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I can't help but notice the irony in pointing out that Software Engineering titles have lost their meaning without addressing the fact that it may be one of the

I can't help but notice the irony in pointing out that Software Engineering titles have lost their meaning without addressing the fact that it may be one of the largest misuses of the title "Engineer" (legally protected in many countries as requiring a professional engineering license by an accredited engineering body) that is in common use today. If the author went a little bit deeper they might be able to make the same arguments about how the title "Engineer" has lost a lot of meaning in the public due to the cavalier attitude with which many organizations throw it around.

judge2020 2y ago
This is because the US does not require this, and the US arguably lead the charge in internet innovation, standards, and commercialization and continues to be the highest paying country for SWE roles. Thus, most discussion is US focused. In other countries like Canada, the title is just s/Engineer/Developer. To add, the author is talking about the levels no longer indicating experience due to level inflation. Not word semantics along the lines of “senior no longer means the oldest on their team”.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
The bureaucracy of protecting titles or jobs with licensing is mostly unnecessary, often regulatory capture, and crippling to innovation.
duped 2y ago
In the US there's no such protection and it's actually a good thing. We have the formal designation of "professional engineer" (PE) but outside of civil and mechanical engineering (and some government work) it's not that meaningful. You have to complete a 4-year degree at an accredited institution, pass some licensing tests, and then apprentice under a licensed PE for four more years before you can earn a PE license. In some states you can't legally call yourself an "engineer" without your PE license but I have never seen it enforced. I live in one such state, I'm not a PE, I call myself an engineer, I've worked with engineers for years, and even the entry level jobs in this state the title is "engineer." No one cares about it and not many people see it as worth much, unless they're doing engineering work for local governments in which case it's required. Not surprisingly, it just makes that work more expensive for everyone involved. Creating barriers to entry that benefit existing players in the market are not good if they don't add value. For certain projects where there is legal liability (like building a bridge, and some human needs to certify it's "good" and if they're wrong, people die), that makes sense. For everyone else it just adds overhead that doesn't need to be there. And given that the US has led the world in engineering for the back half of the 20th century, the attitude that there must be some professional licensing body to tell us who is and is not an engineer is nothing if not smug and elitist. Some of the best software is built by people who would never have become PEs, and the entire establishment is contrary to innovation.
- judge2020 2y ago
  > like building a bridge, and some human needs to certify it's "good" and if they're wrong, people die Even in things like civil engineering jobs, not all of the work is done by the PE, they just need to review it as if it was their own work. Some tech industries taking over critical parts of life could use oversight like that.
  - duped 2y ago
    The ones that matter, do this. In many states if you are building anything for a government or business where lives are at stake, a PE is involved and there's legal liability for the engineers that certify something. But the whole PE thing is nonsense. We can get around this with malpractice policies/insurance and still have a qualified human certifying things, and reasonable bodies rejecting that certification if they don't feel the human that does it is up to snuff. The whole PE dance is just a dog and pony show.
    - mitthrowaway2 2y ago
      Maybe we should be concerned about more than just direct loss of life? What about data leaks, for example? It might be nice if there were some risk that software engineers could lose their license over eg. plaintext passwords, or be protected by a governing body if they need to take a professional ethics stand against their employer.
  - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
    It is practically impossible to get a PE in the defense industry because of the apprenticeship/vouching requirements. If your employer has no PEs, you can't ever qualify for one.
  - beerandt 2y ago
    That, but more to the point, the value of the term is based on the strong history of regulation and common use, which SWEs as an industry have taken advantage of and diminished. Which, I get that not everyone agrees on licensing law and philosophy, but it should at least signify mastery of the topic via formal education or apprenticeship. Most PEs have both of those, engineering degree and licensing internship. How many SWEs have either? I honestly don't know. If you don't have either, you are at best senior technician, which should be respectable enough, but for title inflation.
bruce511 2y ago
I agree, and I'll add more irony... Titles don't intrinsically mean anything. They cost nothing to assign, and have no requirements. So the only people complaining about titles being inflated are those to whom they have "meaning". And the only reason they're being inflated in the first place is because the same folk want "better sounding titles". They're given out like candy to those who want candy.
- conductr 2y ago
  They do mean something on your resume and as social capital. I wouldn’t sell short the actual intrinsic value of having a big title even if it’s fake you can sell it to the next employer. Even if they disagree with giving you the same title, you can use it to justify your comp expectations.
  - bruce511 2y ago
