software Developer?

The following blog Are You A Developer was recently shared amongst my colleagues.

The blog addresses Imposter Syndrome. It then reassures people they are a developer if they meet this definition:

A developer is a person who writes code.

David Walsh

I think it is a serious trivialisation of what a developer is. Several of my colleagues apparently agreed with this blog “100%”. I don’t understand how you can agree with it.

One of my colleagues not only agreed with this blog’s definition, but proceeded to say that developers and testers shouldn’t have different job titles, they should just be “Engineers”. Absolute nonsense. Not all Testers are interested in writing code. Some are interested in writing Automated Tests which requires programming knowledge, but other Testers just enjoy Manual testing which has no required programming knowledge.

So let’s address the quoted statement with some analogies.

If I cooked a meal, can I call myself a chef?

If I pull up a weed, am I a gardener?

If I paint a wall, am I a painter?

If I kick a football, am I a footballer?

It’s obvious you need a certain level of competency to be able to call yourself one of these things. If you play football in your free time, you can say you “play football”, but not many would say “I’m a footballer”, because it comes with the implication that they have an exceptional level of skill.

I was thinking you can’t simply state you can call yourself a Developer if you receive money for writing code. If it was a simple website you did for a friend, maybe you wouldn’t be skilled enough to be employed in a full time job.

Conversely maybe you make brilliant websites in your free time but you have other passions for your full-time job. Maybe you are good enough to declare yourself as a developer, but you just aren’t a “professional” developer.

What about developers that don’t receive money but only work in Open Source projects? At least the community would give them recognition, so at that point, I think they can call themselves a developer.

So it definitely seems money isn’t a factor.

So who determines whether someone is a developer? Do you self-assess? or is it when you get a certain level of kudos from your peers?

When you look at the people I often write about like Colin and Derek, are they developers? Well, they have had a job for years, and managed to get lucky to be promoted to Senior. On paper they are more successful than I, but I think you’d be crazy to imply they are at the level I am; and I’m not anywhere near the best in the company. Maybe we are all developers but there’s good ones and bad ones.

Ideally, Job Titles should reflect people’s skill but they aren’t a perfect system. But I think it is clear you have exceptional/great/ok/poor developers, and everyone else below this skill level, just isn’t a developer.

So if you have followed a tutorial, copied some code and ran it; are you a developer?

No. But keep working, and maybe you will be. Then work your way through the ranks.