6 ms·

From the article, "software engineer" is exempt but the plain "engineer" is not. They should just settle on "professional engineer" or "licensed engineer" like

• mcpackieh 3y ago
  Why should they settle for lesser protection of the word engineer when they're winning their legal battles to protect the word engineer itself?
  • wand3r 3y ago
    I'm not sure I'd base the nomenclature of society around whether or not The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C can win a lower court legal argument. It's also quite absurd in America where Sam Altman and Elon Musk personally coded tech companies (zip2, loopt) but now are derisively called businessmen and non-technical. Clearly "engineer" has a broad general meaning accepted by society which is clearly more broad than an association can gatekeep.
    • xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
      The intent at least in Canada is that "engineer" should be as guarded as "veterinarian" or "lawyer" or other titles which tend to strictly imply a registered profession. This isn't novel but the status quo, effectively, and until "software engineer" started showing up everywhere the professional engineer associations were pretty consistently successfully defending their exclusivity. I don't think "engineer" has a broad general meaning any more than "veterinarian" in the context of professions. I do think that "software engineer" does have broad general meaning, however.
      • wand3r 3y ago
        Sure but he has a university degree in engineering and was a titled hardware engineer for 9 years. To me, it's kind of like not being able to call yourself a network engineer or sysadmin because your CompTIA certificate expired.
      • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y ago
        From what I can tell, "engineer", as used for denoting someone has been certified in something, is a somewhat recent 20th century trend. Prior to that, engineer was what you called someone who did the thing (I.e. railroad engineer), not the certificate needed. Indeed, having a certificate for engineering at all is a recent invention. So it would seem this ruling goes against historical usage.
        • fl7305 3y ago
          > engineer was what you called someone who did the thing (I.e. railroad engineer), not the certificate needed. Indeed, having a certificate for engineering at all is a recent invention. Umm, no. It is true that train drivers were called "engineers" because they operated an engine. But the title "engineer" goes back much further than that. It comes from "military engineer", where "engine"/"engineer" meant "machine" or "ingenious". Military engineers have been around for a very long time. Around the time when the industrial revolution started, people who worked with non-military engineering started to be called "civil engineers". They mostly worked on building roads and bridges, which is where today's "civil engineer" comes from. But in countries like Sweden, "civil engineer" (civilingenjör) has remained a title for all engineers, not just road/bridge-builders. > having a certificate for engineering at all is a recent invention Not that recent, higher engineering education started in the 1700s in Europe.
      • TheCoelacanth 3y ago
        Seems kind of quixotic for a country of 38 million people to try to maintain a different definition of a common word than the other 400 million native English speakers and >1 billion non-native speakers in the world.
• taneq 3y ago
  Pretty sure the equivalent in Australia is "Chartered Engineer." I knew a guy who spent ages preparing to qualify as a chartered engineer, and then promptly got fired because they'd have to give him a pay raise. That wasn't a great workplace (I quit around the same time) and there was other stuff going on but still... way to inspire the troops.
  • sokoloff 3y ago
    Why would they have to give him a raise? I mean, if they’re willing to fire him, they’d presumably be okay with him quitting.
    • ta988 3y ago
      In some places salaries have to be raised legally because your title is what fixes the minimum.
  • gavinray 3y ago
    In Australia, you have laws that force employers to pay you a minimum wage based on your recognized certifications/credentials? Wild. That's pretty fortunate for employed people (IE, you have a tangible and well-defined path to a specific salary number) but sucks for employers, lol.
    • gunapologist99 3y ago
      >> promptly got fired because they'd have to give him a pay raise Not so great for the people, too... harder to get a job instead of just letting the new standard engineer go to the highest bidder. They might as well make it very hard to fire him to fix that problem, and then they'd could go full circle and be in France: it's so hard for employers to fire you that they never want to take a chance on you in the first place, and then they want to pay you less because you might turn out to be a bad hire. At least you get endless vacations :) Or, just make it easy to hire and fire.. better for everyone.
      • 3y ago
• taysix 3y ago
  For anyone that didn't read the article but reads this: it's only in Alberta and it's tabled legislation. Hasn't passed yet.
  • fl7305 3y ago
    > it's tabled legislation Is it "tabled" as in "stick in a drawer and forget about it", or "tabled" as in "next on the agenda"?
    • hluska 3y ago
      Bill 7 received royal assent in November but Apega has launched an appeal on a ruling by a court.
