>“How can Software Engineers call themselves engineers when there’s no rules, governing bodies, or anything to stipulate what true Software Engineering is? The

>“How can Software Engineers call themselves engineers when there’s no rules, governing bodies, or anything to stipulate what true Software Engineering is? The parallel he drew was to another friend who’s a Civil Engineer. His friend had to be state certified ” That friend simply didn't realize that "engineer" has different semantics with different historical evolution of word usage: (1) "professional engineer" -- as in state license board and certification e.g. civil engineer (2) "engineer" as a descriptive modifier -- e.g. "software engineer" and also some non-programming examples such as "audio engineer", "video engineer", "supply chain engineer": https://www.google.com/search?q=%22supply+chain+engineer%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22supply+chain+engineer%22 We could ask a similar question the friend asked: How can there be a "supply chain engineer" when there are no governing bodies for "supply chain certification" ?!? It's because some people like to concatenate "engineer" at the end of a job role and others adopt the label and the usage gains wide currency. On the other hand, "dessert pastry engineer" hasn't really caught on so creating a fancier title doesn't always get accepted. Back in the old days (1960s & 70s), the job titles of programmers on org charts -- especially at non-software companies like banks using COBOL, etc -- was "PROGRAMMER I", "PROGRAMMER II", etc. The "software engineer" seemed to be mostly popularized by software-focused companies like Microsoft, Silicon Valley. But now, even old companies like banks where coding is a cost-center instead of profit-center also have "engineer" in programming job titles.