News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Switching to software engineering after 5 years in data science. Parent comment

Re:Switching to software engineering after 5 years in data s... by Bingaloopa on Friday December 30, 2022 @01:19PM (#34187993)
Software Engineer and Software Developer are used interchangeably for the most part and I don't think you can really get any meaningful distinction just by the name (in most countries at least).

Some countries (Canada I think being one?) may require you be licensed/registered with an engineering body before you're allowed to call yourself an engineer, but thats not the case in most countries AFAIK

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Switching to software engineering after 5 years in data s... by Waterluvian on Friday December 30, 2022 @01:31PM (#34188177)
Indeed. A worked at a Canadian company that got a legal nastygram from the professional association saying to stop calling us engineers.

Then I started working for an American company that was like shrug no laws against that.

I just can’t say professional engineer.

The whole thing makes a ton of sense when we’re building bridges or airplane safety rated computer systems, but not so much when building websites or whatnot.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Switching to software engineering after 5 years in data s... by eddsh1994 on Friday December 30, 2022 @01:55PM (#34188496)
I work on critical software and have the 'engineer' label, but do have a nagging feeling it's less structured than 'normal' engineering disciplines. I'm taking a part-time BEng to see if that's the case though!
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Switching to software engineering after 5 years in data s... by Sephr on Friday December 30, 2022 @02:23PM (#34188860)
You can definitely call yourself a professional software engineer in the US.
[ Parent | on HN ]