There is no PE for software engineering last I checked a few years ago. I was actually quite interested in becoming one for the specific reason I was getting pissed at not being able to reject clearly unethical work in a way that would stick or propagate out to a professional network.
If anyone can point me in the direction of anything having changed in that regard, I'd be much obliged if you drop a reply.
The difference here is that doctors are making the decisions. Developers are generally pressured or overridden by the business they work for.
Re:Ask HN: Is Your Job Ethical?
by ThrowawayR2 on Friday July 09, 2021 @03:26PM
(#27787554)
Doctors are under pressure by insurers and hospital administrators constantly.
That's usually for number of patients seen or policies, not for changing their diagnoses. If they are changing diagnoses or other medical decisions, then it is highly unethical.
Developers are often told what technologies they can use, when it needs to be done by, and much more. The business logic in the system is generally dictated by the business. There's very little the developer has strategic control over. We're really just implementating someone else's ideas.
Beyond that, most people, even on HN, wouldn't qualify to become a programmer PE and they know it. So every time it's brought up, there's a huge outcry about "gatekeeping", even though the quality of software and the frequency of security breaches and data thefts indicates that the gate does indeed need to be kept.
At some point, much like medical malpractice eventually led to licensing for doctors, I predict that the severity of security breaches is going to get to a tipping point where it will happen.