It is not a protected title in the U.S., China, or India, and yet you could say those are three countries most responsible for writing the software that the rest of the world uses. I would argue there is some connection.
It is easy to see how gatekeeping is particularly valuable for those with the means to distinguish themselves. But for the rest of us, people who want to work on or consume a product, does a field benefit more from having an open gate or closed?
If the title is backed by professional standards, standards by which someone can lose the title and be held legally liable, then I can see the gatekeeping as valuable. If it is used to restrict who can write software, then I would see it as detrimental.
That seems like the best way to parse the issue. To push back on my earlier point, some kind of standards enforcing mechanism doesn't have to be exclusionary as long as the path to earning the credential is open to everyone. It is probably more important now than it has ever been, since anyone can produce code now without understanding it.
The use of engineer as a title is endemic in some industries that don’t involve software. A mechanical superintendent at a drilling company I worked for like to refer to (drilling) mud “engineers” as mud salesmen because they were always trying to sell you more product.
You only need a P.E license if you are going to perform certain specific tasks. For example, in some jurisdiction, plans for a building above a certain height or floor size must be signed by a licensed P.E.
Not all engineering disciplines are covered by a P.E exam.
> I believe in some European countries you’re not allowed to call yourself any kind of “Engineer” without being a member of a professional body?
> So ironically if that was the case Margaret Hamilton would not have been allowed to coin the term
Had she been in Europe, she would not have been a part of the Apollo project, something so cutting edge it required new disciplines to be invented like Software Engineering, for the term to be coined in the first place.
At the time it was mostly hardware engineers who did this, along with people with math background (especially discreete math). Most of the cutting edge applications for computers were in numerical simulation for engineering, so most software engineers would have been electrical/electronics engineers.
There have been accredited Software Engineering programs in Canada for more than 20 years now.
I believe in some European countries you’re not allowed to call yourself any kind of “Engineer” without being a member of a professional body?
So ironically if that was the case Margaret Hamilton would not have been allowed to coin the term