You say engineer, I say programmer…

Usage of tech job titles varies by region

Tim Halloran
Textio Blog

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Quick, what’s the difference between a software engineer, a developer, and a programmer? Textio looked into its data set of millions of job posts and found that “Engineer” is definitely the most common of those three titles in the U.S. But it turns out there is some regional variation when it comes to job posts for “Programmers.”

On the high end, three states showed about 10–12% of their tech jobs titled as Programmer:

  • Wyoming: 11.61%
  • Arkansas: 11.3%
  • Mississippi: 9.85%

At the other end of the spectrum, four states list fewer than 2%* of their tech job posts as Programmer. Notably, they are all states with large tech start-up sectors:

  • Washington: 1.06%
  • Massachusetts: 1.60%
  • Utah: 1.94%
  • California: 1.97%

(*A few states have 0% “Programmer” job posts, but they also have relatively few tech job posts total.)

Learn more about how language impacts your hiring at textio.com

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