Comment by pjmlp
4 days ago
In many countries you are only allowed to call yourself a Software Engineer if you actually have a professional title.
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.
Exactly this - I had a role in a multinational, US-founded company, however - I was based in Canada - our title had the name "engineer" contained within it. We were NOT by any means certified professional engineers according to any regulatory body - we were great at our jobs, but that was the reality.
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.
And the people of Quebec are much safer for it. /s
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?
It's really hard to disentangle the myriad of factors that go into the differences that we see in life expectency and quality of life between Canada and the United States but it wouldn't surprise me that this is one of those ones that accounts for some miniscule amount of the difference.
>> In many countries you are only allowed to call yourself a Software Engineer if you actually have a professional title.
Which countries are those? Are you also only allowed to call yourself a Musician if you a Conservatory Degree?
Portugal, Germany, Canada, Switzerland are the ones I am aware of.
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.
First of all, hardly anyone cares (default email signatures etc.pp even if the people don't want that - but you said legally bindign, and I think that just usually never happens.).
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".
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They regulate the title not the profession.
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Why the glib dismissal when you most certainly live in a country where the use of titles like 'doctor', 'dentist', 'officer' or 'lawyer' is most certainly regulated?
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.
Your comment completely misses the point of my question. Those countries are regulating the title not the profession.
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...
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>It is countries like US where anyone can call themselves whatever they feel like that have devalued our profession.
How have they devalued the profession when the labor of that professions is worth the most in the US?
If I start calling "bananas" "apples" then I devalue the meaning of the word "apple". You can't differentiate which I'm referring to.
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.
> If I start calling "bananas" "apples" then I devalue the meaning of the word "apple". You can't differentiate which I'm referring to.
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.
Professional labour value isn't synonymous with late stage capitalism without ethics or morals.
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.
How do you explain the low quality of software coming out of all of the other countries you have mentioned with protected titles?
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.
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>Now if you mean for own much one is willing to sell themselves to late stage capitalism
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.
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