6 ms·

Yep. I went to an engineering school and multiple professors told us to get our PE licenses before we called ourselves "Engineers". No court will take you serio

Yep. I went to an engineering school and multiple professors told us to get our PE licenses before we called ourselves "Engineers". No court will take you seriously if you aren't licensed. Upside, if you do have a PE license you can get side-gigs as an expert witnesses.

porpoisemonkey 10y ago
How does this apply to "software engineers"? Do they have to call themselves something else in the state? As far as I know there is no national accreditation body for the title in the US.
- criley2 10y ago
  https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe
- miiiiiike 10y ago
  I went through an ABET accredited software engineering program, they pointed us to the NSPE. I'm not a PE but I still call myself a software engineer on everything except government forms. As far as the government's concerned I'm a programmer.
  - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    I went through an ABET accredited electrical engineering program, and they said that those of us who didn't want to work in government shouldn't bother with it.
    - miiiiiike 10y ago
      Yeah, a lot of our courses were designed with government work in mind. CMMI.. Ooph.
  - sdflkd 10y ago
    > As far as the government's concerned I'm a programmer. I don't think so. It's been a bit since I read up on Visa stuff (and I imagine it doesn't matter to you as an American citizen) but there are distinctions between programmer / software developer / etc.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - jnbiche 10y ago
    The NCEES absolutely offers a PE exam in the US for software engineers, for about 5 years now [1]. Most states offer PE licenses now in software engineering. 1. (note the "software" in the list of exams offered) http://ncees.org/engineering/pe/ http://ncees.org/engineering/pe/
    - cbhl 10y ago
      Is California one of those states?
      - jnbiche 10y ago
        I don't know, but I remember that a slide from the NCEES from 2013 states that 30 states were already offering it, and 10 more scheduled to go online in 2014. So perhaps all 50 are offering it now? You'd have to call/check out the CA Board of Engineering to know for sure, unless someone here can confirm.
    - miiiiiike 10y ago
      Thanks! I went through ~8 years ago when there weren't any SE focused licenses. Hadn't heard that anything had changed. Will take a run at this if it isn't too expensive.
- vvanders 10y ago
  My layman's understanding is that in US you're correct, that there isn't an accreditation for SEs. Heck, you can have a job title of Software Engineer without even having graduated college.
  - kobeya 10y ago
    TFA is about a case in the U.S.
  - coupdejarnac 10y ago
    Not true, there is now a software engineering professional engineering exam. However, you can pass any of the PE exams and call yourself an engineer. I took the computer engineering exam, as the software exam didn't yet exist.
flamedoge 10y ago
government and law trumping math and science. It saddens me.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Nothing got trumped. He would have been fine if he had made the exact same argument with asserting that he was an engineer, a claim that has specific legal implications that are easily verified. If you wrote an article on cardiology, and you said 'I am a doctor' but you hadn't kept your medical license current, then it would be a false claim, regardless of the fact that your article on cardiology was 100% true. Asserting a privileged status that you do not hold misleads people who rely on the licensure system as a proxy for performing due diligence. Professionalism is about more than whether people are willing to pay you or not. It involves commitment to uphold particular standards even if it is not in your personal interest to do so.
  - madengr 10y ago
    Though a Dr. is anyone with a doctorate.
  - flamedoge 10y ago
    There appears to be desire to adhere to whatever legal framework to give power and authority to status based on education and history. However, certain things are absolute and trumps any legal framework. Math and science don't change or abide by human laws. Discrediting work based on credentials may work in other fields, but you can't discredit math and science *by anything other than themselves.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      Nobody is trying to discredit the math and science. I have no objection to his proposal and neither does anyone else. The issues is that he tried to use the social construct of credentials to get attention for his proposal in a manner that bordered on fraud (since he was first given a friendly warning about the inappropriateness of titling himself as an engineer). This is not an attack on math and science no matter how much you want to see it that way. If he had been frank about his amateur status from the outset hew would have had no problem. getting it wrong without bad intentions is nothing serious either, but after he was warned and agreed to abide by the state code, he had no excuse to repeat the behavior. You can come up with the most interesting scientific result in history, but that does not give you an automatic right to have your discovery implemented by others, does it?

