I'm sure that this divide exists somewhere if people still talk abou tit, but genuinely confused by it. "Programmer" and "Software Engineer" are different job categories for the purposes of filing taxes (in the US), and I've read articles projecting job prospects that give a sunny outlook to "software engineers" and poor prospects to "computer programmers." The idea is always that "software engineers" design a system and provide technical expertise, and "programmers" implement.

Thing is, I've called myself a "programmer" for well over a decade now, and I just don't see it. Where are these programmers who just "implement"? I guess if someone had wireframes and made all the technology decisions and handed it over to a programmer, maybe that would count?

A company I worked for tried this, they made me an "Architect" and gave me an offshore team, and it was a disaster. It could be that I wasn't good at providing precise instructions, but to me, precise instructions are hard to distinguish from code. Well, maybe that's why "programmers" have poor job prospects - all programming work is now done by "software engineers"...

Does google, or facebook use "programmers" who are distinct from "software engineers?" Any startups out there that do this?