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Weird. I call myself a developer because I don't have an engineering degree from an abet certified engineering program. I recognize, in some capacity, that thi

Weird. I call myself a developer because I don't have an engineering degree from an abet certified engineering program. I recognize, in some capacity, that this isn't the norm and in the US "professional engineer" is protected and not simply "engineer", but it feels akin to stolen valor to me.

borski 4mo ago
If there were a license in the US for it, I’d agree with you. But as is, if you are “doing” engineering, you’re an engineer. If you are a licensed engineer of some kind, you’d state that outright. The equivalent of stolen valor would be claiming to be a licensed software engineer; except there is no such license so it would also be fraud, misrepresentation, etc. (I know this is different elsewhere)
- VonGallifrey 4mo ago
  > If there were a license in the US for it, I’d agree with you. Yeah, that is basically the thing in my country. You can't call yourself an engineer without passing a test, but I can't take it because there isn't one for software engineering. Same thing for freelancing. Freelance jobs are defined in a list, and other jobs cannot benefit from the simplified tax rules that freelancers enjoy, but that list was written before software development was a thing.
bilbo0s 4mo ago
I'm a software dev in the US and I never call myself "engineer" in that capacity. Always "programmer" or "developer". I agree. Engineers have to clear a much higher bar. Even though my career was spent in medical diagnostic software where we had to get 510k clearance, I was still keenly aware that this was a fundamentally different activity from actual engineering.
- whstl 4mo ago
  I'm an electrical engineer that moved to software engineering and there's a lot of commonalities between what I do now and what I did previously as an electrical engineer. The bar might seem high, but that's the only way I know how to work, honestly. On the other hand, with the modern division of labour in a lot of companies and with the rhetoric I see here in HN and in other places: a lot of developers are indeed not even close to being engineers.
traderj0e 4mo ago
I call myself a computer programmer unless someone is asking for my official job title (software engineer)
madduci 4mo ago
I call myself engineer because I have also an engineering degree. But yeah, the term is mostly misused

borski 4mo ago

If there were a license in the US for it, I’d agree with you. But as is, if you are “doing” engineering, you’re an engineer. If you are a licensed engineer of some kind, you’d state that outright. The equivalent of stolen valor would be claiming to be a licensed software engineer; except there is no such license so it would also be fraud, misrepresentation, etc. (I know this is different elsewhere)

VonGallifrey 4mo ago
> If there were a license in the US for it, I’d agree with you. Yeah, that is basically the thing in my country. You can't call yourself an engineer without passing a test, but I can't take it because there isn't one for software engineering. Same thing for freelancing. Freelance jobs are defined in a list, and other jobs cannot benefit from the simplified tax rules that freelancers enjoy, but that list was written before software development was a thing.

bilbo0s 4mo ago

I'm a software dev in the US and I never call myself "engineer" in that capacity. Always "programmer" or "developer". I agree. Engineers have to clear a much higher bar. Even though my career was spent in medical diagnostic software where we had to get 510k clearance, I was still keenly aware that this was a fundamentally different activity from actual engineering.

whstl 4mo ago
I'm an electrical engineer that moved to software engineering and there's a lot of commonalities between what I do now and what I did previously as an electrical engineer. The bar might seem high, but that's the only way I know how to work, honestly. On the other hand, with the modern division of labour in a lot of companies and with the rhetoric I see here in HN and in other places: a lot of developers are indeed not even close to being engineers.

traderj0e 4mo ago

I call myself a computer programmer unless someone is asking for my official job title (software engineer)

madduci 4mo ago

I call myself engineer because I have also an engineering degree. But yeah, the term is mostly misused