It is a protected title in Canada, requiring a license, but not in the United States.

In the US, the title "Professional Engineer" is roughly equivalent and similarly requires a license.

adding to what you said, in the US the requirements of a professional engineering license varies by state;

but there has also been recent litigation and a court has ruled that having a degree from an engineering school in an engineering discipline entitles one to use the term https://reason.com/2019/01/02/judge-confirms-that-oregon-eng...

the reason for the requirement and confusion is essentially building codes and other government regulations: if you want to build or repair a building, you need to hire people to certify the work as meeting building codes; those people need licenses. But at the same time, a company can hire a bunch of fresh engineering graduates to work a such a project and not every one of them needs a license. Unfortunately, we just have the one word engineer that applies to both. "Licensed engineer" would be a clearer distinction than "Professional engineer"

The thinking in Canada is that engineer brings with it liability for the work so programmers don't use it here. It offends engineers if you use that word in your title. The only exception I've seen is electrical engineers that of course have a fair bit of coding. But I don't think I've seen them really use it much in their programming job descriptions even though they wear the engineering ring.

I have a MA of fine Arts. And a certification to do work on the German electrical grid.

I also am the best programmer in the whole IT department and the only one who has no CS background.

That's more common than you think. A respectable company Thoughtworks hired this way and boot camped and mentored people well the first couple years of their careers. I always like looking at the code and working with projects from their teams. Communication, working nicely with others, humility and the soft skills help you build a network so that when you need help you don't spin your wheels.

The bigO crowd will disagree but even the hard core comp sci types will go much further with real soft skills.

They're supposed to. Do all 'software engineers' have professional engineer credentials? Probably not.

I do have an electronic engineering degree.

I do, but I had the impression that those are a bit expensive in other countries.