What is the difference between Productivity vs Efficiency?

I'm in the software development arena (may be this can be applied also to any other profession, like a lawyer, teacher, consultant etc. in which you are an employee of a firm or a company that charges the customer on a per hour basis for your services)
The question I have is:
What would be a difference of saying an engineer is more productive vs an engineer is more efficient?

Best Regards
Carlos

Answer:
Productive means getting things done. Outcomes reached. Goals acheived.

Efficiency means doing the same thing with as little waste as possible.

Having the air conditioner on with the windows open is productive. You will still be cool, but you are losing a lot of energy. Closing the windows allows it to get cooler, quicker, and allows it to remain cool longer and thus more efficiently.

As far as the example you pose, an engineer may take 3 days and 50 unsuccessful attempts of trial by error before he completes task. He is productive because he completes the task, but there is a lot of waste in product (50 tries) and time (3 days). Another engineer takes a day and a half and only 10 attempts to finish, because he spent more time in beginning planning the project. He didn't do less work because he didn't have as many tries and didn't work as long, but 1st engineer didn't fail either. Both were productive. 2nd one just did it more efficiently.
In the context that you pose, I see no difference. Being productive and efficient are one and the same.

Now in the business accounting area, there may be a formal defined difference between the two, but as I stated, in your case I see none.
efficient is means it keeps on going or is continuesly good productivity is only good once something like that
pa is correct. Productivity is how much you get done, quantity. Efficiency means how well you get things done and in some fields there is a cost effective element implied, quality.
pa has got it right I believe.
spelling

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