Don't call yourself an Engineer unless you are licensed to do so. Most states have a professional licensing board to oversee the practice of Engineering. Here's the link to the one in my home state of Indiana.[1]
I've been a programmer, system administrator and a machinist. I've never called myself an engineer, and wouldn't want the criminal liability for doing so.
I wouldn't call myself a "computer doctor" either for similar reasons.
The criminal liability is in lying specifically about having the PE license, for work that requires it. Nobody is going to prison for calling themselves an "engineer" on their resume when they apply for a job that itself is called "engineer" by the recruiter.
Given that companies like Google have positions for “software engineers” or “engineering departments” and simultaneously hire armies of attorneys, I would have thought this would have come up. *
* Not legal advice or proposed by a practicing attorney of any U.S. state.
You are very much legally in the clear to call yourself an engineer, even if your actual title is "Solutions Engineer" (i.e., sales).
You cannot however represent yourself as a licensed professional (engineering or otherwise) without actually having that license. That's what's illegal.
That could be the case wherever you live, but this isn't true in general. The word "engineer" is protected title in some countries (without requiring additional qualification such as the word "professional" or "licensed").
Here in Japan you can hear someone calling themselves a software engineer, fresh out of a bootcamp. The original meaning of engineering has gotten lost over the time, diluted by a sense of self-importance.
Imagine a world in which we let the bootcamp grads build our bridges and medical devices (Therac anyone?).
I don’t mean to be a gatekeeper. Keeping someone from practicing medicine if they won’t get a degree is not gatekeeping by anyone’s definition.
„Trust me, I am a software engineer“ just doesn’t have the same ring as „trust me, I’m a doctor“
The risk of criminal liability in many countries is most likely low, as long as you keep the anglicized term and not call yourself Ingenieur (engineer) in Germany or for example 工学者 (こうがくしゃ, kougakusha) in Japan, both of which imply that you have a degree in engineering.
To make things more confusing, the information technology qualification I possess in Japan called 基本情報技術者試験, loosely translated as fundamental information technician, is often translated using engineer instead of technician.
Some countries do over software or information engineering degrees, with a professional body regulating them, but I find that to be the exception.
> The original meaning of engineering has gotten lost over the time, diluted by a sense of self-importance.
The original meaning is "someone who builds machines, particularly siege engines, or who constructs defenses against those machines". Is that really what you're complaining about?
Perhaps you're referring to the meaning "a guy who shovels coal into a train engine"?
This is very good advice, if you want to work in Germany. The general requirement to call oneself an engineer ("Ingenieur") is that a person has successfully completed a technical or scientific course of study at a German university or university of applied science with the duration of at least three years (full-time). Each German state has its own Engineer Law ("Ingenieurgesetz", IngG) for the details, which also include the regulations regarding the recognition of foreign qualifications and fines for unauthorized use of the title (for example, up to 25,000 Euro in Baden-Württemberg).
"Software Engineer" (without German translation) is used as an official job title by many German companies and the German linkedin is also full of people describing themselves as Software Engineers. This is the first time I hear such an objection.
From the German Wikipedia article on "Softwareentwickler":
My translation:
The job title _software developer_ is not a protected job title in Germany and Austria.
According to German law, the job title _software engineer_ may only be used by those who have successfully completed a technical degree. In Austria, the title of engineer can also be acquired through training at an HTL [Höhere Technische Lehranstalt, aprox.: Higher Technical College].
Original:
Die Berufsbezeichnung _Softwareentwickler_ ist in Deutschland und Österreich keine geschützte Berufsbezeichnung.
Die Berufsbezeichnung _Softwareingenieur_ darf nach deutschem Recht nur führen, wer ein technisches Studium mit Erfolg abgeschlossen hat. In Österreich kann der Ingenieurstitel auch durch die Ausbildung an einer HTL erworben werden.
This all might very well be, but it does not reflect reality. Everybody calls himself Software Engineer, nobody calls himself Softwareingenieur.
As if Google Deutschland would not hire you as a Software Engineer (or SRE, ..) if you are missing a B.Sc. (or did it in a non-technical field) but everything else is perfect.
