In medieval Europe, many professions were under the control of guilds. These had a monopoly over that profession in their particular city or state, backed up with all the legal power of the monarch. If you weren’t in the guild you couldn’t practice your craft. Except in a few ossified forms they are a thing of the past, but we have to wonder whether that particular message ever reached Western Canada.
An electoral candidate with an engineering degree who practices what any sane person would call engineering, has been ordered by a judge to cease calling himself an engineer. The heinous crime committed by the candidate, one [David Hilderman], is to not be a member of the guild Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C. We get it that maybe calling a garbage truck driver a waste collection engineer may be stretching it a little, but here in the 21st century we think the Canadian professional body should be ashamed of themselves over this case. Way to encourage people into the engineering profession!
Here at Hackaday, quite a few of us writers are engineers. Stepping outside our normal third person, I, [Jenny List], am among them. My electronic engineering degree may be a little moth-eaten, but I have practiced my craft over several decades without ever being a member of the British IEE. No offence meant to the IEE, but there is very little indeed they have to offer me. If the same is true in Canada to the extent that they have to rely on legal sanctions to protect their membership lists, then we think perhaps the problem is with them rather than Canadian engineers. You have to ask, just how is an engineering graduate who’s not a guild member supposed to describe themselves? Some of us need to know, in case we ever find ourselves on holiday in Canada!
Header: Joe Gratz, CC0.
Why should engineering graduates have exclusive claim over the title Engineer anyways? The Corps of Royal Engineers employed Military Engineers 200 years before APEGA/APEGS claimed the term.
Most discussion of this case I’ve seen has concluded it has significant political motivations.
This whole article comes from a place of absolutely stunning ignorance.
In the olden days in Canada ANYONE could practice engineering work and the result was a series of catastrophes with a real and significant cost in human blood. As a result, throughout the whole of Canada there are now stringent requirements that must be met for someone to do engineering work or call themselves an engineer. Indeed, it is the rest of the world, particularly the USA who lack any meaningful regulations at all, who are far behind.
To do engineering work you have to meet three main requirements: 1) have a degree from a reputable university 2) have worked under another engineer for the required amount of time to ensure you didn’t just cheat your way through your schoolwork to a fancy piece of paper 3) pass an exam demonstrating knowledge of the law (similar to a bar exam, but much easier) This guy doesn’t meet those requirements, so he doesn’t get to do engineering work or call himself an engineer.
All the rest of this about kings and guilds is pure BS. This isn’t a royal guild, quite the opposite. The profession regulates itself, instead of being overseen by a government body.
The next time some random hackaday author decides to call another countries’s engineering regulations backwards they would do well to do the bare minimum of research.
There’s a difference between calling yourself an engineer and calling yourself a chartered / certified engineer or claiming a particular level of qualification that you don’t have.
Some amazing engineers throughout history were self-taught and utterly unqualified, as long as everyone knows the situation there’s no problem – sometimes you need the self-taught genius to come up with an innovative solution, but you also need the qualified chartered guy to run the calculations on it so it doesn’t fall down.
You can, for #1 prove equivalency to an engineering degree through a series of tests. So self-taught people, can also be part of the engineering profession. The system is quite good, it works, it’s self-regulated (engineers make up the governing body, not the GVT, engineers make the rules/requirements/code of ethics, heck we now have a mandatory continuous learning program in my province with various ways of meeting criteria.). You can call yourself an engineering graduate, an analyst, designer, developer etc but unless you have your engineering stamp to approve (and take liability) for work, you can’t call yourself an engineer.
I’m curious if you can name any of these equivalency programs? I’ve been an electronics technician for more than 10 years and am interested in looking into it.
I think we can all agree that Mr. Scott is an engineer in spite of being non-existent. Ms. List is not an engineer nor a blacksmith.
He is an engineering graduate, not an engineer.
Calling yourself an “engineer” in Canada is exactly like calling yourself a “chartered accountant” – both are regulated terms reserved for members of a self regulated profession. The profession is regulated and the term is reserved in order to protect the public.
By calling yourself an engineer in Canada you are claiming a particular level of qualification.
The term may not be regulated in other places, but it is in Canada.
Reserved titles
4 For the purposes of section 51 (1) (a) [reserved titles] of the Act, the following titles are reserved for the exclusive use of registrants:
(a) “professional engineer”;
(b) “professional engineering licensee”;
(c) “engineer in training”.
Reserved practice
5 (1) For the purposes of section 51 (1) (b) [reserved practice] of the Act, the practice of professional engineering, as it relates to matters that, having regard to the protective purposes, require the experience or technical knowledge of a professional engineer or professional engineering licensee, is a reserved practice that may only be carried out by or under the supervision of a registrant.
“protective purposes” means the safety, health and welfare of the public, including the protection of the environment and the promotion of health and safety in the workplace.
Dude was designing consumer audio products that would require UL/CSA safety certification in lieu of any sort of P.Eng stamp. He wasn’t designing bridges or buildings. Zero public safety or health risk. EGBC has steered way out of their lane (and their expertise)
Just think about it. It’s all about legal liability. You wouldn’t let an unlicense medical graduate treating anyone with serious illness. Why would you let someone who isn’t licensed as an engineer to certify any design that is safety critical or potentially dangerous to the general public?
Also being in Canada, one has to consider the *very* considerable volume of immigration and the impact that has on the quality of a professional standing.
Don’t for one second confuse the rigor and excellence of Canadian Engineering education (and demonstrating that learned knowledge through a certification process) with the lower engineering standards and education taught in other geographies.
Of course there will always be exceptions and examples that don’t fit the standard and classification. But if rather have the vast majority of engineers working to a higher standard, vs taking short cuts and needlessly endangering lives. Unfortunately, the internet gives platform for those exceptions to be sensationalized. You really ought to search YouTube for engineering fails to get a quick sense of how badly things go in real life.
There are some truly excellent colleges/universities in the cold white north (home of the loonie) just as there are in other lands. There are also many truly brilliant people in the world, irrespective of their degree. A certain German patent clerk comes to mind, as does an Indian taxi driver.
In middle Earth (N America) we have a designation, Professional Engineer. They can “stamp” things, which government will take as certification of ?safety?. Much like a licensed architect.
Found the Canadian! How do you know what the iron ring on a Canadian Engineer’s writing pinky is? Don’t worry, he’ll tell you.
Chartered engineer is to protect people not member. The iron ring is to help the engineer that when putting his signature on a documents and projects he become legally responsible. This is like wedding ring it help to remember engaments but do not prevent cheating. Wedding is not a guild.
I am not an engineer, but I have a B.Sc. in Engineering ( U of T, 1982). I have worn an iron ring since then. The ring did not then have any connection to the P.Eng designation.
The ring identifys a graduate engineer, not an engineer.
That’s the tactic… Just claim vague appeal to safety and avoiding bloodshed. Could you provide even a single example of this historic bloodshed and explain how only a guild would have prevented it or that it was caused by not having one?
All of this “you need to have a body of oversight” speak as if bodies of oversight never make mistakes or introduce their own suit of problems. It’s just getting tiring, sometimes oversight is what’s needed but that doesn’t mean it’s always the best answer or even a good one in other scenarios.
William Mulholland. Took less than five minutes.
