I work for the US government, so this is my experience.
The career track of someone with a CS degree is more likely to be a programmer. Their career will focus on the “front lines” of the project, doing the grunt work. Mainly, these will be our contractors. Software Engineering is more of the leadership track. These will be the project managers, the eventual CIOs, etc. They focus on guiding the contractors on the project, keeping up with the burn rate of the finances on the project, the requirements to tackle on the project/preventing requirements creep, etc.
I’m more on the SE track than the CS track, so most of my duties lean towards the leadership aspect. It doesn’t pay as much as the contractor side of the project, but I have more job security than the contractors :)
I work for the US government, so this is my experience.
The career track of someone with a CS degree is more likely to be a programmer. Their career will focus on the “front lines” of the project, doing the grunt work. Mainly, these will be our contractors. Software Engineering is more of the leadership track. These will be the project managers, the eventual CIOs, etc. They focus on guiding the contractors on the project, keeping up with the burn rate of the finances on the project, the requirements to tackle on the project/preventing requirements creep, etc.
I’m more on the SE track than the CS track, so most of my duties lean towards the leadership aspect. It doesn’t pay as much as the contractor side of the project, but I have more job security than the contractors :)