I think most people who write code are the latter and not the former. The industry has diluted the term "engineer" so much that they maybe don't even realise that traditional engineering projects are about more than just implementation work.
Professional Engineers are qualified to take on more liability than just creating a design. So you don't need an Engineer to design a product, but (depending on jurisdiction) you will need an engineer to certify that your product won't hurt or kill people.
If you do a lot of design work, then you may want to hire a Professional Engineer in-house so that your company has more confidence that they will produce compliant designs with fewer iterations.
Engineers are often the best people to work with if you need to do things that are done infrequently since theoretically, they're trained in the prerequisite first principles so they can make judgments that are rooted in rigorous analysis in addition to their practical experience.
Edit: also, I'm not exactly filled with knowledge on new lamp design/construction, but I have seen startups/kickstarters that make new lamps that seem like redesigns from the ground up.
Aerospace engineers who build rockets do not have some certification body allowing them to be called engineers. Same with most electrical engineers working on almost everything.
If you think a government deciding who is an engineer is a *good* thing then maybe you should ask yourself why the United States which doesn't require this for the two non-software engineering disciplines has the best engineers in the world.
Really? What evidence do you have for that? Are you saying that companies like Airbus, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, ASML, Leonardo, Rolls-Royce, Dassault Aviation, Toyota, Bosch, Komatsu, Siemens, ABB, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Alstom, Vestas, Samsung, Sony, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Shipbuilding etc. don't have world class engineers?
Outside of some exceptions which don't really exist in the US (shipbuilding and heavy forging) the American companies in those industries are highly competitive and often market share leaders.
Nope. There are many counter examples of companies being world leading without paying world leading salaries to their engineers.
It's a big mistake to believe that the only thing all engineers care about is $. Yes it is true for some engineers but not for all.
If you want to take the patent agent exam, your CS degree has to come from an ABET-accredited program, though many of the very good ones aren't (Stanford, CMU).
Likewise, federal jobs also sometimes seem to want accreditation but not always.
https://www.lexpoint.pt/Default.aspx?PageId=128&ContentId=60...
https://www.vdi.de/news/detail/wer-darf-sich-ingenieur-oder-...
https://engineerscanada.ca/become-an-engineer/use-of-profess...
You can call yourself engineer if you feel like it, however in case it comes to some court case due to liabilities and such, there might be some issues coming up with having Eng in that contract signature.
Many here would probably say that they have never did the exam, and nonetheless use the title, which is as mentioned, not an issue as long as you don't land in court and the validation of title doesn't come up.
Also in most European countries, being an Engineer even if not professionally qualified, automatically means that the person in question took a university degree in engineering, on an university whose engineering degree was certified as such by the government organisation responsible for all engineering professions.
"Doctor", is for instance a protected title. You can not advertise yourself or your services as a doctor unless you're a qualified and practicing medical professional. I believe some kinds of legal practices are the same.
In Germany I don't think that counts. "Software Engineering" as a title isn't regulated (as kcexn is asking for). The German term "Softwareentwickler" more literally translates to "Software Developer" (as opposed to "Ingenieur") but I don't see companies having problems translating that in job posts and even contracts to "Software Engineer". I've never seen "Softwareingenieur" used tbf.
Getting into Germany as a Software Engineer (for app development) is also as relatively frictionless as it gets in comparison to more-traditional engineering fields.
Verdi is the German trade union so they have to make these kinds of distinctions about which professions they can represent. Don't quote me on this one but I think Verdi represents very little of the modern "app development" software engineers. I guess those who work for more traditional German industries like auto-manufacturing can fall under their umbrella.
---
[LESS INACCURATE EDIT AND MY THOUGHTS IN LESS WORDS:]
In Germany "Ingenieur" (Engineer) is a loaded term with legal implications so "Software Engineer" is "Softwareentiwickler" (Software Developer) instead. But really this is an HR sleight-of-hand trick. At the end of the day, getting into professional Softwareentwicklung is the same in Germany as in elsewhere that calls it "Software Engineering" (and IMO is what kcexn was asking about anyway).
Also I have yet to meet anyone doing agency work, that started as Azubi, Quereinsteiger, BWL,... and would sign any document or call themselves Engineers, like it is so very common in US out of a plain bootcamp.
It's still not clear to me from this discussion whether the term "Software Engineer" is legally protected in Germany (or any other European country) or if it's just a cultural convention.
The distinction is basically, if a software developer started a consultancy developing custom software solutions and called the company XY Software Engineering, would they be penalized for false advertising if they didn't have professional engineering qualifications?
Give credit where credit is do.
Having said that, I do agree that US companies tend to be better at commercializing new ideas than European ones.
Obviously there are good engineers in Europe. There just aren't as many as there are in the US, in large part because the US encourages immigration with much higher salaries.
On a more serious note, the US awards more college degrees per capita than most other developed nations. Strict licensing requirements or not, software engineering is just what it's called here because of the many and obvious similarities between it and other kinds of engineering.
As I pointed out above though, aerospace engineers (working on rockets/space applications anyway, IDK about planes) and electrical engineers don't need those tests. Requiring it for CEs seems like a historical artifact more than anything.
I think a better question is: what is the criteria those countries use to determine if someone can use the engineer title?
In general the software industry is still in an early confused state about standards, approaches, skills, etc.
Should we be using functional techniques? Object? Both? Relational? Column store? Push? Pull? etc.
The number of ways to build a working system is enormous and we have a fad-of-the-month every 5 years which starts as a silver bullet and always settles down to be just another option for another set of use cases.