Instead of asking everyone else to do your homework, take a first stab at answering these kinds of questions yourself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Bridge here you go. The defining moment that created the P.Eng designation and apega in Canada. Not just fear mlngering, it’s built on blood and failure
Quebec bridge collapse, 1916
Each design needs to be checked and approved by at least one more engineer.
The “body of oversight” creates the code of ethics and the rules we have to follow. It’s purpose is not oversight, it’s guidance.
As someone who from the States that has had the title of “Software Engineer” for 20 years and currently working on my degree in Electrical Engineering. I will agree that the term Engineer is very watered down here, but to claim we have no meaningful regulations is short sighted. While yes, software development is lacking those, Professional Engineers (PEs) that can sign off on things do have regulations. To become a PE, I have to complete a degree from an ABET accredited university. Once I finish my degree, then I am eligible to sit for the Foundation of Engineering (FE) exam administered by the IEEE. Passing that exam would give me the title Engineer in Training (EIT). Then I have to work under a PE for a minimum of 4 years before I would be eligible to sit for the PE exam. Only after passing that exam would I become a PE and thus legally able to sign off on engineering designs.
This. I should be able to call my self a software engineer, but I shouldn’t be able to sign off on a bridge without the rest you mentioned.
What part of your comment is a reply to the one above?
It is possible to regulate a field of work without claiming exclusive use of a common language term.
Where the defendant runs into problems with the regulatory authority is in how he used the term ‘engineer’. If he advertised his services in a regulated branch of practice, particularly one with the potential to affect the health, safety, or welfare of the public, he would be in violation of the law and subject to sanctions. That’s why, in certain circumstances, we guard the use of a common term.
Yes, but my point was that it is not your term to guard. You co-opted the term from Combat Engineers and then laid exclusive claim to it.
I understand the intention of professional regulation. However no other professionally regulated field lays claim over common language terms that they did not invent.
“Professional/Chartered Engineer” is an appropriate term to guard, “Engineer” on it’s own is not.
So in short: Not a guild but an authorities-backed cult and mafia.
Thanks for the clarification.
Not to mention it a term (engineer) protected in the LAW in each Canadian province.
So what you must be saying is the computer or cell phone you are using to comment was not produced by an engineer, because most likely they were not a member of the association. The entire population are all in such stunning ignorance to think engineering could possibly be responsible for these technological marvels- that is only possible if you are in the magical coven that is the association.
A PE does not have to be a member of an association. I was a PE for 20+ years and never joined an association or a society.
Hmmm, stunning marvels of surveillance., of having to replace regularly., and of constant need of updates for security and glitches.
Future generations will laugh at how stunned we seemed to be.
Are you quite sure this marvel of convenience passes as safe?
Your comments about the USA come with the same ignorance as the original post. In the USA, “Professional Engineer” is a protected title. It is regulated at the state level and requires similar education, experience and examination (testing) to Canada. Upon achieving the required EEE licensure is at the state level where your qualifications are evaluated and additional testing may be required before you can call yourself a “Professional Engineer” and you can only use that title in those states where you are licensed. Projects are then regulated at the state, county and municipal level and require that plans are certified by a professional engineer.
When I do work in a state where I am not licensed, but rather working under the direct supervision of someone licensed in that state, I call myself a “designer”.
The US has similar (if not the same) standards for certified engineers. Depending on the type of engineer and what it is applied to, this certification is either very important from the legal sense, or, frightening levels of overkill.
So, what engineering work was he doing, and was he characterizing himself as a CE?
Further, it is possible for someone to have met or exceeded all the requirements, sans the test and official certification. Some of those people put the certified ones to shame. Certified engineers have been responsible for some doozies of problematic projects too.
But I can’t even legally call myself a software engineer or network engineer, even though I’ve been doing both since pre-web days.
I totally agree with this take. If I want to call myself a judge, I have to go through the necessary steps. This is how the profession can uphold a certain standard of integrity. There are countless other synonyms one can use to describe their proficiency in a particular topic. For instance you could be a “legal expert” rather than a “judge” if it’s about expressing your ability in the matter, but stating on your resume you are a judge implies you have the chops. At least, here in Canada this is reliable, I am not familiar with European history on engineering guilds and whatnot but I am fairly confident we regulate this with a ministry at governmental level and that I have a right to vote.
Hate to break it to you but there are elected judges with little or no legal back ground, both in the US and Canada.
One can be a lawyer and not a member of the bar. Apparently you can be an accountant in without being a “Certified Accountant” So why does certified or licensed engineers get to lay claim to all of “engineering”? Are only “commercial” pilots the only valid pilots? Or MDs the only “doctors”?
Would a PE in ChemE have made me a better, safer computer engineer for the last 40 years? Nah.
Sorry, not convincing me Canada got this right.
Speak about US. In Canada judges are appointed: The federal government appoints the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada, federal courts, and provincial and territorial superior courts, while the provincial and territorial governments appoint provincial and territorial court judges. Federally appointed judges may remain in office until the age of 75.
I studied Mediaeval History with an M.A.. Due to accidents of life, I ended up selling engineering products and here in Mexico, I was often called ” Ingeniero”.
But to actually call myself “Ingeniero” in Mexico is totally illegal and a criminal offence !
Sounds like Canada is a bit overzealous in their claim of a relatively generic title of “engineer”. Other jurisdictions use titles like “Chartered Professional Engineer” (New Zealand in this case)
All you need is a PhD to call yourself Doctor. Or not.
What you’re worried about is the ability to sign off on stuff. Rightly so. I’m with you. All the way. Not anybody should be able to sign off on stuff. Everybody agrees with you on that. And it turns out, random people can’t sign drawings , for good reason and because, hey look, the system works, bridges , planes, and skyscrapers aren’t falling down nowadays. (Takata airbags are still killing people) But come down here and tell people that they can’t be called men because they don’t eat beef? Nah mate, you’re wrong. I mean, you’re right. But you’re talking about the wrong thing.
Plus. Have you ever interviewed college kids in engineering programs? The usual bell curve exists in that population too. Yeah.
Thank you for writing this, I was really surprised at the reasoning offered. I thought this article went deeper but no it’s just wholly uninformed…
I’m an engineer and am calling those regulations BS. Not all engineers are civil or mechanical or doing work that is safety critcal. That’s why there are _cerrtified_ engineers who are allowed to seal and sign plans. Time for B.C. to join the 21st century.
As a Canadian, I disagree – It all depends of what specific kinds of engineering we’re talking about. Sure if, your being hired to design bridges its quite reasonable to mandate certain expectations, by way of certifications, to be able to confirm such engineers meet whatever required standards for knowledge, skill and experience are called for. However, there are all kinds of areas of engineering work that don’t require this level of certification. Engineering professional groups need to enhance and better facilitate individuals without traditional engineering credentials to gain access, to become authorized participants or members, by encouraging and or facilitating academic institutions to provide accredited laboratory based courses and classes in the evenings and weekends as they once did. Many of these people are adult learners and all too often they are constrained because they work during the day and, the last time I checked, universities only offer day-time programs in Engineering. Remember it’s not supposed to be about having an exclusive members only association, As one nation we seriously need to extend and enhance our overall numbers of these kinds of workers. The comment stating America is weak/outdated is ridiculous when you look at this in terms of overall progresses made by engineering sciences, in and of America, Men on the moon, the invention of the transistor and so on. Canada’s style/system, whatever you want to call it, is much too tight wadded! Do consider that any engineering regulatory agency can boast a higher certainty for assured competencies, on offer, by its members. Yet there still always remains no absolute guarantees of this. Remember, engineering is really a balance between formalized design as well as creative design processes. I draw this conclusion from experiences over the years where I’ve witnessed licensed engineers doing pretty stupid stuff.
