Serious question, no sarcasm: what is used as a clear and measurable distinction between a software developer and a software engineer?

There is no meaningful one. If the industry can't make the distinction then it's futile to hope that the government will. Having gone through the visa process, it's simply a case of having the right keywords in your work experience (SQL! Check!) - it's quite possible that those checklist items are different between the two jobs, but any enginner/developer will have sufficient overlap that they'd qualify for both.

Too many uninformed people spreading misinformation. There's clear and measurable difference between a software engineering degree and the one you get from a boot camp. It's exactly as strict and rigorous as you'd expect from a degree in mechanical engineering. In Canada, you get an iron ring when you graduate and after about 4 years, you get a professional engineering license.

Sure, but unfortunately in America that distinction does not exist as there is no rigorous industry-wide standardization process.

For the TN visa, literally just changing the job title sometimes. Even in Canada for example, Shopify gives you a different job title depending whether or not you have a degree to make it easier to get a Canadian work visa.

In fact, in Canada you need to be a licensed engineer to be a "Software Engineer". Companies get around this by just calling you a "Software Developer".

For immigration purposes the distinction centers around the fact that developers 'merely' implement systems and software engineers are expected to design and implement systems. This is based on my experience with the TN status.

In this case, there is a lot of visa fraud out there.

No the problem is that the only job title available to individuals with a Computer Science degree under NAFTA is "Computer System Analyst"

Even though in US a computer scientist can have "Software Engineer" as her title, it's not so easy in Canada. The word 'Engineer' has a very specific definition.

In fact if you get a Software Engineer degree from a Canadian university you'd have to a take a somewhat different set of courses than someone who get a Computer Science degree.

It's over the top bureaucratic semantics in my opinion. Any individual with a CS degree is qualified for anything labeled as Software Engineering in the US or Canada.

and it's clear that the trump administration is going to take a whole new slant on this work visa thing...just like he said he would....

However, "Computer Systems Analysts" are eligible, and the job description is often vague enough that developers fall into it.

and since "engineer" is a protected term in Canada and you can't get a "software engineering" degree (because that's not a real thing) in practice it means that any sort of software job is subject to the whims of a CBP agent that can arbitrarily decide to reject you

Please stop spreading wrong information.

Software engineering is a very real thing. I'm about to finish my BSEng with the iron ring. Unlike computer science, I had to take courses in DSP, ethics, software management and development lifecycles. It is exactly as structured as you'd expect from an electrical engineering degree​.

You can get a software eng degree in canada: http://www.uvic.ca/engineering/software/

Thay goves me hope... I am tn too