    I'm sure there are people, and companies, impressed by fancy titles. Personally, I go the other way. I don't have a fancy title, and I don't want a fancy title. I don't need a title to earn social credit or impress an interviewer. I have my achievements for that. But of course, to those who are impressed by titles feel free to call yourself anything you like. There are no qualifications or skillsets required.
    - bruce511 2y ago
      My gym instructor describes my pudgy, bald, middle-aged body as "stud". I think I'm gonna update my resume, and linked-in profile to "Stud". I expect that will help in the next interview.
    - prng2021 2y ago
      You’re disconnected from reality. You say titles cost nothing. You really don’t think it costs companies money to progress employees from engineer to senior to staff and so on? You seem to agree title inflation is common and you say fancy titles are given out like candy. If everyone easily gets promotions, what does that say about someone who’s not given such easy candy?
jjtheblunt 2y ago
another vague term is "doctor", as lawyers and education professionals share the same term with practitioners of medicine and so on.
- AdieuToLogic 2y ago
  > another vague term is "doctor" ... The English definition of "doctor" is not a vague term. It has two common usages, both of which share the concept of one having an advanced degree[0]. a person who has earned one of the highest academic degrees (such as a PhD) conferred by a university a person skilled or specializing in healing arts 0 - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doctor https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doctor
  - unscaled 2y ago
    If we go far back to Latin, the original meaning of "doctor" is, in fact, an education professional and has absolutely nothing to do with medicine. In classical Latin, "doctor" is a teacher or a trainer. In Medieval Latin u In (Middle) English, the earliest recorded use of "doctor" was for church fathers in 1303, but you'd find it widely used for teachers and any knowledgeable person - including medical doctors - as the 13th century goes on. The codification of the Doctor of Medicine degree and license seems only started in the 18th century[1], but doctors of theology and law far predated that (somewhere in the 12th century I think). Even the PhD (i.e. doctor of philosophy) degree appears to predate the medical doctor degree by half a century. [1]: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/medicine/mus/ourfacilities/history/18thcentury/ https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/medicine/mus/ourfacilities/his...
- mr_toad 2y ago
  Originally they were all academic titles: Doctor of Law, Theology, Medicine & Arts. At some point an expectation developed that practitioners of medicine actually had some formal qualifications and eventually to most people Doctor became synonymous with Physician.
sojournerc 2y ago
I think, yes and no. Yes, there is no formal standard or certification, and that opens the door for charlatans and sloppy crap. No, designing and implementing software systems well requires planning, fail safes, redundancy and all kind of things "physical" engineers deal with. It may be time to certify to differentiate between script kiddies and the folks managing the software systems that back our modern world.
- tracerbulletx 2y ago
  A lot of the software that built this modern world was created by people who would be disgusted by this credentialist crap.
  - sojournerc 2y ago
    I get it, this is hacker news after all, but it really could be worthwhile for the profession to differentiate between someone who picked up Python for a weekend project, and someone with 30 years experience with real-world systems. Would you get surgery from someone in a back alley? Is that credentialist crap?
    - shermantanktop 2y ago
      The first surgeon had no credentials and no “relevant experience.” And that surgeon probably didn’t do a great job at first. This industry is still within memory of the first digital computers. Now we have lots of rote work, some interesting and novel areas, and a small sliver of wacky innovation. But I think many here cherish that self-image of the self-taught inventor… this is “hacker” news after all. I for one am not ready to give someone undue credibility because of a title or piece of paper.
    - pedrosorio 2y ago
      > differentiate between someone who picked up Python for a weekend project, and someone with 30 years experience with real-world systems Why do you need credentials to differentiate these two?
  - 2y ago
lolinder 2y ago
Hillel Wayne's crossover project [0] is a great read for anyone interested in the question of whether we're really engineers. The tl;dr is that most engineers he interviewed who switch from a licensed engineering discipline to software totally consider software engineering to be just as much an engineering discipline as what they did before, and there are a lot of neat ideas he develops for ways we can learn from each other. Another great resource I've found is Practical Engineering. Listening to his videos it's easy to see how much overlap there is between our ways of thinking and interacting with the world. As for the legal side, as others have noted in most of the US "engineer" in the abstract isn't legally protected. So there's no legal problem with using the title, and engineers who've done both don't consider our practices to be somehow lesser. [0] https://www.hillelwayne.com/tags/crossover-project/ https://www.hillelwayne.com/tags/crossover-project/
aryehof 2y ago
I don't think the irony is in regard to certification, but rather that any software engineer cannot implement any sufficiently complex system in any standard, methodical or predictable way.
cobbal 2y ago
It's even worse. Civil engineers are allowed to create structures that have 0 engines in them! We should restrict the title to its original meaning.
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
I blame this lack of meaning on the overpaid Memetics Engineers who have added the word to just about every possible discipline in a vain attempt to make those disciplines seem important and dignified.