Without too much words, Canada as well most of the west are shitty places with a lot of vanity fair.
Uhh, in the USA you also have to be licensed. Spoken as someone who had to 1. Get the 4 year ABET accredited degree 2. Demonstrate/document 4+ years of relevant work experience. 3. Pass the FE exam. 4. Pass a background check and 5. Get fingerprinted. I have no idea where you got the idea that engineering is an unlicensed profession in the USA.
Uh, so, in the US government job where I work around all of these engineers who don’t have FE or PE’s – they are not engineers? None of them have “engineering licenses” unless they took it upon themselves to go that far – yet the job titles are mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, etc, all the same… Maybe where you work it is a requirement, but not according to the US government itself… You only have to have an engineering diploma to be in an engineering job series. In fact, some industries do actually refer to some of their jobs as “engineers” – when they don’t require an engineering degree. My dad was a “quality engineer” at GM and he only had a business degree. So no, it is not a requirement to be licensed to use the term “engineer” in the US.
No further comment necessary.
Why does the US, despite being behind, not experience more engineering accidents than Canada? The term ‘Gate Keepers’, although politicized, aptly describes modern guilds. These organizations, under the guise of safety, hinder innovation and productivity. While safety is vital, if Canadian engineering schools are excellent, shouldn’t their graduates be recognized as engineers without additional screening for safety? In my view, many of these excessive requirements are merely tactics to maintain high demand for certified engineers by artificially limiting their supply.
So, when is a doctor a doctor or a lawyer a lawyer? No need to pick on engineers !!!
Engineering graduates dont have control of the use of the term emgineer, its the governing provincial body that regulates and enforces it.
Your point is well taken by me at least, although i can argue both sides very proficiently.
In keepimg with your theme i have had to correct people who introduced me in the past. I am a P.Eng, with a CofA but there was a time i didnt practice and maintain my status.
The times we live in, when an organisation can take ownership of a defined term. I do however understand their rational.
Canada grapples with a glaring paradox: a prowess in education marred by a penchant for stifling innovation and driving engineering graduates away.
Clinging to the belief that regulating the term “engineer” is our panacea in the AI and quantum era condemns us to a self-inflicted brain drain.
Overregulation, touted as a solution to today’s challenges, proves a misguided approach. The persistent reliance on historical tragedies as predictors of the future is a flawed compass. To secure progress, we must shed the inertia of redundant methods, adopting modern, sustainable approaches that propel us beyond the stagnation of the familiar.
Expecting different results demands a departure from the status quo, a simple change in the way we view and think about this issue with the word “Engineer” might help us all recognize and reconsider how to best navigate the turbulent waters of the 21st century. In the end, this isn’t about individuals, but rather our collective future as Canadians.
Personally, as a graduate engineer who came to this country decades ago, I’ve contributed to software, hardware, and product launches without seeing the need or value in a specific designation. My disagreement has always centered on the regulatory framework’s scope. My earnest hope is for a future marked by change and progress.
https://www.conferenceboard.ca/insights/how-to-overcome-canadas-innovation-paradox/
To be frank. I graduated not once but twice (7 years apart for the MEng designation) from UWaterloo. I have relatives who are “Professional Engineers” in the Civil and Mechanical fields and are licensed accordingly. The real problem lies in the fact for all the pomp, fluff and hoops we jump through the engineering designation is really worth squat outside some discounts in car insurance, alongside the liability these days. My relatives got in at a time where a PEng was worth the pay and authority it commanded and the salary gained from it were lucrative relative to other fields. We poured money into energy/oil/transportation to better our country.
In fields nowadays where you need to be a PEng, you’re not making squat compared to a Software role where salaries and benefits are 2x-3x higher. We diluted the amount of pay, responsibility and like the trades, aren’t training people to the proper standards as the old heads retire because its too “costly” in many cases. There’s also a lot of paper pushing and bloat involved in these more “Traditional” fields, where you have known issues of “greasing the wheels” and other project level BS engineers can’t control but are beholden too. That’s outside us gutting our natural resource sectors in a resource rich country, in lieu of backwards economics and restrictive policy tax wise on innovation/budding startups. Its why many will go south if an idea is viable here.
Then there’s the notion of going after the “Software Engineer” moniker for non safety critical code and the clowns who beat their drum to enforcing the engineer term derived from American HR practices.
There are currently no tests or tools outside of ethics of the basics “Don’t take the money” and “do you due diligence” that can be added to software engineer. It’s why time and time again most of the classes at UWaterloo Eng leave Canada for the US; Higher salaries less bs red tape, and getting to work faster/more growth opportunities. In Canadian companies, you basically have to wait for someone to die, and/or be apprenticed for some things while being paid squat compared to the software field.
No way in hell is Google, Meta, Amazon and Co going to turn around and enforce the “engineer” word salad with licensing for their products either. Not when anyone of these technical folks can walk down the street to a competitor and make a comparable rate. Those fields need demand too now with AI tools being added alongside traditional software/firmware/hardware becoming way more advanced.
Canadian based companies, speaking from experience are either public-private (70% owned by board or another firm but sold on the TSX), are extremely outdated and stingy pay wise and nepotistic while offering no real growth. Combine that with this countries high cost of living, taxes, and limited areas where you can find work, and its no wonder most go south after dealing with 4-5 years here. You can’t and don’t want to take stock when prices can be manipulated/skewed so you can’t/unable to vest sale shares, or are paid so low that it makes more sense to just get into finance since you’ll have superior math skills than the buisness grads.
Many who stay in Eng in Canada either work for American satellite offices, or sit in bank/government roles to collect a cheque. No joke, want a cushy job and do minimal work? Go work for a bank here. Outside of that, no innovation with the bullshit companies like Bombardier or SNC Lavalin that are pulled up by the taxpayer rather than their innovative ideas/products ensure the small fry will never win here. We’re a country who supports monopolies rather than competitive innovation and fostering of community.
Oh and the PEng people clamour about? You need a company to pay for that otherwise the “Fee” is 500 bucks a year or they kick you out. For the headache, why bother at this point if you’re not responsible for anything safety critical.
Jared, speaking from a military background, I can say that military engineers (or Combat Engineers) is not proper engineering. Knowing how to blow up your enemy effectively has little to do with scientific/engineering approach, or doing/designing things so it is absolutely safe for the public. And to add to the point, nowadays, Combat engineers don’t actually have proper training on building science, structural engineering, etc. Sure, maybe they can do some project management but that’s about all I will ever trust them to commission anything safe for the public. Besides, Combat Engineers are trades person, ie. technicians, builders, foreman, etc. their responsibilities are very different than what Chartered Engineers, or Professional Engineer does.
For many years, I described myself as “holding an engineering degree”. Then I got an (operating) engineer license, so am an engineer and the holder of an engineering degree, though neither the degree not the license are the same field as my current practice. Go figure.
