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Comment by pavel_lishin | Hacker News Reader

Not a software engineer, fyi.

"Engineer" in the software world is just a job title like calling yourself a "scrum ninja". It's not a protected title like "professional engineer" in the US or the equivalent in SA. The bar for the former is "I like it", the bar for the latter is usually set by law.

Lying about your software engineering chops might get you fired, maybe even on the hook in a civil lawsuit. Lying about being a professional engineer while practicing engineering is usually a criminal matter.

So I can't imagine lying about your software engineering chops landing you in prison even if we're talking about critical sectors like medical or aerospace.

>"Engineer" in the software world is just a job title like calling yourself a "scrum ninja". It's not a protected title like "professional engineer" in the US

getting an engineering degree from a university requires you to study a lot of the same higher mathematics regardless of specific field, and entitles you to call yourself an engineer, even in CS.

the "professional engineer" certification is a bit more vocational, indicates you've passed qualifying exams based less on intense math and more on your knowing standards for specific govt building codes, etc.

The core of classic engineering is learning how to work with Mother Nature OS. In software engineering you almost never have to deal with that absolute gut punch of an OS (usually at worst you just have to deal with the humans who are a product of it), and don't need to take classes to learn about it.

i went to a school where you can't get a CS degree without getting half of an EE degree, and vice versa, the good old EECS department

there are traditions where CS came out of Math, still STEM but not generally part of the School of Engineering

To be a professional engineer, or just engineer really, you need to maintain your license, be in good standing with the regulatory bodyz have professional insurance, etc. The regulatory body can impose fine, mandatory training or disbar you for any ethical or technical deficiency. It's not a one time certification as you seem to believe.

I am not aware of the US having any laws on who can call themselves Engineer or not - it's not like Canada. Having a printer and a sheet of business card blanks entitles me to call myself an engineer.

It's legislated by individual states. A well-known example is Mats Järlström in Oregon, USA.

https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-li...

That press release seems to be specifically about their failure to get him to stop using the term “engineer,” and the fact that the legal system recognizes a difference between it and the more protected term “professional engineer.”

> laws on who can call themselves Engineer or not - it's not like Canada

It is like Canada in practice, depends on the terminolgoy they use. The two world's of "engineering" are so separated from each other, that's why I wrote a comment and that's why you are unaware of the distinction.

You have skyscrapers in Canada, oui? If you want to change something structural on the facade (O, Canada, I mean façade) near the top of a skyscraper, like put in a balcony/observation deck, they are not going to let you do that till your plans are reviewed by a licensed engineer. Not any old engineer, only by somebody Licensed to review plans like that, who will take into account everything that needs to be taken into account, like crap falling on pedestrians walking below, 30 years from now when the concrete is starting to disintegrate.

That is a licensed engineer. Canada has them. You don't know about them because you don't own a skyscraper. I know about them because I was on my condo board... in a skyscraper. they do structural, electrical, HVAC, plumbing, etc.

The school I went to was 80% mechanical engineers. Had they offered computer engineering, as compared to computer science, my degree would have had more overlap with physical science than virtual science (of computer engineering).

It’s just not a practical degree in the US. You don’t need thermodynamics, statics, and a bunch of other physical engineering requirements to build software.

Computer Science is a science degree, not an engineering one.

Despite being called an "engineer" a lot in recent years, it always feels icky because of what you just said here about it being a protected title in other industries. Not quite imposter syndrome - just feels like the wrong word for our job. It at least leaves out the linguistic/creative aspect of programming, and the execution/quality aspect of putting it all together.

It's more like digital construction: Programming is more like the construction project, and less like the AutoCAD "design" piece that engineers work on. The AutoCAD piece has more in common with product design than programming.

If anything, designers should be "engineers" and "eng. directors", and programmers should be "technicians" and "technical directors". They engineer products, with deliverables being design documents. And the techs implement it with the deliverable being the technology itself.

I use the title because it's what the piece of paper my university gave me when I graduated says. "Programming" is a portion of my job, alongside reviewing other people's work, design, and sitting around in meetings with people who don't have technical knowledge. Any mechanical, electrical, civil, etc, engineer will have a similar experience in many cases, except replace "programming" with something related to their area

professional engineer license is required in addition to graduating and other prerequisites to be called "professional engineer" tho, no? school alone is not enough to be designated a "professional engineer", right?

And with respect to professional engineers there is this obscure little tidbit[1]. There is nothing of the sort in software as far as I know.

[1] https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics/engineers-...

Indeed. Programming is just a translation step. If you have done your information system design properly, it will have undergone several phases of stepwise refinement from requirements to code, with documents and flowcharts explaining the logic.

Sadly, programmers have been doing too much of the design work in recent decades, and the result has been akin to "the inmates running the asylum".

Engineering involves using repeatable processes to generate expected results. 99% of computer programming activity doesn't meet that mark.

I completely agree, but we need some kind of title to differentiate the people who are as versed in CS and pragmatic programming - from the lowest asm/C to Lisps and MLs - and the typical JavaScript dev who did a web course.

At least here, both are called (software) developers and I really don't want to be painted with the same brush as web cowboys who don't value stability and things done "properly".

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