judge2020 2y ago

This is because the US does not require this, and the US arguably lead the charge in internet innovation, standards, and commercialization and continues to be the highest paying country for SWE roles. Thus, most discussion is US focused. In other countries like Canada, the title is just s/Engineer/Developer. To add, the author is talking about the levels no longer indicating experience due to level inflation. Not word semantics along the lines of “senior no longer means the oldest on their team”.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

The bureaucracy of protecting titles or jobs with licensing is mostly unnecessary, often regulatory capture, and crippling to innovation.

duped 2y ago

In the US there's no such protection and it's actually a good thing. We have the formal designation of "professional engineer" (PE) but outside of civil and mechanical engineering (and some government work) it's not that meaningful. You have to complete a 4-year degree at an accredited institution, pass some licensing tests, and then apprentice under a licensed PE for four more years before you can earn a PE license. In some states you can't legally call yourself an "engineer" without your PE license but I have never seen it enforced. I live in one such state, I'm not a PE, I call myself an engineer, I've worked with engineers for years, and even the entry level jobs in this state the title is "engineer." No one cares about it and not many people see it as worth much, unless they're doing engineering work for local governments in which case it's required. Not surprisingly, it just makes that work more expensive for everyone involved. Creating barriers to entry that benefit existing players in the market are not good if they don't add value. For certain projects where there is legal liability (like building a bridge, and some human needs to certify it's "good" and if they're wrong, people die), that makes sense. For everyone else it just adds overhead that doesn't need to be there. And given that the US has led the world in engineering for the back half of the 20th century, the attitude that there must be some professional licensing body to tell us who is and is not an engineer is nothing if not smug and elitist. Some of the best software is built by people who would never have become PEs, and the entire establishment is contrary to innovation.

judge2020 2y ago
> like building a bridge, and some human needs to certify it's "good" and if they're wrong, people die Even in things like civil engineering jobs, not all of the work is done by the PE, they just need to review it as if it was their own work. Some tech industries taking over critical parts of life could use oversight like that.
- duped 2y ago
  The ones that matter, do this. In many states if you are building anything for a government or business where lives are at stake, a PE is involved and there's legal liability for the engineers that certify something. But the whole PE thing is nonsense. We can get around this with malpractice policies/insurance and still have a qualified human certifying things, and reasonable bodies rejecting that certification if they don't feel the human that does it is up to snuff. The whole PE dance is just a dog and pony show.
  - mitthrowaway2 2y ago
    Maybe we should be concerned about more than just direct loss of life? What about data leaks, for example? It might be nice if there were some risk that software engineers could lose their license over eg. plaintext passwords, or be protected by a governing body if they need to take a professional ethics stand against their employer.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  It is practically impossible to get a PE in the defense industry because of the apprenticeship/vouching requirements. If your employer has no PEs, you can't ever qualify for one.
- beerandt 2y ago
  That, but more to the point, the value of the term is based on the strong history of regulation and common use, which SWEs as an industry have taken advantage of and diminished. Which, I get that not everyone agrees on licensing law and philosophy, but it should at least signify mastery of the topic via formal education or apprenticeship. Most PEs have both of those, engineering degree and licensing internship. How many SWEs have either? I honestly don't know. If you don't have either, you are at best senior technician, which should be respectable enough, but for title inflation.

bruce511 2y ago

I agree, and I'll add more irony... Titles don't intrinsically mean anything. They cost nothing to assign, and have no requirements. So the only people complaining about titles being inflated are those to whom they have "meaning". And the only reason they're being inflated in the first place is because the same folk want "better sounding titles". They're given out like candy to those who want candy.

conductr 2y ago
They do mean something on your resume and as social capital. I wouldn’t sell short the actual intrinsic value of having a big title even if it’s fake you can sell it to the next employer. Even if they disagree with giving you the same title, you can use it to justify your comp expectations.
- bruce511 2y ago
  I'm sure there are people, and companies, impressed by fancy titles. Personally, I go the other way. I don't have a fancy title, and I don't want a fancy title. I don't need a title to earn social credit or impress an interviewer. I have my achievements for that. But of course, to those who are impressed by titles feel free to call yourself anything you like. There are no qualifications or skillsets required.
  - bruce511 2y ago
    My gym instructor describes my pudgy, bald, middle-aged body as "stud". I think I'm gonna update my resume, and linked-in profile to "Stud". I expect that will help in the next interview.
  - prng2021 2y ago
    You’re disconnected from reality. You say titles cost nothing. You really don’t think it costs companies money to progress employees from engineer to senior to staff and so on? You seem to agree title inflation is common and you say fancy titles are given out like candy. If everyone easily gets promotions, what does that say about someone who’s not given such easy candy?

jjtheblunt 2y ago

another vague term is "doctor", as lawyers and education professionals share the same term with practitioners of medicine and so on.

