<p>Are they engineers who design BOTH the hardware and the software of a computer?</p>
<p>They do hardware. They design the chips.</p>
<p>Why is Google executive Sundar Pichai a computer engineer then?</p>
<p><a href=“LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You”>LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You;
<p>His bio shows that he has studied in top schools and performed very well. He is in management position now that would hardly mean coding. Many engineers do become managers. 
Likewise there are many EEs in investment banking and private equity who don’t use their engineering technical skills, but use their problem solving skills in other areas very effectively. Many engineers don’t realize that what we learn most is honing our problem solving skills in the engineering school and then apply them in graduate school or at work.</p>
<p>So in conclusion, are there any engineers that engineer both the hardware and software?</p>
<p>No. The complexity of the chips today is so high, most engineers know only a tiny part of the chip. Even though the chip designers use software tools like software developers, the chip design is broken into many specialized skills like RTL Coders (or designers), circuit designers, analog engineers, verification engineers, physical designers, validation engineers, etc. Similar specializations exist in software as well. So, it is practically impossible to imagine all the skills in one individual. Typical a system architect would have broad view of the chip, but they are able to do that as they don’t have to do any coding. But, having a knowledge of computer hardware is very useful for software developers that write the driver level software for the chip - there are times when the software developer reads the chip design code (called RTL) to find out why the chip is not responding to the expected design in response to software. This is exciting, but will not get you the dollars that one gets for the pure software folks in companies like Facebook or Google or Instagram!</p>