The degree is part of the training of an engineer, not the professional designation itself. The challenge with our current understanding of the title software engineer is that practitioners are not held to the same standards and responsibilities as other engineering fields. It doesn't have anything to do with talent.

You can only be held to some standards if there exist a common set of standards that the entire industry can agree on. This is impossible for software.

* not held to any standards and responsibilites.

FTFY.

Cynically, Me.

> talent counts more than a degree

Are you saying for MD or PE that talent doesn't matter?

Anybody can say they are a software engineer. The title means nothing.

Yes. A degree matters much more than talent. If you can get a degree you can practice. The most talented person in the world with no degree can't.

Some people go to places where their low talent but high cash flow allows them to get a license.

Okay, so for an MD a degree is necessary that's true. But an MD with a degree and no talent probably won't be an MD for long.

MD at least means something. "Software engineer" means nothing.

Once you are an MD unless you challenge powerful forces in your association or hospital you are free to practice bad medicine as long as you can stay within some reasonable guidelines around billing and when to order tests. This gets exposed with surgery but is a lot easier with a GI doctor.

They both mean something. You have to dive in to get the real scope regardless. If you just need a title for your commerical MD would carry more weight around diet products and a developer around a new software offering.

There are a lot of incurious paint-by-numbers doctors in the US. Doing your job by rote won't get you fired.

Oddly enough, I don't think I'd care to visit a medical professional whose sole virtue was talent. I'd kinda prefer some knowledge and skill, too.

It surely does, e.g. in Portugal you can't even name a Software Engineering degree without approval from the Order.

You are not required to do the exam, provided there is no civil liability or signing projects as the legally responsible Software/Informatics Engineering.

>Well, yes, this applies to engineering. But not to software engineering.

Good luck with that here.

What's talent got to do with it?