This is not about hiring, it is about what you are allowed to call yourself, i.e. what you are allowed to write into your CV on your buisness card, on your Web site or use for self advertisment. Don't expect to get away with calling yourself an "Engineer" if you are not an "Ingenieur". Judges do not like to be fooled.
Job adverisments in German almost exclusively use the term "Software-Entwickler" ("software developer"), indicating that an IT degree is not necessarily required for the job.
> This is not about hiring, it is about what you are allowed to call yourself, i.e. what you are allowed to write into your CV on your buisness card, on your Web site or use for self advertisment.
If my job title is Software Engineer, then this is of course what it written on my business card that my employer prints for me.
> Job adverisments in German almost exclusively use the term "Software-Entwickler"
>> This is not about hiring, it is about what you are allowed to call yourself, i.e. what you are allowed to write into your CV on your buisness card, on your Web site or use for self advertisment.
> If my job title is Software Engineer, then this is of course what it written on my business card that my employer prints for me.
If you are not entitled to do use the title, then it is illegal nevertheless. After all, the law applies regardless of whether it is followed.
>> Job adverisments in German almost exclusively use the term "Software-Entwickler"
> This is just not true.
A search for "Softwareingenieur" or "Software-Ingenieur" on gulp.de, the leading IT freelancer platform in Germany currently gives zero results. If you search for "Software engineer" you get results mixed with "Softwareentwickler". So I went through these results which gave me aprox. 10 cases where they were looking explicitely for an "engineer" ("aprox." because I excluted those where "engineer" was one option among others or were they were mentioning the field "engineering" -- but even those were only a few). In contrast to that, when I searched for "Entwickler" or "developer", I got 275 results.[1] So the proportion of "engineer" is aprox. 3.6 % to that of "developer"/"Entwickler". I think it is okay to call that "almost exclusively".
[1] Some of it are a bit general, so you may not want to count everything. A quick random sample seems to indicate that the number is low nevertheless; so I went with 275, because the end result is unlikely to be significantly different.
For example the Engineer Law of Baden-Württemberg states in § 1.1:
(1) The professional title "engineer" may be held by anyone who
1. has successfully completed a course of study in a technical or natural science subject with a standard period of study of at least six semesters, corresponding to at least 180 ECTS credits, at a German state or state-recognised higher education institution, whereby this course of study must be predominantly in the fields of mathematics, information technology, natural sciences and technology, ... [1]
My own interpretation is that not all of these four aspects need to be included equally in a course of study. If the question is of practical importance to you, you should contact the Chamber of Engineers of the respective (federal) state for an authoritative answer.
[1] Original:
(1) Die Berufsbezeichnung »Ingenieurin« oder »Ingenieur« darf führen, wer
1. ein Studium in einer technischen oder naturwissenschaftlichen Fachrichtung mit einer Regelstudienzeit von mindestens sechs Semestern, was mindestens 180 ECTS-Punkten entspricht, an einer deutschen staatlichen oder staatlich anerkannten Hochschule mit Erfolg abgeschlossen hat, wobei dieses Studium überwiegend von den Bereichen Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaften und Technik geprägt sein muss, ...
Nobody's skirting the law. In most US states, there is a so called "industrial exemption," which allows you to do engineering without a license if you work for certain kinds of employers. I work for such a company, though I don't have an engineering title. But when we do offer a product for sale to the public, it goes to a third party for approval, and the people at that company who conduct the design review all have engineering licenses. The thing that will get you in trouble is offering engineering services directly to the public.
Now in my state, there are only licenses for a small handful of engineering disciplines: Electrical, mechanical, power, etc. I don't know if it means that the rest of us can't call ourselves engineers at all, or if we're just unregulated. I've never tested those waters.
From what I've observed, people with engineering job titles rarely do any hard quantitative engineering. Most of the work consists of organizing and arranging things, fitting things together, troubleshooting, etc.
This is utter nonsense. Words always have more than one definition.
Every term that has a legal (or precise subject-specific) definition also has a common-use definition. Engineer is no different, and the law knows and understands this.
This is why the term licensed engineer is a thing.
This seems pretty hyperbolic. Are electrical engineeers not engineers since the majority of them don’t get a P.E. Are you seriously that worried about criminal prosecution? That seems like a different kind of problem, if true.
