Old, but fun read that argues that today’s programmers are not like typical Engineers and shouldn’t really call themselves that as Engineering requires certification, is subject to government regulation, bear a burden to the public, etc.
Weird hill to die on.
It’s like the term “social scientist”. People always like to quibble, but eh… whatever…
There is a difference between computer programmer and software engineers.
Ah, by the way, Edsger W Dijkstra referred to himself as a programmer. Good times.
I know this is from 2015, but even then, it was a bit late to make this argument. This was already mainstream enough in the 90s to be the punchline in syndicated comic strips. By 2015, we already had “customer experience engineers” (i.e. tier-1 helpdesk). The ship has not only sailed, it has sunk.
Anyway, the phrase originated in an era when programming was very different from what it is today, when most programmers came from a background in electrical engineering or something along those lines.
There is a huge difference between a “programmer” who just codes, and a software engineer, who studied computer science and learned the skills for problem solving as an engineer. The latter is protected in many countries.
I may be self-taught, but I love the field of programming computers and have studied it in my own free time. I happily call myself an engineer if the 99% of engineers coming out of uni and entering the job market can be called one.
Yeah, and at least in my country, there are mandatory courses common with all technical (not sure how that should be translated properly to English) engineers, such as extensive physics, maths, electricity and such, that us software engineer students also have to pass along with our specialization to even get to the thesis part of the engineering degree.
After all this, I’ll have no trouble calling myself an engineer. Neither does the university I go to. Nor anyone, really.
Without the degree, sure. I’d be ashamed, even, to claim such a title. But that’s just because the whole engineer degree is well established and has a set meaning. I’d be software developer, as I am now, instead of the software engineer I aspire to be.
and the bar is getting lower. Fast iteration, releasing broken, poorly understood, barely maintainable pieces of shit as quickly as one can.
Fucking agile
Meh. I don’t care. I’m a mechanical engineer by education. While I’ve used it in many jobs, none in a way that requires certification.
In the US, certification is needed in civil engineering and only small subsets of mechanical and electrical engineering. I’ve worked with many engineers who don’t even have a university degree in engineering. I’m not precious about other people calling themselves engineers.
Except for that stretch of time when hotels were trying to hire janitors as “custodial engineers” and offering like $10/hr. Eff that noise. That made an already deteriorating job search experience on LinkedIn worthless.
Yeah I was gonna ask, whether certification/government regulations are required for all engineering disciplines. I graduated with a CS degree and work as a software engineer now. I have family members who studied different engineering disciplines (industrial, civil, mechanical, etc), and only 1 of them ever needed certification (civil engineer). What makes one more “engineering” than others?
In the US, there aren’t as many certification requirements. In civilized countries, “engineer” is a protected professional title like doctors and others, and you have to have your PE cert to say you’re an engineer.
Given the general quality of software, I think it would be a good thing to make it a protected title in the US too.
I live in Australia, which I guess is not a civilized country.
In any case, what does that even mean for software engineers to be certified? Do we get certifications for specific programming language? Or a stack? Or is it specific to what industry your tech is based on? Cos I don’t think it makes sense for someone working on a social media platform to have the same certification as someone who’s working on health tech for example. Why does it need to be a protected title? Does the general public even care or is it just other certified engineers who care?
There is a professional engineer title in the U.S. top and misrepresentating your self is illegal. However since software engineer isn’t a real type of engineering it doesnt get covered. It’s like how a medical doctor is a protected term but if you misrepresent your self as a PhD that’s not protected
I am an engineer, just not of programming
Make me
You should stop calling yourself an engineer unless you drive a train
Engineer is a protected title in the UK. You can be a software engineer, if you are qualified to be.
Same thing in Ontario. I actually have a Bachelors of Software Engineering, but am not legally allowed to call myself an engineer because I never got certified with the regulatory body.
I think it depends on the country. That being said I was a systems admin and I hated the title systems engineer for that exact reason. If I had gotten my PhD I was hoping to be in academia and keep away from the doctor title. I know its a doctorate and appropriate but its like the old joke. Is there a doctor on board…
Yes, I hate every tech capable of writing shell scripts and SQL being called an engineer. Myself included. I’m not an engineer. Not yet at least. Maybe I’ll muster some willpower to finish that BS next year.
I don’t control the job title my company gives me.
Wait, not “software engineer”, just “engineer”? That’s definitely bullshit.
Even “software engineer” is a bit sketchy. Should testers start calling themselves “Software doctors”? Lol
Yeah! My job is to triage, diagnose and remedy. Don’t confuse the two!
No, that’s silly.
They should call themselves “exterminators” since they look for bugs.
But they don’t actually remove the bugs 🤔
I’m ambivalent. I don’t really care about titles generally, but at least software engineer clearly isn’t anything else.
That said, while the term software engineer is a lost cause, I wouldn’t be opposed to some comparable, regulated title where the person has to sign off on code bases and is responsible for major flaws. Obviously you wouldn’t use that as a barrier for every piece of code, but as a requirement for handling personal information on a certain scale? (Obviously it would be pointless until you also regulated intentional sharing of information a hell of a lot better, but still.)
If they didn’t make you put a ring on it, you’re not an engineer. Simple as.
Not a simplistic definition at all…
As a software engineer, I think there are many places where there is a big difference between a SWE and a programmer/developer based around how active you are in designing the architecture and other systems of the software you’re working on.
That being said, this is just gatekeeping for gatekeeping’s sake. Up until COVID, you could be a PE in software engineering, they only stopped it because the field was changing too fast for the tests to keep up.
All the major engineering disciplines do the same basic formulas with different concepts. Fluid flow, mass flow, electrical ‘flow’. Are all the same basic equations. Software engineers don’t need to do that, they are further away from the actual math which is what makes engineering, engineering.
