Re:North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about...
by s1artibartfast on Saturday June 19, 2021 @06:31PM
(#27565106)
Yes, Licensing boards should get to decide who carries a license, but the customer should decide if they want a licensed engineer.
Customers/employers usually seek professional licensure for as a lazy stopgap against outright fraud for work with poor oversight and high liability. This is why PE's are predominately required for government and civil infrastructure.
For example, It takes a PE to certify a handrail on a municipal bus, while a company could design and sell a neurosurgical robot without a single PE.
In this specific case, if a court and jury don't find a PE license to confer meaningful credibility over someone without, then that seems to be a problem for the licensing board, not the person providing testimony, or the client who hired them.
"Register as a professional engineer, jerk."
If you've done actual engineering work for 20+ years, getting a PE is neither that hard nor that expensive and confers quite a bit of legal protection as well.
If your cause-du-jour isn't worth taking the time to go get a PE, perhaps you don't believe in it very much.
As for the vast hordes of HN who think they're a software "engineer" because they can open Visual Studio Code, go pass the the FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) exam and get back to me. Every professional engineer has passed that exam. If you can't muster up that much effort, why should we call you "engineer"?
> Is giving a speech about how to treat a broken bone considered ‘practicing medicine’?
Quite possibly. And what happens when that speech gives the WRONG treatment for a broken bone?
> Who gets to decide the answer.
Generally the licensing board for precisely the reason I gave above.