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Comment by dev_hacker | Hacker News Reader

I think there is more to it than process. I'm not an engineer, but I know in the US you usually have to pass the PE exam to be a real certified engineer, plus there is the reality that if your bridge collapses, you are liable, might go to jail, etc. I'm unaware of any similar licensing process in software engineering or liability realities. Even when software kills people, it is usually not prosecuted and the devs are not held to the same standards as licensed engineers. For this reason, I just tell people I'm a dev, not an engineer.

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I hope this myth would die. Most engineers don’t ever take a PE exam.

The PE exam is only needed for a handful of disciplines, like civil and HVAC engineering. Even then, you only need the PE certification if you are going to be signing legal documents. You can be a civil engineer without a PE working in a team producing designs and plans that are signed by a single certified PE.

By your logic almost no one that graduated from an engineering discipline would ever be able to call themselves engineer.

I get your point about how people end up doing engineering jobs sans PE certificate, but I would still stick to the position that people without certifications are in fact, not engineers. Maybe they are doing the work, but paralegals who failed the bar aren't lawyers, even if they went to law school, they're paralegals (or whatever lesser title applies). You don't get to be an engineer because you passed a degree program, or got someone to hire you with such a title. You have to demonstrate an objective mastery of a large body of knowledge, etc. This is what the PE actually tests for. This is different than in tech, where getting a degree or a job actually does make you a software engineer. There is no standard exam to pass or anything. Just get any random hiring manager to hire you and you're a software engineer.

Well, you can certainly stick to your convictions, no problem with that :) but that doesn’t mean you are right.

You can’t compare against paralegals/lawyers because calling yourself a “lawyer” has legal implications, as in, you must be certified by the bar or you can get in trouble. It doesn’t matter which legal discipline you practice, you must be certified by the bar.

For engineers no such thing as a bar association exists for ALL disciplines. The PE certification only covers a handful of engineering disciplines therefore it can’t be a gatekeeper for all engineers. Moreover, note that certified engineers are called Professional Engineers, not just Engineers! Even the name distinguishes between certified/non-certified, it doesn’t try to take over every meaning of Engineer.

Indeed. Especially since design choices might have real world consequences.

If you build safety-critical software you certainly have some liability.

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