Maybe he should can himself an engi-near to get around it.
you win the internet today
Maybe…..
I agree. Borderline socialist country.
PE licenses are meant for making sure that any paperwork that requires expert review isn’t signed off by some half-wit who merely holds a degree in engineering. That’s because such degrees can be had by dubious means and from institutions that have very low standards.
The title of Engineer is reserved for those with actual proven experience in the field, and everyone else is more or less engineer in training (EIT) or Engineer intern (EI), or in case you’re doing private work, you simply can’t call yourself an engineer without a license.
this.
I’m pretty sure you actually like it when the bridge you are driving over doesn’t collapse.
Play by the rules.
Like that one Engineers in Saskatchewan.
Or the one recently suspended from inspection duties in the bronx, new york city?
This is ridiculous. The PE exam covers SO much – anything that could be considered engineering – that it does not certify a high degree of competence in ANY discipline. It is useless for anything other than protecting the employment of people who have run this particular gauntlet. It’s a little like being admitted to the Bar – being certified to practice an a state does not prove anything but the most basic competence in all areas of law in that state.
Just thank gods the FAA has more precise certifications.
The PE exam is actually focused on specific subjects. A civil engineer does not take the same test as an electrical engineer.
The PE exam itself isn’t the only source of certification. There’s a reason it’s frequently called the “law and ethics” exam.
Professional competence is most stringently tested through the required years of oversight working under another experience professional engineer.
I recall my undergrad years and taking all of those general engineering courses. The goal was preparation for the EIT (Engineer In Training) exam. If you passed that, then you were an engineer in training. Then you had to work with/under a registered Professional Engineer for a while and then pass an exam to qualify as a PE.
This is big deal for Civil Engineers but not so much for Electrical so I never bothered.
Details vary of course and in some states I think that the term “Engineer” is protected by those PE groups to varying degrees.
The big problem I have with the PE system is that when you look up a PE, you can’t tell what they are a PE in. Just what are they an expert in? Presumably they have the ethics to point you in another direction if your particular problem is outside their particular area of expertise.
This came up several years ago when I read a report from a branch of the Air Force Research Lab signed by (among others) a PE. The report showed a remarkable lack of understanding of the problem. But perhaps a good understanding of the outcome desired by those paying for it.
Being I have work in the medical device and telecommunications industry my entire career, I have never worked under (or even with) a PE my entire life, at least directly. I’m sure some of the consulting firms employee PE’s.
Note that Steve Wozniak didn’t complete his EE degree until 1987!
I see the need for Civil Engineering projects to have responsible PE sign off designs or to have someone to “market their design services” to the public, but in gneral its a waste of time.
And dont get me started on engineers rings! Or Iron rings in canada…
https://www.quora.com/Is-making-an-engineers-ring-myself-looked-down-upon/answer/Steve-Heckman-1
It even features an earlier hackaday article!
And this one touches on the same idea (read the last line…)
https://www.quora.com/Can-you-be-a-self-taught-engineer/answer/Steve-Heckman-1?no_redirect=1
I’m in a similar boat. If you don’t work under one, you can’t become one… Which makes obtaining the title not really convenient. This crap needs to be reformed.
Kind of like an MLM at this point don’t you think? They make you pay yearly fees too.
Conversely and helpfully, EGBC’s website shows exactly which area of expertise a registered Professional Engineer practices in! Correct reporting of this information isn’t confirmed by technical exam but is enforceable via the complaint process, as Professional Engineers are legally required to state their qualifications accurately.
I am surprised as an Electrical Engineer that you are not aware of Electrical Safety requirements. It is not just in Canada but in USA. For people that deals with power even for low voltage, medium voltage and battery under different environment including hazardous and stringent environment. Equipment that is critical to survival. I am shocked that one can say Electrical is not critical. Your practice is either limited or looking at a very small part. God, what are you guys all doing as an Engineer? You guys are not contributing much, are you?
Now I’m curious. What do Canadian degrees actually say? What do they declare the holder to be?
They will vary depending on the institute that issues them. Some will issue them as ‘Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering’ or ‘Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering’ or another similar term. But the emphasis here is the phrase ‘in XXXX Engineering’. This denotes that you have studied a field of engineering, but is not stating that you are a Professional Engineer with legal authority to stamp drawings within regulated feilds.
There were other terms used besides ‘Bachelor’ as well. Can’t remember them off the top of my head any more as most of the graduates I knew all came from the same University and on top of that, it’s been 15 years since I last worked in an engineering firm.
And passing the PE exam means one has met the the minimum standard for competence, nothing more nor less.
I am a “Senior Mechanical Engineer”. That’s my title and my day to day work. I am not a PE.
Engineering is a very broad field. Some engineering work requires a PE. Much does not. Most civil engineering work requires PE approval. Most electrical engineering work does not. Mechanical engineering falls somewhere in between. It’s been 15 years since I worked with a PE because that certificate is not really applicable to my field. We are still heavily regulated – by the FDA.
Incredibly hot take – the guild is in the right, here. Hear me out, as someone from BC, in fact:
First off, my Dad *is* a Professional Engineer. Until semi-retirement, he worked 40+ years designing chemical plants that prepare sulfuric acid at incredibly high strengths. Lots of parts at thousands of degrees C, and a whole lot of flying to job sites around the world to make sure things were being constructed in an appropriate fashion for safety, environmental, and a whole host of other reasons.
Not really related – my career is in IT, and while my job title might say ‘Software Engineer’, I think we can all agree that calling almost anything IT outside of maybe military and government work ‘Engineering’ with a capital E is a *heck* of a stretch. Not that it doesn’t involve the same mental faculties or hard work on its own… But in (almost) all of IT, we are held to nowhere *near* the same standards as actual, guild Engineers. Even and especially when the things we design can cause loss of life and limb if not done properly.
The legal liabilities as I understand it are huge – being the primary Engineer overseeing the construction of a highway bridge that fails and kills someone can make you directly (of course partly) liable, in a bad way. Meanwhile in IT, Tesla’s ‘Autopilot’ kills people and it seems like they get the barest slap on the wrist.
Just because you went to trades school and graduated, doesn’t mean you instantly get your Red Seal (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Seal_Program) – as I understand it you still need to spend time as an apprentice and have your skills signed off on by the relevant governing bodies, because I think we’ve all worked with fresh graduates and realised they could use a little more on-the-job experience.
Certain skills that can critically endanger people when done incorrectly should absolutely be overseen by a licensing body, IMO. Calling yourself ‘a Professional Engineer’ should mean something, and legally, the guild has that juriadiction here. If this person wants to be a part of that, then they should follow the same process as everyone else here – they’re not special just because they’re an MP.
I agree that being allowed to call oneself a _Professional_ Engineer should require that certain training and testing requirements be met, and that qualifications be confirmed. But at least here in Ontario, anyone calling himself or herself an “engineer” – note the missing “professional” qualifier – is likely to receive a cease-and-desist nastygram from the Professional Engineers of Ontario. I don’t think that’s right, especially given how generic the word “engineer” is and has been through the centuries.
I still believe the guilds are in the right – they have to protect it basically like a trademark. If other fields are engineering-related, they should either join up with them or establish their own relevant guilds and licensing bodies.
I would *love* to actually be able to review potential job applicants in IT and see a proper certification outside of random industry initiatives that may or may not actually take root (my CompTIA certs, for example, were bascially a waste of time because no one cares.)
