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Comment by randomdata | Hacker News Reader

I agree. The job title is literally _engine_er. Unless you oversee the operation of engines (as in locomotives), you are not an engineer.

But seriously, the definition of engineer in regular lexicon is someone who designs, builds, or maintains complex systems. I struggle to think how software does not tick all of those boxes. Sandwiches are a different story.

Perhaps you are confusing engineer with professional engineer? I can see how it might be easy to mix them up if you are not paying attention, but professional engineer carries a different meaning. Most software engineers are not professional engineers but are unquestionably engineers.

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The word engine signifies a product of ingenuity. A siege engine is a clever device to attack fortifications. Engineers don't just have to be engaged with engines in the modern sense to do engineering. The PE bureaucracy is just gate-keeping by the guild masters.

A 'software engineer' need not even have a college degree, the only qualification for calling yourself a software engineer is finding an employer willing to give you that title. Even non-PE mechanical engineers at least have the bare minimum decency to get an undergraduate engineering degree before calling themselves engineers.

Of course, some people get software engineering degrees, or computer science degrees (that term is another can of worms entirely), but that is not the rule.

It becomes a meaningless word if anyone can just call themselves one. There has to be some standard, some governing body, some degree of rigour applied here.

> It becomes a meaningless word if anyone can just call themselves one.

Only to the extent that all words are meaningless. However, we keep a reference known as a dictionary that helps maintain some consistency around meanings of words.

The Oxford Dictionary defines engineer as:

1. A person who designs, builds, or maintains engines, machines, or structures.

2. A person who controls an engine, especially on an aircraft or ship.

3. A skilful contriver or originator of something.

Is software an engine, machine, or structure? That is debatable, although I would suggest that it does meet the definition of machine. Under that suggestion, software engineer is a perfectly appropriate term. Designing, building, and maintaining is exactly what software engineers do.

If you disagree that software falls under the definition of engine, there is still that third definition. Is software created by a skilful contriver or originator of something? I think that is a definite yes.

> There has to be some standard, some governing body, some degree of rigour applied here.

Professional engineers are expected to display those things. That is unrelated to engineers. Different terms with different meanings. Software engineers may not be professional engineers, although they can be.

> 1. A person who [...] maintains engines, machines, or structures.

So we should call car mechanics "mechanical engineers"? And maintaining structures? With all due respect to the janitors out there, their job is vital to society but it's not engineering.

> So we should call car mechanics "mechanical engineers"?

By definition, I don't see why not. I suspect the spirit of maintain may be a little more nuanced, but words are fluid and if someone wants to interpret it that way, then it is so.

> With all due respect to the janitors out there, their job is vital to society but it's not engineering.

If by janitor you are thinking of someone who sweeps the floors, I think that is well beyond the spirit of maintain. That, to me, is cleaning.

Maintenance of a structure is more like addressing a beam that is cracking. I doubt that is a role that an average janitor deals with, and in many cases will legally require a professional engineer to spec the resolution.

But words are fluid, so if you interpret a janitor as someone who maintains a structure, then I guess engineer fits. It really makes no difference either way.

Professional engineers do engineering.

Title only engineers work on complex systems.

This distinction has largely been lost and most "Software Engineers" think they are doing PE Engineering when they are not.

Do you think that if someone calls themselves a sandwich engineer people will begin to believe that designing cars is like makings subs? Do you really think the public can't tell the difference?

I think "Software Engineers" can't tell the difference.

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