• li10@feddit.ukEnglish
    4612·
    11 months ago

    “Computer engineer”

    Sounds fancy, but it usually means someone who answers calls and resets passwords.

    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
      284·
      11 months ago

      Uh… no? Well, maybe for the guy in the picture because they’re clearly dumb, but “computer engineer” sounds more like chip design and circuit layout than even software engineering, let alone basic IT work…

      Basic IT work is wholly and completely different than any kind of computer-related engineering.

      • funnystuff97@lemmy.world
        21·
        11 months ago

        As a computer engineer who works with FPGAs, thank you. I can’t tell you how many times someone comes to me with a CS question and I’m like, I dunno! Ask a CS person! I hardly know Python. [Admittedly, I really should learn.]

        • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
          5·
          11 months ago

          I wanted to work with FPGAs.

          Got set up on designing test systems.

          Now I do .Net and Angular.

          I miss hardware from the standpoint that it really makes sense. I don’t miss hardware when the magic smoke comes out because I fucked up

          • affiliate@lemmy.world
            7·
            11 months ago

            i could never work in hardware. i’d feel too bad for all the very small people i’d be shoving in the computers

          • funnystuff97@lemmy.world
            2·
            11 months ago

            FPGAs are where it’s at, and the job market is surprisingly pretty open right now. Everybody’s sleeping on them, everyone wants study CUDA cores or architecture or… ML hardware accelerators or whatever. If you can transition to RTL design or even silicon engineering, it’s a good industry to be in.

            Now, me personally, I’ve never made the funny magic smoke come out from one of my FPGAs, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fucked up an entire pipeline because I thought a series of logic would take 3 cycles but really it took 2 and now my entire data path is wrong and somehow I missed it in simulation and now I’ve gotta rearchitect everything and running synthesis/P&R takes a goddamn century to run and this is like my 5th time programming my board and…

            • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
              2·
              11 months ago

              It’s been so long since I’ve touched RTL and the last time I used VHDL/Verilog was college.

              I probably could get back into it, but I’d only be qualified as an entry level, and I’m 10 years into software industry making a comfortable salary, I don’t know that I could take the pay cut due to other life shit.

              It doesn’t really matter what I’m doing, just being able to play pokemon all day with my son while I’m on PTO today makes it all worth it.

      • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        11 months ago

        Computer engineering is precisely the crossover between EE and CS. In many places it is a program within the EE department.

      • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
        45·
        11 months ago

        You’re arguing that words don’t mean what many people use them to mean. Most service desk techs that I know have “computer engineer” in their LinkedIn.

        And that’s coming from me, a person with a B.E. in computer engineering. I hate that it is what it is, but it is.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
          131·
          11 months ago

          That’s because they’re lying idiots, not computer engineers. I can call myself a beutiful woman, but that doesn’t make it true, nor would me calling myself a beutiful woman EVER change what “beutiful woman” means to others.

          • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
            22·
            11 months ago

            That’s my point. What it means to others is key. There are more “computer engineers” than actual computer engineers. The way language works, and by volume, the phrase is now accepted as overloaded. You can’t cling to the first definition in the dictionary and say the second definition is a lie.

      • Setarkus.LW@lemmy.world
        8·
        11 months ago

        You mixed that up, computer engineers know that the earth is flat, it’s geologists who know about the tiny people making all our electronics work

  • Jorgelino@lemmy.ml
    31·
    11 months ago

    Programmer here. Can confirm. Coding is just a list of instructions we send to the tiny people inside so they know what to do.

  • negativenull@startrek.websiteEnglish
    30·
    11 months ago

    The smoke that comes out of computers sometimes is caused by the little people getting pissed off and lighting little fires out of protest.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPM
      11·
      11 months ago

      In the U.S., education is mostly about being able to regurgitate what you’ve been told. Wisdom is, as you suggested, not necessary for that.

  • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todayEnglish
    11·
    11 months ago

    No, computers work because there are very tiny rocks inside that vibrate when connected to electricity.

  • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
    101·
    11 months ago

    Who wants to bet he’s just a Helpdesk tech and has no idea what an actual computer engineer is?

    • TheDarksteel94@sopuli.xyz
      1·
      11 months ago

      I work in 1st level support, and we don’t want anything to do with this guy. He’s too stupid, even for us lol