AdieuToLogic 2y ago
> another vague term is "doctor" ... The English definition of "doctor" is not a vague term. It has two common usages, both of which share the concept of one having an advanced degree[0]. a person who has earned one of the highest academic degrees (such as a PhD) conferred by a university a person skilled or specializing in healing arts 0 - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doctor https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doctor
- unscaled 2y ago
  If we go far back to Latin, the original meaning of "doctor" is, in fact, an education professional and has absolutely nothing to do with medicine. In classical Latin, "doctor" is a teacher or a trainer. In Medieval Latin u In (Middle) English, the earliest recorded use of "doctor" was for church fathers in 1303, but you'd find it widely used for teachers and any knowledgeable person - including medical doctors - as the 13th century goes on. The codification of the Doctor of Medicine degree and license seems only started in the 18th century[1], but doctors of theology and law far predated that (somewhere in the 12th century I think). Even the PhD (i.e. doctor of philosophy) degree appears to predate the medical doctor degree by half a century. [1]: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/medicine/mus/ourfacilities/history/18thcentury/ https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/medicine/mus/ourfacilities/his...
mr_toad 2y ago
Originally they were all academic titles: Doctor of Law, Theology, Medicine & Arts. At some point an expectation developed that practitioners of medicine actually had some formal qualifications and eventually to most people Doctor became synonymous with Physician.

sojournerc 2y ago

I think, yes and no. Yes, there is no formal standard or certification, and that opens the door for charlatans and sloppy crap. No, designing and implementing software systems well requires planning, fail safes, redundancy and all kind of things "physical" engineers deal with. It may be time to certify to differentiate between script kiddies and the folks managing the software systems that back our modern world.

tracerbulletx 2y ago
A lot of the software that built this modern world was created by people who would be disgusted by this credentialist crap.
- sojournerc 2y ago
  I get it, this is hacker news after all, but it really could be worthwhile for the profession to differentiate between someone who picked up Python for a weekend project, and someone with 30 years experience with real-world systems. Would you get surgery from someone in a back alley? Is that credentialist crap?
  - shermantanktop 2y ago
    The first surgeon had no credentials and no “relevant experience.” And that surgeon probably didn’t do a great job at first. This industry is still within memory of the first digital computers. Now we have lots of rote work, some interesting and novel areas, and a small sliver of wacky innovation. But I think many here cherish that self-image of the self-taught inventor… this is “hacker” news after all. I for one am not ready to give someone undue credibility because of a title or piece of paper.
  - pedrosorio 2y ago
    > differentiate between someone who picked up Python for a weekend project, and someone with 30 years experience with real-world systems Why do you need credentials to differentiate these two?
- 2y ago

lolinder 2y ago

Hillel Wayne's crossover project [0] is a great read for anyone interested in the question of whether we're really engineers. The tl;dr is that most engineers he interviewed who switch from a licensed engineering discipline to software totally consider software engineering to be just as much an engineering discipline as what they did before, and there are a lot of neat ideas he develops for ways we can learn from each other. Another great resource I've found is Practical Engineering. Listening to his videos it's easy to see how much overlap there is between our ways of thinking and interacting with the world. As for the legal side, as others have noted in most of the US "engineer" in the abstract isn't legally protected. So there's no legal problem with using the title, and engineers who've done both don't consider our practices to be somehow lesser. [0] https://www.hillelwayne.com/tags/crossover-project/ https://www.hillelwayne.com/tags/crossover-project/

aryehof 2y ago

I don't think the irony is in regard to certification, but rather that any software engineer cannot implement any sufficiently complex system in any standard, methodical or predictable way.

cobbal 2y ago

It's even worse. Civil engineers are allowed to create structures that have 0 engines in them! We should restrict the title to its original meaning.

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

I blame this lack of meaning on the overpaid Memetics Engineers who have added the word to just about every possible discipline in a vain attempt to make those disciplines seem important and dignified.