One more thought - I am not sure we want to go down this route, but organizing into professional trade organizations (I hesitate to call it a union) could provide for "licensed/certified" software engineers/etc. to help distinguish.

I know we have plenty of professional certifications, but I don't know of one as general as this which exists yet and has any true merit. I think the IEEE was working on something like this.

I really appreciate your train of thought on this subject, because I can tell you've got a pragmatic, inclusive desire in mind. Hopefully my little bit on guitarists/guitar players in this thread kind of aligns. I just wanted to respond because in guitar, there are top 1% players. Chet Atkins was one of the undisputed greats, and he used to bestow upon people the term "Certified Guitar Player" to convey his approval and admiration. If you'd like to see what he meant, feel free to check out some live work by Tommy Emmanuel, a CGP according to Chet. Since Chet has passed away, I don't think anybody feels it's their role to take his place giving people the term, but it remains a very highly regarded professional distinction!

I think what you said both here and in your post are very valuable additions indeed.

To me what it feels like you're saying is - when you are truly an "expert", it is more likely that you can identify/recognize other "experts" - or even people with that potential.

When I look at my own skills, I try to rate myself honestly on the following scale with regards to some particular skill: expert, professional or amateur.

Expert is a guru-level understanding. If I say that I am an expert, I am saying I think I am as good as the top x% (where x is maybe 1-10) in a particular skill. For me, I pretty much never rate myself as this in any skill!

Professional is practiced, practical, hands-on real world skill. You've honed this skill, you've been formally trained, you've employed this skill successfully in a repeated, demonstrated way.

Amateur is a hobby, done it a few times, do it for fun or would like to do it/get better at it level of experience.

I observed that in traditional skilled tradesmanship, we have the apprentice, who progresses to the journeyman, who progresses to the master craftsman. These are the same levels of what I mean by amateur, professional and expert.

I don't know why our industry seems to reject some of these concepts from skilled trades in terms of organizing into better/stronger professional trade organizations and certifications.

Actually, the way we often talk about coding as a "craft", it's almost like we would feel a lot better with a formal organization and such a career progression/structure in place.

We have our 1%'ers in the software community, our gurus/experts/master craftsman. I often think of these as the core contributing past and current "fathers" and "mothers" of our industry, people ranging anywhere from Ada Lovelace to Vint Cerf. Reality is, those core thinkers are probably where many of us learn from anyway - that and "hacking/tinkering" which is what many of us do and can still lead to progress too.

To me it's all connected, but something about our community always holds us back... maybe there it is the element of not wanting to be forced into structure either. After all, the "hacker" ethos is also a source of our strength, and part of the art.

I looked at going that route in the UK but the BCS /IEEE kept changing the rules for pre existing experience.

And as someone said its more about who you know not what you know.

I take MCSE more seriously than MBCS, and I'm far from alone...

Right, but the point being, that if you have to interview AND REJECT upwards of 100 candidates, sifting through countless resumes that misrepresent themselves, and fail to meet the needs of the role being hired for, there's no other way to bridge the painfully evident gap in communications.

You have to send the message, and be clear about it.

Developers have responsibilities. Serious obligations that can cause harm when not met properly.

You don't want to hire someone, and plunge them into the deep end, get them into a situation where they're in over their heads, and then have it end in tears, because you were uncomfortable about hurting someone's feelings up front.

I agree, it is the responsibility of the community to define the standards they wish to represent and be judged by. The message is valuable if it helps people navigate the community or make decisions about how to represent themselves.

Sending the message might help dissuade some people from misrepresenting, but those who choose to misrepresent may likely do so regardless.

Of course the community wants to be inclusive as possible, even if it means appropriating titles they have no business associating with.

Like a former salesperson at a startup with a few months of fumbling around with jquery documentation who calls himself an "engineer."

I agree there is a challenge here, with misrepresentation or misappropriation of skill levels. Trust but verify?

Still, let's find a solution as a community. How do we make it easier for people to enter the profession and leave the barrier for entry low while also making it easier for those in the profession to prove their skill-level and commitment to a specific track of the craft?

A few ideas:

1) A public list of recognized job titles (think of an employment bureau catalog or else) that defines the job description by an authority. At least a reference that most would pay attention to.

2) A unified training program for each branch (or developers in question) outlining the required skills or targets for developers

3) A WordPress.org profile that showcases the work in a better manner - think of a GitHub/LinkedIn version in the WordPress context

I also wouldn't necessarily vouch for a licensing program (probably commercial/financial interests), but some standardization and guidelines could help immensely and solve various problems for employers, clients, expert and beginner developers, site builders, even users.