Old, but fun read that argues that today’s programmers are not like typical Engineers and shouldn’t really call themselves that as Engineering requires certification, is subject to government regulation, bear a burden to the public, etc.
Weird hill to die on.
All this gate keeping is bullshit, but I do have to agree that we are really bad at actually engineering.
I mean you can’t go to the store purchase a stethoscope and call yourself a doctor. Similarly, programmers do not require any sort of certifications or are heavily regulated unlike engineers. It’s an interesting argument for sure.
It depends on the jurisdiction.
In Alberta, Canada, for example, employers will hire programmers from two distinct pools of educational streams: Computer Scientists and Software Engineers.
CS programs are governed by the faculties of science, software engineers by the schools of engineering.
The software engineers take the same oaths or whatever and belong to the same organization as the other engineers (in Alberta, APEGA) and are subject the same organizational requirements to be able to describe themselves as engineers. They can have the designation revoked the same way a civil engineer could.
Practically speaking, as someone who works with both, I don’t see a meaningful difference in the actual work produced by grads of either stream. But at least in my jurisdiction the types of arguments being made don’t really hold because it is a regulated professional designation.
From Alberta but not working there anymore. Found out somewhat recently, specifically in regards to Software, APEGA lost their protection on the word Engineer. Again, specifically in regards to Software.
The protected title for Medical Doctors is Doctor of Medicine. I can get a PHd in Software Engineering and call myself Doctor.
You can, but if some cries out “Help I need a doctor!”, please don’t volunteer yourself. ;)
I don’t think gate keeping engineering is bullshit, software or otherwise. In fact I think it is one of the few eminently important things to gatekeep.
If computer systems have peoples lives depending on them, having accredited engineers that may be part of a chain of liability for their mistakes is a potentially life saving measure. It provides increased guarantee that someone will be held responsible, be it the firm, or in the case of bankruptcy, the individual engineer.
This provides a significant incentive to only sign off on work that meets all relevant safety criteria.
I’m not sure if that’s how it works in software engineering, but it certainly should.
There are separate titles for accredited engineers in the US and UK. If anyone cared enough they’d already be using them. The fact is, vanishingly few software engineers work on high risk (to human life) projects. Versus, for example, structural engineers doing it daily.
We’re kinda close because we make a tool that people in a dangerous line of work use to plan their dangerous work. That said, there are checks at each step (output from our software is checked by other software, which loads it onto hardware with its own checks, and then get double check everything before pushing “go”).
Wait, not “software engineer”, just “engineer”? That’s definitely bullshit.
Even “software engineer” is a bit sketchy. Should testers start calling themselves “Software doctors”? Lol
I’m ambivalent. I don’t really care about titles generally, but at least software engineer clearly isn’t anything else.
That said, while the term software engineer is a lost cause, I wouldn’t be opposed to some comparable, regulated title where the person has to sign off on code bases and is responsible for major flaws. Obviously you wouldn’t use that as a barrier for every piece of code, but as a requirement for handling personal information on a certain scale? (Obviously it would be pointless until you also regulated intentional sharing of information a hell of a lot better, but still.)
No, that’s silly.
They should call themselves “exterminators” since they look for bugs.
Meh. I don’t care. I’m a mechanical engineer by education. While I’ve used it in many jobs, none in a way that requires certification.
In the US, certification is needed in civil engineering and only small subsets of mechanical and electrical engineering. I’ve worked with many engineers who don’t even have a university degree in engineering. I’m not precious about other people calling themselves engineers.
Except for that stretch of time when hotels were trying to hire janitors as “custodial engineers” and offering like $10/hr. Eff that noise. That made an already deteriorating job search experience on LinkedIn worthless.
Yeah I was gonna ask, whether certification/government regulations are required for all engineering disciplines. I graduated with a CS degree and work as a software engineer now. I have family members who studied different engineering disciplines (industrial, civil, mechanical, etc), and only 1 of them ever needed certification (civil engineer). What makes one more “engineering” than others?
In the US, there aren’t as many certification requirements. In civilized countries, “engineer” is a protected professional title like doctors and others, and you have to have your PE cert to say you’re an engineer.
Given the general quality of software, I think it would be a good thing to make it a protected title in the US too.
I live in Australia, which I guess is not a civilized country.
In any case, what does that even mean for software engineers to be certified? Do we get certifications for specific programming language? Or a stack? Or is it specific to what industry your tech is based on? Cos I don’t think it makes sense for someone working on a social media platform to have the same certification as someone who’s working on health tech for example. Why does it need to be a protected title? Does the general public even care or is it just other certified engineers who care?
There is a professional engineer title in the U.S. top and misrepresentating your self is illegal. However since software engineer isn’t a real type of engineering it doesnt get covered. It’s like how a medical doctor is a protected term but if you misrepresent your self as a PhD that’s not protected
Make me
You should stop calling yourself an engineer unless you drive a train
