August 21, 2002
California engineers?

This is the second time I ran into someone whining and complaining about software engineers calling themselves that. This person claims in California there is a law that states you may not use the title "engineer" unless you are state licensed.

I could only find one law that referenced something like this and it states that you may not call yourself a 'consulting' 'professional' or 'registered' engineer unless you're state-licensed and only applies to mechanical, electrical and civil engineering professions.

Now if it were true that a title of 'engineer' is only limited to licensed engineers, wouldn't 75% of Silly-con Valley be breaking this law right now?

Why do people have such a chip on their shoulders about this.. it's just a title.. who cares? I'd rather have the title of "Java Goddess" than "Software Engineer" anyway.... now if only I could convince my boss to go along..

Posted August 21, 2002 11:35 AM in Random
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Comments
On August 21, 2002 12:24 PM Dan de Isaacs added:

Engineers take great pride in being better than others. Like PHDs. And nothing pisses them off more than some punk with a peirced glans and purple chest hair who wouldn't know a slide-rule if you slapped upside the head with it calling himself an "engineer", just because he designed something.

Code is more art than engineering. Actually, most of it is less art than it is the greatest form of flattery.

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On August 21, 2002 02:27 PM Jeremy Zawodny added:

Coding may be an art, but designing (the stuff that happens *before* you code (or should, at least) is more like engineering.

And, yes, I like my nested parens. :-)

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On August 21, 2002 02:49 PM Steve added:

Those parens don't look matched to me unless you consider the smiley to have one of them.

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On August 21, 2002 06:27 PM Steve added:

At my old company, my partner got me business cards that had "Resident Wizard" - it was a fun title.

But I'm not sure why people should be so willing to give the government such power to define who people are.

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On August 21, 2002 07:35 PM kasia added:

When I was a sys-admin, my official title was MIS Manager (yuck, I know.. I know..) for a while my first set of business cards had Mis. Manager on them :)

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On August 22, 2002 08:38 PM tmpchaos added:

Got that right, didn't they...

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On August 23, 2002 11:13 PM PopeMatt added:

I've heard the "more art than engineering/science/whatever" line applied to just about everything under the sun. It seems like the top end of any field winds up being art.

My personal experience with the title-obsessed is that most of the people who are very uptight about their title are the people who are hiding behind it.

I'm a "software engineer" because it's what management has decided to call us, I don't care what the title is as long as it is understandable to other people and isn't fundamentally offensive (e.g. "Convicted Felon" wouldn't be an acceptable title, whereas "Programmer" would).

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On September 12, 2003 09:53 AM mark added:

the first comment is correct the departemnt of consumer afairs spells out that you can use the title except for three types. i would love to meet an engineer that strived to be better than all of us folk. so far all i have found is crooks. they wont talk to you unless they get half up front they promise a couple of weeks and months later you discover he has not looked at it we refuses to return any of your money and claims he did hours of work but cant provide you with any of it. i am on my 4th one i know have one that stamped my plans and failed to date it. dating the stamp is part of requirement. what a joke for a profession. as far as the actual work they do in res. construction they get paied to we have tables that show what size mat. to use for diffrent spans but only the engineer can read them i guess. pissed off in calif.

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