I know a "Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer" is a thing that exists, but it seems to me rather a contradiction in terms, suggestive as it is of an engineer who is expected or even required to make mistakes.
Many construction workers and electricians do.
I don't know if that's a good proxy for engineering.
You could design, manufacture, and ship thousands of gadgets which turn out to be scarp, because someone forgot to place a pull-up resistor for the reset pin leaving the devices unable to boot up (definitely not a real example :) )
You can make costly mistakes with software too, but in old engineering it's the norm not the exception.
https://www.nspe.org/resources/issues-and-advocacy/latest-ne...
You are correct that the ruling partially constrains itself to traffic lights, but that is because that's all Jarlstrom asked for, and this was a preliminary injunction, it didn't even go to trial!
That said, the ruling also makes clear that the Oregon engineering title laws (as opposed to engineering practice laws) "violate the first amendment on their face". And if those statutes are unconstitutional, there's no law for Jarlstrom to violate. And as such, it states " Plaintiff Järlström may describe himself publicly and privately using the word “engineer." And that Oregon cannot enforce any of the professional engineering registration act against him for doing so.
And Oregon is one of only a few states with such a law, so in most of the US there isn't even a law to strike down, it's just clearly legal.
Sofware Engineers (and their recent extensions, Sight Reliability Engineers, Data Engineers), etc... have been a pretty common concept for 20+ years.
Is that title inflation for optometrist?
It's also basically a joke title anyway, but it's nice to at least have it in my work history. I write JavaScript, hoorah I'm an engineer.
Socially I find it a bit embarrassing, so I say I'm a programmer or a software developer.
Or maybe I have a rosy view of what "actual" engineers do.
> The application of mathematics and the physical sciences to the needs of humanity and the development of technology
The Wikipedia article for Engineer[2] further drives it home:
> The work of engineers forms the link between scientific discoveries and their subsequent applications to human and business needs and quality of life.
And that's what I do: I take the field I studied (Computer Science) and I apply the knowledge and discoveries of that field¹ towards the needs of humanity, i.e., I engineer. (Typically, and it is somewhat expected, I engineer software. Not always, ofc.)
People get hung up on that "PE" is a specific term of art in some jurisdictions and some fields, with a correspondingly more narrow definition.
[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/engineering
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer
¹or, well, some of us do. The profession these days seems to have a real problem with knowledge.
I have often thought that making software has at least as much in common with cooking or sewing as it does with engineering or architecture, as in "software architect" or "software engineer"- yet there are no software chefs or software tailors.
Perhaps executives are uncomfortable knowing less about a fundamental aspect of their business than a chef or a tailor but if an engineer or architect knows something they don't, well, those are demanding disciplines that the executive can be forgiven not having mastered. Likewise there are no attire engineers or food architects because we might be more reluctant to have our waistline measured by an engineer or to tell an architect in fine detail how our meal should be prepared.
It also occurs to me that both architecture and engineering are traditionally male-dominated fields. On the other hand, "computing" was originally considered woman's work[0]. Whatever title I propose is ultimately moot if the people hiring would rather call their employees software architect, software engineer, software lumberjack, etc. However, since you asked me, I think "codewright" has a ring to it.[1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation)#Wartime_...
Actually.... Chef is a configuration management tool that uses system configuration "recipes". [1] [2]
There are tailored systems in software. We call those bespoke systems. [3]
Bespoke software – sometimes called custom software or tailored
software – is a software solution created for a specific user.
Much like a bespoke suit, these software solutions are made and
tailored entirely to your exact specifications.
CodeWright is a Windows Programmers Editing System for software developers originally marketed by Premia Corp. [4] Though, enough time has passed that you should be able to safely reuse that title!
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Chef