I'm a Software Engineer in Canada and I have an iron ring but that is because our Software Engineering programs (at least the ones that I know of) are accredited engineering programs - i.e. you must go through much of the same hell as other engineers.

Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board is the authoritative body as far as I'm aware and in order to title yourself an "Engineer" you need to be a member of your provincial regulatory body since the title "Engineer" is a protected title under law. It isn't really enforced in any way but to call yourself a "Software Engineer" without having P.Eng. in Canada is technically illegal.

EDIT: Its pointed out in a different post that "Engineer" as a protected term is not concrete and varies province to province while "Professional Engineer" or "P.Eng." is however protected.

Software Engineers in Canada can be P.Eng if they choose to. What makes you think she/he's not?

This is correct. I graduated from UBC as a Software Engineer and have applied as an EIT with APEGBC. I haven't followed through to apply for P. Eng. status though as the process is a little more difficult for software folks.

You are supposed to submit work experience under supervision of another P. Eng. which are not very common place in our industry. I believe you can apply for exceptions to this rule though.

I personally haven't bothered following through with my P. Eng. status as I am not yet convinced it buys much in our profession (vs. the other fields of Engineering).

My thoughts are that I'm going to be in this industry for another 30 years if not longer so I want the title to hold and have when I need it. I work directly alongside P.Eng. engineers so its much easier as my work is a lot closer to electronic engineers than most software.

For someone not requiring it there are often provisions on each regulatory body's to get it down the line by providing cases of past work experience validated by a P.Eng. no matter when it happened.

I suppose I am lucky, my immediate supervisors are both P.Eng because of the nature of what we do. I agree though, I don't think it matters much in the software field. I don't have the required amount of work experience yet, but as a Computer Engineer working in and interested in the software field I am on the fence.

There are very many "Software Engineers" that are not actually Engineers though and many job postings looking for a Software Engineer don't actually care if you actually went to an Engineering school. I think that is what that person meant.

Wasn't talking about parent post but rather a more general dump of information. I'm a Canadian Software Engineer myself needing ~11months more experience before I get my P.Eng.

Which school?

A friend of mine made a ring out of little transistors for his girlfriend. They're married now, she even wore it during the wedding.

Wouldn’t a rubber ring be more suitable for a software engineer? It also wouldn’t break that easily :)

I can see it now: two rings, one rubber to represent user requirements, and the other silicon to represent the systems we have to implement those requirements in.

Glass ring encased in rubber, with a label claiming it is exactly as flexible and stretchable as a 100% rubber ring would be.

I am getting somewhat jealous now – people should make wearable cyclic particle accelerators or something like that for those hacking nature rather than mere computers :-)

Diamond made out of isotopically pure carbon-14. Ring laser gyroscope. Negative-refractive-index metamaterial. A single giant LED. Nanolithography to produce structural coloration.

I've wanted a cool physics ring for quite a while.

It also should be able to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow. Clearly, that is a key requirement.

A ring cut from a single crystal of silicon may be strong enough. Regardless, it would look very nice.