I’d love to have a guild at my back when an employer asks me to do something questionable. We should be looking to more of this, not less. A lack of proper regulation in IT especially makes it a bit of a nightmare to work in, at times.
Is it all in dire need of overhauling and updating? Sure, but in the way that eliminates the free-for-all usage of a legally protected term. The guilds exist for a reason, and honestly they have the right idea – if someone is going to represent that field, they should do so according to specific standards, or it makes the entire field look bad when someone takes one shortcut too many.
This seems like something for insurance companies to sort out, not something for the Canadian government to decide.
The Canadian government != Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C..
The guilds are crap, because you have to work under one of them to get the license. So it doesn’t matter if you are qualified, because you have to have a guild member in your work party? I get the need to vet the abilities of professional engineers, but some of the requirements are total garbage.
The “trademarks will be lost if the holder doesn’t chase down every violation like their life depends on it” thing is a complete myth.
They’re “Professional Engineers”, which is a specific qualified term with a well defined meaning. They don’t own the english word “engineer”.
The protection of “engineer” is to avoid confusion for the average person. As technical people by being on this site, we can appreciate the clear distinction between “professional” and not, but would your mother know the difference? Would your friends or cousins?
In Canadian society we’ve grown into a place where a person who calls themselves an engineer comes with a large amount of responsibility and liability. You require insurance and accept the liability for anything you stamp (which you get as a professional engineer).
As a Canadian, who has a degree in electrical engineering, Being upset that you can’t call yourself and engineer is silly but I understand the frustration. I was in a position not that long ago where I had to decide if I continue to pursue my P.Eng simply for the privilege of calling myself an engineer (it had no influence on my career in semiconductors) or to drop it and focus on my company’s internal technical ranking system which did directly influence my career. I chose the ladder.
At the end of the day, it’s not the engineering title which gives you your status in the engineering community, it’s your accomplishments attached to your name. Come to grips with that and get over your sense of entitlement to call yourself an engineer to random strangers (your friends and family think of you as an engineer anyway). In the end in doesn’t matter.
Most work that requires a PE has other means to prevent a non qualified individual from practicing. Permits, licenses, filing plans with the PEs seal and signature. An individual who purported to be able to do these jobs without licensure would be prosecuted for that crime. Confusion of the general public is not convincing to me.
The guild don’t own the meaning as they are most certainly not the only definition of the word Engineer – so as long as you are calling yourself an engineer based on qualifications/skills/experience you have, but not claiming to be a ‘Guild Engineer’ it should be fine. The word accurately describes your skills and training in a general way.
Or do only Brain Surgeons now get to call themselves Surgeon because they all had a get together and decided that those folks in the Trauma or Plastic surgery (etc) departments don’t count anymore…
I appreciate the open and calm discussion.
I am an engineer in the US. I am not a Professional Engineer, as I do not have that certification.
This David Hilderman has some views about climate change that I disagree with. I still will call him an Engineer, but not a Professional Engineer. I think the court missed an opportunity to make that distinction too – shame on the court for that – and I suspect that the court’s ruling was politically motivated.
This is the right take. In Canada, calling oneself an engineer is (in most cases) like calling oneself a lawyer; both are taken to mean that the person holds a valid professional designation in those fields. You can’t just call yourself a lawyer with just a law degree, you also have to be called to the bar.
Of course “recording engineer” or “sound engineer” are usages that haven’t attracted a cease-and-desist. And also, for most, “software engineer”.
The problem with that is the word is way to generic and has few if any similar words that might describe your job yet wouldn’t protected – it is the word that over archingly describes almost every branch of making/designing stuff to some extent or other, and in many cases what else would somebody call themselves when their job is ‘Engineering something’ just not ‘Guild Engineering’. In a few rare cases maybe their job has a title of its own, but most of the time…
A very different thing to actively practising law as a profession – as being a Lawyer is a job and title have no overlap with other job – you get subtypes of lawyer, but they are all lawyer… And equally importantly nobody else will need to use that word to describe their job, as there is no other word to describe it in the language…
One could be a paralegal, arbitrator, mediator, or similar. Similarly you can be a technician/technologist, etc. Not every clever techy person needs/deserves to be called an engineer. There are expectations over who shows up when you request an “engineer” in Canada.
If you are requesting/employing the ‘guild’ or ‘professional’ engineer you expect to get one, but that doesn’t change that the word is the only word that really applies to a great many jobs and qualifications. The word is too old and already has its well established meaning that covers a huge range of job and qualifications that ‘technician’ etc does not.
The guild really can’t claim to own the word, it existed longer than they have and has always applied to a much wider range of people than only the ones they approve of…
They can and should be protective of folks claiming to be the ‘guild approved’ type of engineer who are not. But the word itself is way way too generic, with way to much history and as a rarity in the English language really doesn’t have a huge pile of nearly identical meaning synonyms suitable for all occasions – it is usually the word you pick when your specific job title/role/qualification (if it has any particular name) would mean nothing outside of your specialist field!
In Germany nobody can use the title Software Ingenieur (= software engineer) because being an Ingenieur is tied to the university degree you hold and there is none specific to software engineering. Using the English title is not regulated here.
Ah, a light at the end of the tunnel! Everywhere else, absolutely anybody can call themselves a software engineer it seems. Really anybody. No qualification or certification is required in any form whatsoever as far as I can tell. Even scripting kiddies, and some people I work with that write total rubbish software. I hope this spreads to English then to other countries.
Down here in Brazil we can call ourselves Engineers; there is a regulatory bogy (CREA) which serves essentially to give you right to sign papers as an Engineer, but that’s all.
body*
Brazil is regulatory hell, whatever you intend to do:
In addition to a bachelors degree, I have an MBA and more than 13 years of professional experience under my belt.
But, as soon as I stop p̵a̵y̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵t̵h̵e̵ ̵g̵u̵i̵l̵d̵ being a ‘regular member’ of a Regional Business Administration Council (CRA) I can no longer practice as a business administrador.
Even if you’re a PhD, you’re not allowed to teach Business Administration if you’re not registered in the Council.
Medieval stuff.
Guilds are definitely not ossified. In the US Law (Bar Associations) and Medicine (various Medical Boards, Nursing Boards, etc) are both regulated by guilds. This is one reason lawyers and doctors make more on average than engineers.
And as in medicine and law, the consequences of unregulated practice are unfathomably dire to public safety. I like knowing that the professionals we rely on for literal life and limb have taken the steps that our society has laid out, usually in blood, to verify a minimum level of competence in and accept legal responsibility for their work.
There’s a long-standing joke that the victims of bad doctors can’t sue because they’re dead. That applies whether they have certification or not. I’ve had a mistake made on me by a fully legal medical doctor; fortunately it wasn’t serious.
Lawyers who do terrible things are in the news daily.
Doctors kill people one at a time, Engineers kill people wholesale.
I’m a Professional Engineer (Mechanical) here in Quebec and I’m glad we have very strict regulation on who can work as such. Airplanes, trains and busses all need to meet standards for safety and I wouldn’t want someone who isn’t 100% commited to doing a good job at protecting the public designing anything I ride in. Think about that the next time you ride a roller coaster, take a subway train or ride a bus I’ve worked on.
