There are plenty of people with PEng licenses that have never done a day of fundamental engineering work in their life (e.g. people doing project management or

There are plenty of people with PEng licenses that have never done a day of fundamental engineering work in their life (e.g. people doing project management or technical sales). These people usually know what they don't know, and won't try to - for instance - sign off on the plans for a steam turbine, so they are largely harmless. If you work at a large technical company, getting your PEng can be mostly a form of credentialing that your employer pays for and may come with a small pay increase. Lots of companies that employ PEngs (and indeed demand the credential) don't actually do any engineering work - only management of engineering work by contractors - so there's no way for their employees to properly build their capabilities as engineers. It would annoy me if someone without any engineering education or experience tried to pass themselves off as an engineer in a way that exaggerated their competence, but if a guy from Iran with 20 years solid experience as an engineer who hasn't yet jumped through the excessively many hoops to obtain a PEng in Canada wants to write "engineer" in his email signature, that's fine with me. It's the term that best represents his competencies. The only limitation is that he won't be able to take responsibility for plans or designs without an actual license.