Re:Programmers should not call themselves engineers (2015)
by ggm on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @11:38PM
(#37231576)
This is very dependent on where you study. British and Australian chartered engineering councils signed off on giving software engineers professional standing under charter, some time ago. it incurs costs, (CPD, amongst other things, and external degree compliance assessment) as well as consequences (professional indemnity, obligations in law for certain functional tasks undertaken in-role as an engineer)
It's true the generic field of software engineering has some bogus stuff, but the actual quality of "you have standing against a professional board assessment" is actually there, and valuable (in my opinion)
"You shouldn't call yourself a software engineer if you aren't chartered" might be a better take on it.
My degree (1982) in computer science missed out on charter status by a year. I could have up-lifted but I was lazy. I do regret this sometimes. I would love to have been an engineer, purely as a personal achievement. I kept membership of the BCS until pretty much this year. Engineers in the BCS get a distinct grade of membership, with all the CPD and indemnity stuff, I was just a member.
Humerous aside: There is a worshipful company of computer professionals in the UK, with official livery, and an order of prescedence in the Lord Mayor's dinner, against the cutlers, the butchers, the goldsmiths. They do good works, Charity, and advance the cause of computer science. This is distinct from the British Computer Society.
It's true the generic field of software engineering has some bogus stuff, but the actual quality of "you have standing against a professional board assessment" is actually there, and valuable (in my opinion)
"You shouldn't call yourself a software engineer if you aren't chartered" might be a better take on it.
My degree (1982) in computer science missed out on charter status by a year. I could have up-lifted but I was lazy. I do regret this sometimes. I would love to have been an engineer, purely as a personal achievement. I kept membership of the BCS until pretty much this year. Engineers in the BCS get a distinct grade of membership, with all the CPD and indemnity stuff, I was just a member.
Humerous aside: There is a worshipful company of computer professionals in the UK, with official livery, and an order of prescedence in the Lord Mayor's dinner, against the cutlers, the butchers, the goldsmiths. They do good works, Charity, and advance the cause of computer science. This is distinct from the British Computer Society.