In Canada the term Engineer is protected and should stay as such. Yes it costs time and effort every year to renew your standing. But it really is the only way to ensure some standard of accountability when things go badly.
You do realise that basically all airplanes, trains and buses are designed outside Canada, right? And somehow those countries manage to design safe systems without a guild monopoly on using the title engineer. Therefore we can safely say the policy is contributing precisely nothing to safety that can’t be provided by other means.
@Rabs, fwiw all of those airplanes, trains and buses still require certification to Canadian standards.
@xyz
Exactly, that’s my point. The protection of the title ‘engineer’ and the standards that are keeping people safe are completely different systems. The title wankery contributes nothing to the process.
Interesting that there are virtually NO P.Eng staff at Boeing working on aircraft development. https://www.reddit.com/r/boeing/comments/lonzey/professional_engineer/
Well, you are going to be terrified by the reality.
Many people working as engineers, not Professional mind you, were hired by companies that didn’t care. And the guilds didn’t really care either. Professional Engineer means you are legally liable for whatever you sign off on. Which should mean they get paid something in the Lawyer and Doctor ballpark. But they don’t, because a lot of companies and engineering roles are not as demanding. So maybe they make a little more… But not really enough to drive the value home. Meanwhile, they are in serious jeopardy if they have a bad day and sign off on the wrong thing.
Hell, I’ve seen companies toss around the term “engineer” as a job title, not a degree or certification. Always fun bumping into one of those right after getting my degree and taking some work to pay the bills. They never felt comfortable with that title.
The extra 3 or 4 years of school and the fact that seats in those school are limited are also a factor.
We just opened a medical school in Roanoke (part of Virginia Tech) and its costs $50k per year, and that on top of the BS degree you need to earn first.
That’s total nonsense. Job descriptions and certifications are two entirely different things. The description “engineer” is so generic that it belongs in the same category as Kleenix. Here in the U.S. there is a clear distinction between somebody who practices engineering and somebody who has a Professional Engineer certification. If it works here it can work in Canada.
Hhmm … the guy I replied to suddenly disappeared.
Articles like this always attract a lot of PEs who are super mad about the English language not granting their club exclusive worldwide ownership of the word “engineer.” Expect moderators to mop things up periodically.
If doing engineering requires a PE license in your state, then calling yourself an engineer without a license in that state would be misleading, and cause public danger because people would too easily hire non-qualified personnel to do jobs that require licensed engineers to sign off the plans and paperwork. Unscrupulous people would call themselves “engineers” and conveniently forget to mention that they lack the license, and that would be “caveat emptor”.
It’s got nothing to do with the English language, but the law. Having non-licensed and licensed engineers and calling them the same thing is like calling a bean paste patty “vegan hamburger meat”. You ain’t getting what it says on the label.
But just like vegan hamburger meat isn’t claiming to be Real Beef a software engineer isn’t claiming to be a P.Eng
We’re not called the same thing. We’re all “engineers” if we do engineering work, whether or not that work requires certifications. But I don’t have those letters after my name “, PE”. That’s the title that’s illegal to misrepresent.
In other words, what is an engineer who can’t legally practice engineering?
An oxymoron.
>somebody who practices engineering and somebody who has a Professional Engineer certification
You won’t be “practicing engineering” without a license where such is required, because that would be illegal. The distinction is that the person with the PE can practice engineering, while the one without, can’t. They may work on engineering projects as supervised by a PE, but that’s a different matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practicing_without_a_license
Ridiculous. That only applies to civil projects like public utilities and bridge construction. I have an engineering degree but not a professional certification, and yet I assure you I legally practiced engineering (and at a high level) for decades at one of the largest electronic companies in the world.
This isn’t news to anyone whose graduated from an Engineering Program in Canada. The term has been protected for decades, and indicates you can use a stamp to sign off on engineering activists like designing and overseeing bridge construction.
For a person in the public eye it’s particularly important to make this distinction.
Having graduated a program != Proven competency.
OK… but in Ontario as of a few years ago, they tried to require you to be an Engineer(TM) to do anything whatsoever that involved the “application of engineering principles”, regardless of whether you signed off for anybody, charged for it, involved the public, or anything else. I don’t remember if the language was actually adopted or not, but they wanted it.
Taken literally, that means that if I built a garden shed and did some trivial calculation to make sure the roof wouldn’t cave in, I’d be practicing engineering without a license. They probably wouldn’t have enforced it, but they *defnitely* wanted to enforce it if, say, I were a PhD scientist and built or modified an extremely specialized instrument in my lab, even if *invented* the instrument. Still have to be “supervised” by a PE. Which is, frankly, insane.
Also, while it’s true that a degree doesn’t prove your competence, it probably proves *more* than work experience or passing a test. *Nothing* absolutely proves your competence. I had my house flooded once because a PE, who could not in fact shut up about his iron ring, cut huge holes in the (flat tar) roof before a rainstorm. You see, had this temporary patching method that he was sure would hold…
It’s true that that guy wasn’t practicing as a PE; he was acting as a renovation contractor. Probably because the word had gotten around about his engineering work, if unfortunately not gotten to me. But nonetheless, boy, did I get to hear about his PE status.
While the methods most places use to certify PEs do provide *some* evidence of competence, they are also and obviously designed *even more* to cut down on the competition. Licensing is fine, but it’s possible to go nuts with it. And trying to own a centuries old generic world is skating *really close* to nuts.
This.
That’s another point about the guild/craft thing that seems to be forgotten. The competency thing.
If you’re an apprentice, I do real work side by side with an experienced teacher.
You’re working practically, not just learning rules and concepts at a school desk.
So during your apprenticeship, you’re proving your competence in real life, so to say. It’s not just an exercise done on paper.
I did half a dozen projects in school, including a power systems lab, and also my senior design project. Before that, I worked as a “field tech” for nearly a decade. I’m more experienced than half of the people who could call themselves PE at my work, because, news flash, taking a test is not a good measure of competency. Otherwise I could have tested out of my bachelor’s and saved 3.5 years and sixty grand.
I believe you. I can imagine there are long-time janitors working on an university who may know more on a certain subject than the teachers working there.
Problem is lack of qualification on paper, which often requires taking exams.
Competency must be proven in one of the various ways.
Otherwise, anyone can pretend to know something.
In private life, that’s harmless. You can do go away with learning by doing et cetera.
But in a job, people do depend on you. If you’re overrating yourself, it may cause danger to all of you.
Take gastronomy, for example. What if a wannabe cook does make egg sandwiches but doesn’t know about salmonella? He could kill a whole school by sheer incompetence/lack of knowledge. Such employees should at least be required to pass an official training, a seminar.
Again, I’m not haply with overregulations, either.
Here in ol’ Germany bureaucracy does harm family-operated businesses and guilds. It’s so much paperwork they can’t work properly anymore.
But then there’s also Dunning-Krueger effect.
Especially those with the lowest skills/knowledge do think they can dio anything.
Where’s the people who really can feel uncertain about their skills and do believe they aren’t ready.
That’s why tests/exams are useful, too, maybe.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
We go well overboard with our engineering guilds in Canada. There’s a whole extra event at graduation with an oath and ring ceremony (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_of_the_Calling_of_an_Engineer). There’s also an ethics exam. We then pay a yearly fee for our provincial regulator to police us and make sure nobody has “engineer” anywhere near their name unless they’re a member. In Alberta (and perhaps elsewhere?) the title of Software Engineer has recently become exempt from regulation, which is a move in the right direction as far as I’m concerned.
