Tinder, a dating app, has recently updated its Terms of Service. Among minor bureaucratic modifications, one major change aims to battle impersonations. From now on, Tinder will ban web developers who claim to be 'engineers'. While backend- and other types of software developers seem to be unaffected, many believe the ToS will be amended soon to include those as well.
If you’re a software engineer, you’re applying an engineering process to the field of software development. Adding a shopping cart to a blog can be a perfectly sound solution to the problem at hand.
Engineering becomes more important at scale, but scale itself doesn’t define engineering.
That’s missing the point. Engineers perform at a specific level. You don’t expect civil engineers to build the bridge. Can they do it? Sure. But that’s not the profession. Same with Structural Engineers, Chemical Engineers, Industrial Engineers, etc. They are at a higher level in the planification and execution process and will likely have signatory responsibilities on the project. If the bridge falls, the engineer does have explaining to do.
The equivalent for a software engineer would be (in the US) more at the level of architect with responsibilities higher than developers.
But engineers is not a protected term so everyone is an engineer now.