

On Hiring Engineers That Aren't Engineers - sappapp

Why is it normal for companies to hire people for engineering roles that do not have engineering degrees. Frequently I see job postings for Software Engineers, Infrastructure Engineers, CI&#x2F;CD Engineers, and so on, but it is highly unusual for one of the requirements to be a computer engineering or software engineering degree.
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wyclif
To your question: you're extrapolating hiring practices in the USA to all
companies. In the States and the UK there is no licensure for professional
software engineers (with a few exceptions like Texas and Florida). So in many
US companies in SV you will often encounter employees in software development
and engineering roles who come from non-engineering backgrounds and are self-
taught or perhaps started their careers as an apprentice, and who have
industry experience instead of formal educational credentials. And most of
those who do have engineering degrees aren't regulated by licensure anyway in
the Anglo-American part of the industry.

This is not the case in other countries (for instance, Canada) where the
industry there regulates "professional engineer"; the term "engineer" is
protected by both the Engineers Act and by Section 32 of the Professional
Code.

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sappapp
What kind of effect does this have on the industry? Do more people obtain
engineering degrees or are there more non engineering titled jobs available?

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wyclif
It's hard to say without a study, but my personal opinion is that it doesn't
make much difference at all in terms of getting the work done. It's only a
title. What is the difference between "software engineer" and "software
developer" in terms of the role? In the US, there's probably not much
difference at all. In Canada, there probably is a difference because
"engineer" is a more formal title denoting educational achievement, so I
suspect there's a pay differential involved.

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wyclif
This should be submitted as an "Ask HN" in the title.

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sappapp
Is it possible to edit?

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wyclif
If your submission gets voted up enough, HN mods will edit the title and fix
it for you.