Source? (As an Alberta Software Engineer, it’d be good to have a reference)
Nvm articles were linked below by someone else
This isn’t the first time this has happened. There used to be long diatribes on USEnet about what would happen if software engineers delivered a product to the legal requirements of various certified Engineers. I don’t know how accurate they were but they went into the details of how ‘engineer’ differed from ‘Engineer’ with people needing to be board certified, taking various oaths, and having various legal responsibilities akin to medical Doctors and lawyers.
The issue has come up with in various US states years ago when jobs have been called some sort of ‘engineer’ from sanitation to software. Because the title Engineer was granted and licensed by each state, there were supposedly some efforts to say that if ‘software programmers’ wanted to be called ‘software engineers’ they needed to do the same. The basic item is that if there were ‘Software Engineers’ versus software engineers, programs would have to be written to a much higher rigor and failures of the program would result in legal action. The problem with this are enormous which is why it has never occurred..
* I am using Engineer as the certified legal entity versus engineer which is what my job says I am. This is mainly for my benefit in trying to keep my statements clear.. it is not meant to demean.
+1
It’s not just Canada. In the US it’s state by state but you generally can’t advertise what you do as “engineering” unless you have some kind of certification, and depending on the field just having a degree might not cut it. In the early 90’s the family owned company I worked for got a C&D from the certification agency for using the word “engineering” in a printed ad, and the company’s lawyer advised them to comply.
There was a case in Oregon a few years ago, where a man made repeated complaints to the local municipality regarding the timing of a traffic light that he frequently had to deal with. The man was pointing out that the light did not conform to the Oregon state regulations regarding traffic signals. The city refused to respond to him, stating as their reason that the man was not qualified to interpret the regulations, and they only accept input from engineers. The man countered that measuring the length of a traffic light did not require specialized skills, and that in any case, he WAS an engineer. This got the attention of some member of Oregon’s engineering guild (don’t remember the name of the organization), who disputed that the man was an engineer. This went around a few times, with a state court ultimately finding that the guild did not in fact own the word “engineer”, nor have any authority to regulate its use. I call that a win.
That’s interesting, thanks for sharing.
What’s confusing me, though:
The involved people seemed to have wasted so much focus, so much time on the man being qualified or not, rather than the functioning of the traffic light.
Why didn’t send the Oregon state administration (or whoever was responsible) their own experts to check the situation?
That’s how it would end up in Europe, I assume.
Someone files a complaint (could be a citizen) and if necessary, investigators sent out by the officials would silently examine the place and start to check things.
If the city didn’t respond/react to the complaints, the state could be informed. And if that didn’t work, there’s still the possibility to inform a government agency and so on. On an EU level, train related organizations could be informed, too, which would settle things at the European Court.
And why wasn’t the status of the term being properly defined afterwards?
Or was it? It reads as if no one had a saying here and that everyone could use the term as he/she pleases. Yikes.
But if that’s just a misinterpretation of mine and if the term was defined:
That Oregon engine guild could have agreed to participate to issue proper “Engineer” titles in the future, in compliance with the Oregon state.
The old titles issued (if there were any) could be converted, maybe, with little to no extra exams being required by the guild members.
I mean, a similar cooperation exists between the FCC and the ARRL, if I’m not mistaken.
Members of the ARRL do offer ham radio exams to the examinees.
In other countries, a club usually can’t do that task. It requires an state-owned agency, rather.
Anyway, no offense. I was just thinking out loud. I admit that I do know very little about laws or bureaucracy. Also my apologies for my poor English.
Yep, Hackaday covered the incident in 2017:
https://hackaday.com/2017/05/08/the-dangers-of-engineering-while-unlicensed/comment-page-2/
The Insitute for Justice represented him and won the case in 2020. He was also absolutely right about the stoplights and the algo was changed nationally to stop trapping people who turned right:
https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-makes-history-with-new-traffic-light-timing-formula/
In the UK there’s no protection/control over who can call themselves an engineer, and (as far as I understand) there’s a lack of qualified graduates for many fields; but it remains a very touchy subject for those with insecurities. Professional engineers hate the idea of the less-qualified being mistaken for them; and the less-qualified’s employers hate the idea of charging less for their services than they could do.
In some ways the BC approach makes a lot of sense; most countries will not let you call yourself a medical doctor and dispense medical advice without being suitably trained at an educational institution that itself has been accredited and validated. And a fraudulent doctor can probably only hurt a few people at a time.
If someone does an online course in ‘sales event engineering’ and then starts tinkering with a bridge, or a dam, or even just a fire escape door on an apartment block, there’s a much higher potential for harm.
From a quick Google, the APEG were formed in 1919 after a bridge collapsed for the second time during construction, with 88 deaths between the two incidents. As a former Member of the IET, that seems pretty reasonable to me.
No protection for engineer in the uk but equivalent protection for Chartered Engineer and postnominal C.Eng.
With my UK experience and qualifications it’s simple for me to become chartered. With my UK and Canadian experience it’s very complex for me to become a Professional Engineer. Ontario have only recently removed the requirement for four years of Canadian experience.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartered_Engineer_(UK)
I think it’s the “Chartered” bit that is protected.
If you don’t have a license, you can’t call yourself “Engineer” legally. In Canada and maybe other part of the world.
The “Engineer” is legally bind to safety issues in the “Company”.
With the companies I worked with, I can say: Thanks God I don’t have my license.
I sadly have to agree. Many of the engineers I’ve had to work with/under were absolutely incompetent. One put a discriminating sensor for oil at the bottom of a sump. I was ignored when I pointed out that oil floats and a float sensor would be more appropriate. A few months later I was called in and asked for part numbers to be ordered for replacement sensors as the whole system flooded, then the ground froze shifting a fueling station and a major oil leak happened undetected by the safety systems.
Another engineer insisted that they could certify a system as “low voltage, below 48v” but cut costs on the multiconductor by having +48v on the + conductor and -48v on the “ground” conductor. These systems were to be operated near explosives by people who’s favorite hand tool is a sledgehammer… Only after telling him that I was about to send a formal complaint to the governing body for PEs in my province did he back off. I was then given the extra work of sorting out their mess with no extra pay.
Engineering in canada is so corrupted. On one hand I’m glad I wasn’t certified while working at any of these companies. On the other hand, I could never afford the costs associated with getting certified to sign off on the work I already do.
My take is that if there’s a PE (professional engineer) exam for the particular field you’re in and you haven’t passed it then sure, you can’t call yourself in engineer in that field (civil engineering, etc.)
Above that it’s a free for all. Although personally I’d require anyone who wanted to call themselves an engineer to be able to demonstrate that they can actually rebuild a stream train engine.
That’s why I can call myself a “software engineer”. :-)
And as much as I love steam engines and the ability to rebuild them, I must point out that “engine” (and the associated “engineering”) refers to any sufficiently complex and/or clever mechanism or system, not just those powered by steam. I wouldn’t have minded a required course in steam engines in college, however.
