this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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The article is pretty short so it's hard to tell, but I know in other cases there can be a significant difference between whether or not you say you're an engineer when you make these claims.
The term engineer is effectively a trademark controlled by a state licensing board. They want to protect the word engineer so it's clear to the public when someone is speaking as a professional licensed engineer vs not. Overall, this is a good thing and a direct response to specific and numerous very bad things that have happened in the past.
However, this has also resulted in some very awkward situations because the word engineer has almost become a genericized trademark in that there are many people who have the word engineer in their job title but do not have or need a professional engineer's license.
Based on the fact the guy won the case, I'm going to assume he wasn't substantially misrepresenting his qualifications. The headline is very sensationalized though and the article is lacking any detail, so I don't know how relevant this little anecdote is but I find it interesting.
As a licensed engineer, you are overselling what it means to be licensed. We do not use it as a trademark. It is more a restriction on using it in making design decisions that could impact public health and safety, and in particular, approving plans for such designs.
Really only civil/structural engineers pursue licensing routinely (although a few other branches that deal with major construction, like HVAC/plumbing branches of mechanical engineering). The vast majority of engineers are not licensed, but so long as you at not practicing in one of those areas restricted by law and regulation, you are fine. And certainly offering opinions and criticism of the design decisions of others is never forbidden. This case was ridiculous
Precisely this. I am an electrical engineer. I was told in school not to stress about the FE exam unless I was a civil engineer. Or I was planning on designing high power equipment. I guess am an electrical engineer technically but these days I also work as a software engineer as well.
I feel that engineer is shoehorned into a lot of job titles nowadays... But I also now work in software engineering. I have a degree in CS as well as degrees and certs in cybersecurity.
Should I need to be licensed by the State to discuss the lack of cybersecurity in systems?
If anything, my studies, and application of project management pay more benefits than my CS certifications and degrees. SMEs really lack the ability to explain to management how it costs more to screw around and half ass some fantastic plan than to, you know, just get minimum viable product going then integrate improvements.
Previously I worked with aircraft where safety is written in blood. Yet in software dev I still have a hard time convincing people to provide a software bill of materials even though it's required. It's still the wild west. Even when DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas termed "killware" only a few took notice.
I guess what I'm saying is that we care more about Netflix uptime than we care about if water treatment plants or infrastructure that could literally kill people if it fails insecure.
The problem is qualified people already built a lot of the systems that are either no longer secure or no longer up to the task post IoT and climate change. How do we admit that qualifications aren't the problem? The problem is lack of continued penetration, stress, fail safe, or regression testing!
Sounds like something a word engineer would say
In a lot of cases, the use of engineer as a protected title has been given up due to various reasons, with only professional engineer being protected.
And the title of this article is blatantly misrepresenting the case. The issue isn't talking about the math, but getting in that legal gray area where the public could think he is a professional engineer making these claims.
Is it? My tile is "Field service engineer", but I only have on the job training, and an environmental science degree. I know another guy with my title who has no degree. I know it's obviously a different job than a ME or EE, but still officially has engineer in the title.
I have engineer in my title, I work in software, and there kind of is a PE available for software but it's actually just an EE license with maybe half a dozen software questions tacked on. I've never heard of anyone in software actually getting it. It's slightly more common in EE and ME, and I think a lot more common in civil and structural engineering.
I don't know how aggressively state engineering boards actually enforce their hold on the word "engineer", but I still try to be careful. The last thing I want is to get sued for misrepresenting qualifications.
My understanding is "I was a", "former", or "retired" are fine. Same situation as any other licensed profession, like doctor.