    • _6ywn 3y ago
      The definition of tabled used is "next on the agenda" (aka definition 1b instead of 1a for the verb at Merriam Webster [1]). Generally, articles about Canada, the United Kingdom, and other Commonwealth countries use the 1b definition, whereas articles about the United States typically use the 1a definition. I can't recall any article about Canadian news in particular, which uses the 1a definition for "tabled." [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/table https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/table
      • fl7305 3y ago
        Thanks. I know the difference between the UK and the US, but wasn't sure about Canada, and above all where the person writing it was from.
    • kmanraj 3y ago
      Canada uses the verb "to table" to mean to place on the agenda, which is the opposite of how it's used in the US, where it means to remove from consideration indefinitely.
      • fl7305 3y ago
• vasco 3y ago
  This is absolutely ridiculous. If I were him I'd start calling myself "trueengineer", designate it a new word and go to court however many times it'd take with ever more trolling variations every time I'd lose. Engyneer, an-gineer, did-everything-except-pay-the-engineering-cartel, guy-that-does-engineering-work, (not)engineer... I think I can do this all day.
  • wjnc 3y ago
    It is pretty much how it works with controllers, accountants, lawyers, professor, actuaries and notaries. The local varieties and rules may differ, but most of them have entry requirements and a professional organization that is allowed to create the exams, administer judgement over peers, hand out titles and withdraw titles. Where I’m from I can call myself an actuary, but not a lawyer, could’ve called myself professor when a child but not anymore since they’ve changed the rules. These are for better or worse, guilds. Guilds give a certain air of quality and come at the cost of peers restricting markets thus raising prices, raising their income and lowering that of all that are obliged to purchase their services. I do like my investments in firms to come with an audited yearly report with some kind of guarantee against malfeasance. I like my notary to know the tax and heritage laws. But I still let my plumber, electrician, car mechanic and gardener do their work without guilds. (Although my car mechanic is part of a chain which offers some semblance of a guild.) When I was younger Milton Freeman was my hero. He was very vocally against these guilds. The market would solve it all. I think it would, but it’s quite probable that the cost for guarantees and insurance would make the average consumer worse off than this strange remainder of the Middle Ages. This is institutional economics and sociology in action right in front of you.
    • ghaff 3y ago
      Some of those are better examples than others. Someone who works as an accountant can probably call themselves an accountant--they just can't call themselves a CPA if they aren't one and may need a CPA to sign off on their work. A notary is someone with a stamp issued by the state. I'm not even sure what defines someone being a professor; they teach at a school of higher ed? There's certainly no legal requirement they have a PhD. But to your broader point, there's various licensing/guilds--some of which is stricter than others. For the most part, engineering is pretty loose which the exception of branches that deal a lot with regulators in particular, like civil engineering.
• nullhole 3y ago
  No, 'software engineer' is not exempt. The article says "Engineer is a protected title in certain contexts in B.C.", and links to the association page, which has this: Software and computer engineering have been designated as disciplines of professional engineering since 1999 and 1998, respectively, and are currently listed as disciplines of professional engineering under the Regulation. Non-registrants are prohibited from using titles like “Software Engineer” or other high-technology-related engineering titles such as “Firmware Engineer”, “Hardware Engineer”, “Data Engineer” because they imply that the individual using them is a registrant and that they are authorized to practice the professions of software or computer engineering in BC. We do, however, recognize that not all software development constitutes software engineering. In some cases, individuals mistakenly use a title like “Software Engineer” when they are not actually engaged in any engineering work. Individuals may have roles more appropriately characterized as a “developer”, “designer”, or “programmer". For more information on software engineering and for help determining whether work constitutes software engineering requiring registration with Engineers and Geoscientists BC, please see our software engineering applicant webpage. https://www.egbc.ca/Complaints-Discipline/Unauthorized-Practice-or-Title/Frequently-Asked-Questions https://www.egbc.ca/Complaints-Discipline/Unauthorized-Pract... Edit: added missing word
  • Buttons840 3y ago
    Are you quoting laws, or the policy of a private organization? It looks like the latter.
    • alephnerd 3y ago
      That private organization is the one that licenses "engineers" in BC. The entire Canadian regulatory system is crazy anachronistic with a bunch of legacy colonial and British cruft. It's like the worst parts of American federalism were mixed with the worst parts of British centralization.
    • abe_m 3y ago
      Engineering societies in Canada are not really private. They are considered self-regulating professions, where the society has an official role regulating their profession. Each of the provinces have enabling legislation that authorizes these societies to create binding regulation within the bounds of the legislation.