It depends on where they practice. In some countries, they should absolutely be worried about misrepresenting themselves as licensed engineers.
For example, in Canada, the title "engineer" is reserved for licensed/professional engineers, so it would be misleading to use the title "electrical engineer" if they're not actually licensed.
I think it largely depends upon the state, but I agree in sentiment.
I think what I'd rather like to see is an industry standard professional engineering board for computer science. I think the field could actually do with some minimal barrier to entry even if that sounds like gatekeeping.
Not having a professional software engineering license wouldn't prohibit you from taking jobs or practicing software development, but it would help to guarantee a certain level of fundamental grounding in computer science that certain employers might desire in their prospective employees.
I agree in sentiment. You're fighting a losing battle though. People like inflated, grandiose-sounding titles that make it sound like what they do requires a mysterious rare skill.
We are builders, with some amount of analytical ability and creativity. We aren't much different from pipefitters, blacksmiths, or furniture builders, and we aren't any smarter than those people.
Sour grapes from lower paying engineering disciplines that have been hijacked by certification organizations. I’m a software engineer. I earn triple what you earn as a civil engineer, and I don’t have to pay a certification body for the title. I can also work in any state that I want, and I can move without second thought or recertification. Go cry about it.
Beyond certification, licensed engineers are able to be held personally liable for negligence. Perhaps in a jurisdiction that only allows licensed engineers to call themselves engineers, you sound like someone who doesn't want the burden of the title, either.
Crouch down and lick the hands of the mafia organization that rules over you. May your chains sit lightly upon you. Enjoy your $90k terminal-career salary, geographic lock-in, and annual dues! At least you’re grateful for the right to call yourself the title that you already earned as an undergraduate! May this affliction never effect the software ENGINEERING industry!
I don't know how you have so much contempt over the people who ensure that everything from roads to physical infrastructure in the modern world function and enjoy spitting on them so much like this.
Since we’re generally sitting on top of a giant pile of semi-understood abstraction that doesn’t have a real mathematical model and is often defined by matching legacy behavior (aka precedent), “Software Lawyer” could be a better name.
Plumbing generally works despite being constrained by real world non-idealities and things like wear-and-tear.
We belong with the lawyers, who are working in an entirely human constructed framework but have somehow fucked it up so bad that it has loopholes and undefined/unexpected behavior.
Is that not what we're doing with distributed systems? A lot of the theory & practice of our field is how to elegantly cope with servers dying, data being corrupted, load limits of single machines, etc. We have a lot of constraints.
And there's no possible way not to have some leaky abstractions with this in front of us.
Interviews are two way; if it really annoys somebody to be called an engineer when they aren’t licensed or doing what they think of as engineering work, then… I guess it is a legitimate bad culture fit, right? If that’s the hill somebody wants to die on, might as well get it out of the way!
IMO — I’d prefer not to be called engineer but we live in a capitalist world — if someone is willing to pay enough they can call me whatever they want.
People are free to attempt to break from society and never use money because of some crazy SovCit conspiracy too. But this was proposed as advice and presented as kind of some correct thing to do so it is quite available for criticism. It is a very strange, mercurial position that no one should really follow if they want to achieve goals discussed in the OP article, such as being financially successful in one’s career.
You would point that out to a serious, billion dollar company that is interviewing your for a software engineer position? Really? Maybe you don’t realize how bad that sounds. That is actually pretty silly; it would be like you claiming to have secret knowledge or some kind of legal training superiority to a companies that employs or otherwise retains the services of an army of top tier attorneys.
You are free to personally think that software developers should not be called engineers, but you are simply factually incorrect if you are telling an employer they are in legal trouble for calling their unlicensed employees software engineers. There is no legal issue, and the industry as a whole has clearly decided it is not a problem with using the job title.
This is absolute madness. Just accept the game for what it is. If they wanna call software developers "software engineers", what do you have to gain by swimming uphill?
I've been a programmer, system administrator and a machinist. I've never called myself an engineer, and wouldn't want the criminal liability for doing so.
I wouldn't call myself a "computer doctor" either for similar reasons.
[1] https://www.in.gov/pla/professions/engineering-home/engineer...