porpoisemonkey 10y ago

How does this apply to "software engineers"? Do they have to call themselves something else in the state? As far as I know there is no national accreditation body for the title in the US.

criley2 10y ago
https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe
miiiiiike 10y ago
I went through an ABET accredited software engineering program, they pointed us to the NSPE. I'm not a PE but I still call myself a software engineer on everything except government forms. As far as the government's concerned I'm a programmer.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  I went through an ABET accredited electrical engineering program, and they said that those of us who didn't want to work in government shouldn't bother with it.
  - miiiiiike 10y ago
    Yeah, a lot of our courses were designed with government work in mind. CMMI.. Ooph.
- sdflkd 10y ago
  > As far as the government's concerned I'm a programmer. I don't think so. It's been a bit since I read up on Visa stuff (and I imagine it doesn't matter to you as an American citizen) but there are distinctions between programmer / software developer / etc.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- jnbiche 10y ago
  The NCEES absolutely offers a PE exam in the US for software engineers, for about 5 years now [1]. Most states offer PE licenses now in software engineering. 1. (note the "software" in the list of exams offered) http://ncees.org/engineering/pe/ http://ncees.org/engineering/pe/
  - cbhl 10y ago
    Is California one of those states?
    - jnbiche 10y ago
      I don't know, but I remember that a slide from the NCEES from 2013 states that 30 states were already offering it, and 10 more scheduled to go online in 2014. So perhaps all 50 are offering it now? You'd have to call/check out the CA Board of Engineering to know for sure, unless someone here can confirm.
  - miiiiiike 10y ago
    Thanks! I went through ~8 years ago when there weren't any SE focused licenses. Hadn't heard that anything had changed. Will take a run at this if it isn't too expensive.
vvanders 10y ago
My layman's understanding is that in US you're correct, that there isn't an accreditation for SEs. Heck, you can have a job title of Software Engineer without even having graduated college.
- kobeya 10y ago
  TFA is about a case in the U.S.
- coupdejarnac 10y ago
  Not true, there is now a software engineering professional engineering exam. However, you can pass any of the PE exams and call yourself an engineer. I took the computer engineering exam, as the software exam didn't yet exist.

flamedoge 10y ago

government and law trumping math and science. It saddens me.

anigbrowl 10y ago
Nothing got trumped. He would have been fine if he had made the exact same argument with asserting that he was an engineer, a claim that has specific legal implications that are easily verified. If you wrote an article on cardiology, and you said 'I am a doctor' but you hadn't kept your medical license current, then it would be a false claim, regardless of the fact that your article on cardiology was 100% true. Asserting a privileged status that you do not hold misleads people who rely on the licensure system as a proxy for performing due diligence. Professionalism is about more than whether people are willing to pay you or not. It involves commitment to uphold particular standards even if it is not in your personal interest to do so.
- madengr 10y ago
  Though a Dr. is anyone with a doctorate.
- flamedoge 10y ago
  There appears to be desire to adhere to whatever legal framework to give power and authority to status based on education and history. However, certain things are absolute and trumps any legal framework. Math and science don't change or abide by human laws. Discrediting work based on credentials may work in other fields, but you can't discredit math and science *by anything other than themselves.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Nobody is trying to discredit the math and science. I have no objection to his proposal and neither does anyone else. The issues is that he tried to use the social construct of credentials to get attention for his proposal in a manner that bordered on fraud (since he was first given a friendly warning about the inappropriateness of titling himself as an engineer). This is not an attack on math and science no matter how much you want to see it that way. If he had been frank about his amateur status from the outset hew would have had no problem. getting it wrong without bad intentions is nothing serious either, but after he was warned and agreed to abide by the state code, he had no excuse to repeat the behavior. You can come up with the most interesting scientific result in history, but that does not give you an automatic right to have your discovery implemented by others, does it?