Comment by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK
3 years ago
It itches me when programmers call themselves engineers. Actual engineers have licensing requirements, they have responsibility, they even can go to jail if a bridge they designed falls down. Have you heard of any of Tesla AI "engineers" going to jail after people died in self-driving crashes?
It itches me when people get pedantic about what to call things and take it upon themselves to define what an "actual" engineer is.
From Wikipedia: Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety and cost.
What part of this does not apply to software engineers? They can't go to jail therefore they're not engineers? What bullshit gatekeeping.
It depends on the country/state/laws/industry/field etc. In the UK, everyone is an engineer. The guy who checks your gas meter readings is a "gas engineer". In the US, I think it's "professional engineer" that is the protected term (depends on the state I'm guessing).
I used to work in the semiconductor industry, no one gave a shit about licensing, but I would still call it "real engineering".
Going to jail isn't a prerequisite for something being an engineering discipline. I think software can be "engineering", depending on the process used to develop it. But the "move fast and break stuff" philosophy is pretty anti-engineering, in my opinion.
This becomes almost a philosophical discussion about what engineering entails and the definition of words. Personally, I don't care that much if people call themselves engineers or consider what they are doing engineering. Even if all they do is copy-paste code from SO to glue together npm libraries.
It says "Bachelor of Engineering" on my diploma though.
Also not all engineers have licensing requirements and responsibility - chip designers are one example. Engineers in every sense of the word, but no obvious licensing requirements nor responsibility on the scale e.g. civil engineers have. Generally much closer to what we do as software engineers.