Did you read my post above? My first post? I will quote it just for you.
Case in point my bro in law.
Worked for at least 12 years at Kodak before he even got a interview with Microsoft. Got a job there at $110K a year after 12 years of working as a programmer.
$40K? He makes like 3X that amount. He is working on the HyperV part of Windows Vista/Win7 right now. He is a programmer. No where near $40K at all. Not even when he was with Kodak.
He was the one working. His wife was at home with their 3 kids. I would think that being a programmer for a big company would have to be a bit better than $40K for just 1 parent to work with 3 kids and a wife to support. Somehow i dont think they could survive on $40K when me, my wife and baby are having a hard time doing that.
A software engineer is also a programmer. You think of the software that is needed and you build it. Just like a hardware engineer except to build software you need to program. Cant be a software engineer without being able to program cause you cant built it if you cant program it.
No being a computer engineer would cover both. Cause if you are building hardware you are just building drivers to make it work with the OS of choice. You are not designing software. You are designing drivers. Totally different.
Yeah they take programming languages but they take the programming lanuguages needed to program the hardware to work with the PC. Not the langeuages needed to program software to work on the PC. 2 totally different subjects you are talking about and getting mixed up with.
Hardware is only for the physical components and the stuff needed to run that hardware on the system. Drivers, BIOS and that stuff.
Software is for Windows, Office adn the software you run with the OS.
2 different engineering fields you are getting confused with 1 another.