<p>Is it true that Software Engineers don't spend most of their time writing code? They write charts, graphs, algorithms, and English to design a program and they hand that down to a programmer to actually write the code?</p>
<p>We don’t really make a distinction where I work. Engineers usually start out fixing bugs or dealing with test failures. After learning some of the code base and functionality (which takes quite some time), they may be given a feature to work on where they have to write the specs (functional, design, detailed design) and then do the coding. Further up the career change, engineers can still do all of this. Even the architects like to code here.</p>
<p>Many of the managers also do individual contributor work including writing specs and coding. I think that it gets harder to do as you go up the management chain as you’re spending more time doing people stuff.</p>
<p>As GT alludes, don’t get hung up with job titles. They are more or less all equivalent and each company sets up their own hierarchy. Does an ‘analyst’ rank higher than a ‘designer’ or ‘developer’ or SE or Programmer or Specialist or Systems whatever or DB Admin or Network something or…? Each company is different. In practice it is a team working together and everyone has to think about what they are doing. So a mere ‘coder’ is just as important as a ‘software architect’. If you want to understand the whole spectrum of software you ought to work in every role and not expect that a degree will put you in some caste for the rest of your life.</p>
<p>The “architect” whether it is systems, software or data is the person who more involved with the framework, overall design, direction and technical standards THAN the coding. That does NOT mean that the systems/software/data architect will NOT do coding.</p>
<p>The title and responsibilities vary from employer to employer.</p>