For example in Germany, the German title „Ingenieur“ is protected, but carrying the title Software Engineer is fine.
That being said, nobody cares about it in CS expect for government and very large companies which will use it against you in salary negotiation.
My understanding was that is was true throughout the French world (so French speaking Canada does this as well)? And that the curriculum for Engineers was more rigorous than other disciplines (there's a strong emphasis on math, you have to do some economics and so on)?
[0] https://www.bmbwf.gv.at/en/Topics/Higher-education---univers...
- The German equivalent would be "Diplom-Informatiker" (which roughly translates to "certified computer scientist"), which you're awarded after completing a graduate degree/MSc in Computer Science.
- In Austria you'd be awared a "Diplom-Ingeneur" instead, so a "Diplom-Ingeneuer in Informatik/Software-Entwicklung" would be a "Certified Computer/SW Engineer".
In Ontario, the PEO (board that manages these things) hasn't gone after software engineers often. I don't think I've ever heard of a prosecution in general, and may people call themselves XYZ engineer without having the P. Eng designation. They tend to prosecute civil, and industrial engineers, and building related engineers more since civil engineering and a Civil Engineer have very different roles. Even then, you have to be pretty flagrantly disregarding the regulations to make yourself a target.
The only people who'd given me a hard time over the job title 'software engineer' were engineering students during my undergraduate degree.
>“practice of professional engineering” means any act of planning, designing, composing, evaluating, advising, reporting, directing or supervising that requires the application of engineering principles and concerns the safeguarding of life, health, property, economic interests, the public welfare or the environment, or the managing of any such act; (“exercice de la profession d’ingénieur”)
In principle, there's certainly a good justification for the protection of the title, but the reality is much different. There's probably a case for regulators to actually figure out what meaningful licensure would mean for Software Engineers or companies but that'll never happen. There was a time where I thought 'Software Engineer' was a relatively uncommon title due to this case, but it appears Ontario employers have become much more lax about this.
And while the PEO hasn't gone after individual engineers, Alberta's regulator has taken up the case, for some reason: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/technology/article-...
https://www.peo.on.ca/public-protection/complaints-and-illeg...
The issue is the word "engineer".
If you say "software developer" there is no problem. If you say "software engineer" in many places that has an additional implication of being a professional engineer.
I have met "sales engineers", that are supposedly technical people and don't know you need to hit "enter" after copy pasting a command on the shell.
https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2002/11/6976-texas-licensing-...
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/52816/can-i-legally-...
Also, "software engineer" is an umbrella term within the industry; Very few "software engineers" are actually engineers (I don't recall meeting one software engineer that actually has the right to bear the title "engineer" - which, in my country -Portugal - requires being admitted in the Order of Engineers); The same goes for all "software engineers" that have actually graduated in mathematics, chemistry, electronics, telecommunications, biology and even design.
You may also find amusing that very, very few solution designers are actually designers, and even less software architects are legal architects. Also, often a cloud engineer or cloud architect has no idea on how to design proper rain.
One cannot just go around doing a six months bootcamp and then call yourself engineer without having studied at such university.
And those that sign legal contracts for project deliveries specially with government agencies, better have done the Order exam, if they want the Eng. on the signature.
Then again, if they happen to turn out to politics and even reach prime minister status, it doesn't really matter how they managed to get hold of the "engineer" title.
Naturally if one is at their own company, they can call themselves whatever they want, until they become invited to government and background checked on some TV channels.
You are still confusing job titles with credentials. In a private company, you can use whatever title you want for a given role, and you can hire whoever you want for said role, barring some legal limitations of scope (eg.some documents need to be signed by certified accountants - even if the job title is "Scrooge McDuck in Chief", some documents will require a lawyer signature, even if the job title is "Major Wolf", etc). You can name the CEO role "master dictator" and no one can do anything about it. And as you already know, no one but pompous self-entitled code monkeys calls themselves the Portuguese version of "software engineer" when they describe their job.
Also, Government isn't private companies. The Government itself hires very few "software engineers", as most implementations are done by private companies. The most obvious exception is, of course, teaching - and even those rules may be easily tweaked if you are outstanding in your field, or have done outstanding work on a specific area - something that frequently requires bright minds and middle-school level skills. On a fun note, there are even some fringe cases where you can actually legally teach recognized courses (upto level 4) without any formal education in that specific field. This is often an exception - not a rule - and needs to be thoroughly documented, but perfectly legal.
I only see this kind of nitpicking and fencing on guys that come out of the academia and think that the "real world" (translation: most, but not all vacancies) cares about titles, grades and (often bad quality or irrelevant) published thesis. I'm not saying a degree isn't important - or even obligatory requirement in some cases - but those are often the exception and not the rule.
Still doesn't go around the fact that universities need the approval for teaching the said degrees.