No, no one took the PE exam for software engineering because it was effectively impossible.
To become a PE, first the candidate has to pass one of the Fundamentals of Engineering exam to become an engineer-in-training. Except, whoops, there wasn't ever a software specific FE exam; the most relevant one is the EE/Comp. E. exam. Take a look at the list of topics: https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Ele-CBT-specs.pdf. Most developers aren't going to pass that even with a CS degree.
Secondly, you need 4-8 years of job experience while supervised by a licensed engineer. Again, whoops, there are barely any software developers with a PE license, so who would they get to supervise them?
Only then do you get to take the PE exam for software engineering and become a licensed professional engineer. Frankly, the situation was so absurd that one has to suspect that NSPE didn't want to certify software developers as PEs.
https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/software/
But nobody was interested.
https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineerin...
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I've interviewed software developers who have on their resume "Oracle Java 8 certified", but aren't able to name three different spots where the static keyword appears in Java or the situations where they'd be used.
There are certainly many possible reasons why someone wouldn't retain that knowledge, but I've encountered far too many candidates claiming mid or senior level experience with "enhanced" resumes and certifications from everywhere that are not able to satisfactory do more than follow instructions (e.g. not able to determine steps needed to complete tasks nor able to solve the larger problems and break them down into tasks).
So, with the resume and certifications not things that I have confidence in, asking those questions to try to figure out if the person is able to approach solving a novel problem is what gets asked. If other companies do the same, then that candidate will likely see similar lines of questions in each place.