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Comment by beretguy | Hacker News Reader

What’s PE? (I’m a programmer).

The PE [0] is an American engineering exam. You first take the FE [1], then must apprentice under someone for some length of time (I think ten years) to be allowed to take the PE. Then, once you pass that, you're considered a professional engineer.

[0]: https://ncees.org/exams/pe-exam/ [1]: https://ncees.org/exams/fe-exam/

Correct, and this gets at the heart of the matter as to why I believe engineering colleges shouldn't be conferring degrees in computer science. Degrees in computer science should be conferred by the college of arts and sciences, typically by something such as the department of mathematical sciences.

I'd be down with the creation of the role of software engineer, a bona fide engineering degree, having licensure similar to the PE. In fact, given how much software is running our lives, I'd say such licensure is long overdue.

Texas tried it. Doesn't look like it worked out so well. https://pels.texas.gov/software.html

When does anything Texas tries work out so well?! :)

Seriously though, the biggest problem is separating knowledge of programming languages and libraries from actual software engineering. The challenge there is we don't have a good definition of software engineering and how we'd go about doing that. I think it'd be a great start if, as an industry, we actually sit down to figure out what software engineering is.

I hope we have a good definition of software engineering, since I have a degree in it, but I'm biased.

https://www.computer.org/education/bodies-of-knowledge/softw...

I skimmed at the topics of few them. It certainly seems impressive to me.

There's no such apprenticeship criteria required for many states. Some do have a minimal amount of work experience, but it's usually a couple years and no more.

The part about needing to take the FE before the PE is correct though.

Professional Engineer: https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe

It's a formal certification exam for engineering disciplines that need licensing. You usually have to pass two exams – FE (foundations of engineering) and PE (principles of engineering) before you can even be considered for a license.

Private equity (I have no idea, I'm also a programmer)

Principal Engineer if software related

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