It is countries like US where anyone can call themselves whatever they feel like that have devalued our profession.
I have been on the liability side ever since, people don't keep broken cars unless they cannot afford anything else, software is nothing special, other than lack of accountability.
We were NOT allowed to refer to our job title when deployed to the province of Quebec, which has strong regulations around the use of the term "engineer". It was fine - we still went, did our jobs, satisfied our customers and fixed their issues.
This divide between Canada and the US has existed since the birth of software engineering as a thing. Where is the evidence the protected name has done anything useful for either Canadian software engineers or its citizens?
Which countries are those? Are you also only allowed to call yourself a Musician if you a Conservatory Degree?
Software Engineering degrees are certified by the Engineering Order, universities cannot call themselves that just because they feel like it, and any kind of legal binding documents when notarised required the professional validity.
And second, at least in Germany it's also somewhat of a bullshit situation that 80% of the people who do a "normal" Computer Science degree don't have that (Diplom-Informatiker/M.Sc), but the 20% who happen to study at a certain uni in a certain degree (that is mostly related, but not the default Computer Science/Software Engineering one) are/were getting their "Diplom-Ingenieur".
This isn't really that exceptional and as someone from a place where not just anyone can call themselves engineer I'm always baffled when people think that it is.
Here is the difference: the Doctors have a liability for their medical practice, the real Engineers meaning those doing Bridges and Buildings that can kill thousands of people if they fall, have a professional obligation and responsability on the outcomes of their designs and implementation.
I can guarantee you, no Software Engineer from Portugal to Germany will be willing to guarantee the behavior and fitness for purpose, of any System or Software product they develop :-) As you very well can see, if you bother to read the full details on the Software License disclaimers of any software from any large company. From Microsoft to Oracle, IBM and others.
As such those are Software Engineers on title only, what is convenient to be hired for post within Government and similar...
Again, sign any legal documents as engineer, and a court visit might turn into reality.
Also note that such warranty disclaiming "fitness for any purpose" is not possible if you sell for money software that you say is for such an infrastructure situation, at least in e.g. Germany. That's not from the license but from the sale though.
Thankfully stuff like Crowdstrike and Cloudflare are making governments pay attention to industry losses caused by malpractice.
Then they shouldn't call themselves engineers.
It's not really a big deal and I don't understand the confusion around this.
That is the whole point. :-) Real Software Engineers do not exist other than in title. Some institutions and governments are arbitraging those who can use the title...
How have they devalued the profession when the labor of that professions is worth the most in the US?
Now if you mean for own much one is willing to sell themselves to late stage capitalism, producing low quality products and entshtification, maybe that is the bang for buck right there.
The software is happening regardless of title and you haven’t given any examples of the value of where kissing the ring to get the certification has been critical to Canada/Germany/Switzerland producing better software.
You've made such a wild assumption that I'm convinced you're more interested in fighting then discussing
You mean Android's great quality, or Chrome CVEs by the way?
Signed, someone with an CS engineering degree.
The protected titles are gate kept by associations and are not tied to knowledge.
Where is there any evidence that people using the protected title are producing higher quality software than companies in equivalent industries in the US?
The government is the one selling you out to late stage capitalism through rampant inflation, business and fiscal regulations and deregulation, offshoring, and various nefarious policies on housing and labor migration.
People just adapt to survive by taking the best paying jobs, since voting clearly doesn't help them.
Don't tell me you're not developing SW for the highest bidder and would take the salary of a fast food worker out of class empathy just to stick it to the evil capitalist.
Quality of life and health matters more than anything else.
After a certain point, more money doesn't bring any of that, one is not taking the money into the grave, other than build a mausoleum.
If I start calling "bananas" "apples" the price at the store doesn't change.
I think you don't understand what the word "value" means. You understand one meaning, but it has more than one.
In French, potatoes are called what translates to English as "apple of the earth". Nobody confuses a pomme de terre with an apple, because nobody calls a potato an apple without the adjective attached.
That's what the additional adjective as part of the title is for; like how apples and potatoes are vaguely related in that they're both plant-based food but are otherwise entirely different; turning "software engineer" into a compound term that has the extra word is specifically to differentiate it from expectations of it not having the extra word.
Software engineering is legitimately engineering going by the etymological meaning of engineering; but it's not really one going by some of the other (mostly orthogonal) things we've layered onto the term in many contexts over the years. It's creation through ingenuity. It has as much claim to the word as part of its title as any other usage of the word does.