Pure and Impure Software Engineering

Summary

Why do solo game developers tend to get into fights with big tech engineers? Why do high-profile external hires to large companies often fizzle out? Why is AI-assisted development amazing for some engineers and completely useless for others? I think it’s because some engineers are doing very different kinds of work to other engineers. Those two types of engineers often assume their counterparts are simply incompetent, but they’re really just working in different fields. Pure and impure engineering There are two very different kinds of programming work. The first kind - pure engineering - is interested in solving a technical problem as perfectly as possible. Open-source work is often like this: some engineer wants to write the best HTTP requests library, or their ideal game engine. The second kind - impure engineering - is interested in solving a real-world problem as efficiently as possible. Paid tech company work is often like this: engineers are asked to deliver some project or feature as well as they can do it by the deadline. In pure software engineering, what you’re doing is close to art or research. It’s close to art because the engineer is driven by an aesthetic sense (e.g. of what makes a good library or game engine). It’s close to research because it’s open-ended: once the engineer arrives at a solution, they can continue testing and tinkering forever, trying (and usually discarding) new approaches. Impure software engineering is more like plumbing or construction. The engineer’s aesthetic sense is subordinated to someone else’s (usually their employer’s) needs. They’re building a solution to someone else’s problem. And since it’s someone else’s problem, it has to actually be finished to schedule, which means compromising. If you’ve spent any time reading my posts, you’ll know what kind of work I spend most of my time on: the impure kind of work. I am pragmatic to a fault. But I do have a lot of respect for pure work. I come from a background in academic ph...