What Makes a Software Engineer: The Essence of the Job

Short summary

A thoughtful essay arguing that software engineering is fundamentally about engineering decisions—decomposition, modeling, tradeoffs, and managing entropy—not just writing code. The author draws parallels to civil engineering, noting that unlike physics or medicine, software has no external referent that pushes back. Bad modeling decisions create blast radius that shapes every feature built on top for years.

• •Software engineering is about decomposition, modeling, tradeoffs, and entropy—not just coding
• •Unlike other engineering fields, software has no external referent that tells you when you're wrong
• •Junior work is making things precise; senior work is deciding what to build and structuring it to survive change

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