this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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How often in the software industry is the title "engineer" a sop to give applicants a flashy title; and how often is there actual engineering involved? When I worked as an engineer some years ago, it seemed inconceivable that software development would become actual engineering because how could the engineering standards of care and professional liability ever be imposed? Today, virtually all software is either privately licensed or open source - there is no such thing as public software infrastructure under the development supervision of a professional software engineer (as far as I know). So I guess Mozilla can call their software developers anything they like, but it seems to be an ongoing cheapening of the engineering title - like why not call this position Chief of Software Surgery? Lead Software Counselor?
Unfortunately the software industry (at least in the US) has applied the term "engineer" basically across the board to software developers instead of only for properly trained and licensed engineers as in other fields (civil engineering, mechanical engineering, etc). Part of this is due to a lack of a formal software engineering licensing system, but the desire for fancy titles is certainly something that played a role in this.
My understanding is that other countries, like Canada, do have strict requirements for the use of the term "engineer", but unfortunately that ship appears to have sailed in the US due to inertia and the intransigence of Silicon Valley-type companies.