The term “field” is much narrower than you seem to think. If, for example, you think any Electrical Engineering employment requires passing a PE exam, you’re dead wrong. There are a myriad of specialties within the Electrical Engineering field and most of them don’t even have a relevant PE exam. Electric utility work does, and I believe that some telecom work probably does, but it’s nonsense to pretend that an engineer designing semiconductors does, or that one designing cellphone hardware does. They don’t, and many of the designers I met throughout my career were far more competent at just about anything than some of the certified civil engineers I came across.
As someone jumping through the hoops to get their PE in the US; I understand the need for an engineering license, but the PE process is literally just designed to gate keep the profession. Let me memorize a ton of information only tangentially related to my job so I can be “minimally qualified” to do the job that I had to have 6 years of experience doing before you let me take the test.
Furthermore they gate keep taking the test more than they do the license. I was fresh out of engineering gradschool, after getting an undergrad in a science and applied to take the FE. Because you “are eligible to take the FE as a current student of a graduate engineering program with an ABET accredited undergraduate program.” But as a graduate of said program I was no longer eligible according to the board.
So sign up for an additional class, apply to take the test, drop the class. I feel so much safer knowing that in the eyes of our engineering board a MS candidate is more qualified than a graduate MS.
“So sign up for an additional class, apply to take the test, drop the class.”
That only puts you in a class, not in a program. Per you, the requirement is to be “in a program”. What exactly do you engineer? :)
Engineer is no longer a protected title in Alberta Canada.
The provincial government mandated and APEGA screwed up- letting anyone be titled “software engineer”. Nevermind their outrageous annual fee of $420 to be a P.Eng.
Tech Minister: “At the end of the day, responsible use of AI is not APEGA’s jurisdiction. That’s the government of Alberta’s jurisdiction.”
How else do you let bushels of immigrants in with fake credentials to the new Holy Grail of AI?
“This is a classic case of regulator overreach — tech companies shouldn’t need the blessing of a regulatory body to build an app,” the letter says.” {tech industry letter}
It’s all fine until the “app” can kill people, like in automotive, combustion controllers, Boeing’s MCAS etc.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-software-engineer-amendment-1.7019743
https://globalnews.ca/news/10163565/alberta-engineers-appeal-software-engineer-court-decision
But then companies would just hire software “developers” instead for those duties without other regulations, as they already due. And for automotive, it’s the manufacturer who is liable, ever heard of a Tesla ASD developer or engineer even though their cars have killed due to bugs?
Somehow I doubt the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C. will be impressed by an opinions piece in a hacker blog. (Despite the exceptionally high qualifications of many who leave comments.)
I guess this hits even harder for those people who do identify themselves by their jobs. And by the success or the amount of money they earn.
That’s in contrast to my place, where people also donnot seldomly identify by their role within family and friends or by their hobbies (say, model making, cb radio etc) or by their club membership.
Gosh, how’s the view from up there on your high horse?
I don’t exactly understand. 🤷♂️
My statement was a response to the topic. That was about Europe being old school with the guild thing.
And since I’m from Europe, I did remember that there are drastic differences in the mindset.
Over the pond, I heard, there’s a big fear about loosing a job and ending up in poverty. There’s a hire&fire mentality, too. Or so I learned reading travel reports and watching YouTube videos.
In many European countries, things are more relaxed, by contrast, I believe.
That’s why an electrician has to learn for 3 years “under the wings” of a master before he/she can rightfully claim to be an electrician, for example.
There’s a bit more time for families, friends and hobbies, which people often do identify with. The job is important, too, but it’s secondary (generally speaking). Having a house and a comfy workplace with not so much stress is a priority, rather.
You have time learning stuff, without fearing to end up on the streets. There are social mechanisms that support you during studying etc.
Sounds nice..
There is a perfectly respectable title for those in IT. He worked as a software developer. He can call himself a developer. He doesn’t need engineer. There’s also software architect, systems architect, and all sorts of titles that convey what he did. There are so many titles he could use. Heck I’ve seen both software developer and software engineer – the former for those with degrees minus certification, the latter for those who have it. And yes, I actually do have the membership. So I can call myself a software engineer though I often prefer senior developer to avoid issues when other members are present for consistency.
Here in Germany, you can’t just call yourself a computer scientist (information scientist, germ. Informatiker) unless you have the (first) diploma from university.
There’s a reason things need a qualification.
I shudder to think of the North American practice who everyone who came along can pretend to be an expert and do perform a certain job.
I think that testing/exams must be done in any job, if it’s done commercially.
You can’t leave innocent citizen people end up with such quacks.
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m against unnecessary bureaucracy, too, but people should be tested (a lightweight test is fine already, better than nothing) before theyc an work in a certain place.
There are computer driving licenses, for example.
They require an exam to be passed, so employers can be certain that the employee has at least some base knowledge.
That also serves as an IQ test of some sort, to filter out the simple minded. It’s a win-win-situation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Computer_Driving_Licence
> Here in Germany, you can’t just call yourself a computer scientist (information scientist, germ. Informatiker) unless you have the (first) diploma from university.
Since when? I’m pretty sure just “Informatiker” is not protected at all and anyone can call themselves that.
Academic titles like “Diplom/Bachelor/Master in Informatik” or “Fachinformatiker” on the other hand are reserved/protected of course.
-> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatiker
This is a typical European response. “Oh my god, the government has to protect us from this thing that any reasonable person should be able to do themselves!”
If I were him, I’d have just prefix “NOT” to all the sections on his profile that said he was an engineer and make the “NOT” a hot-link to the judge’s ruling. Most constituents would find the parody in it.
That or take the necessary classes to be a certified train driver and bring that to the Judge.
Any consideration for the fact that a person who ran for a federal legislative position appeared unaware of the legislation binding his own profession, which is taught in the same degree program he graduated from?
An important data point too: Registration’s much less onerous in BC than in many USA states, there is an short online ethics/law course and exam to make sure members are more aware of the legal pitfalls of Engineering in Canada (above the law/ethics courses in the degree), and there’s validation of 4 years of experience in the field. There is no technical exam except in lieu of the applicant having an accredited engineering degree.
During the case I looked up every engineer in high-tech that I have ever worked with over my 30 year career on LinkenIn who do not have a P.Eng designation (which is all of them) Only 2 did not describe themselves as engineers on LinkedIn. EGBC knows that the planet fully understands that engineers design high-tech electronics they just picked me because I have a little more publicity than normal.
I am not an engineer, first off. I am a qualified electronics technologist and I am certified by a governing body to practice my craft. I paid the price of two degrees to be able to do what I do. The governing body in the Province where I work and reside allows me to sign off and certify what I do or design, just like an engineer can. I find this particularly hilarious, and I will explain why:
My company employs engineers. Almost all of them are qualified as a P.Eng. One of them who is not (he’s technically an EIT) produces designs and code for the products that we produce. He cannot certify his own work because he is not a P.Eng. He has been doing this work for well over twenty years, but illogically cannot certify his own work. The hilarious part is that I can stamp, sign, and certify his work. I refuse to do so, letting the P.Eng’es at our company do it as I don’t want the liability hassles, even though he and I work closely together.
To me, this whole thing reeks of protectionism by a body that makes money off of the backs of engineers, and myself as I also pay dues to my professional organization. I am willing to put up with it, though, as it seems to be the only way to force designers of product and the companies that make them accountable for their designs/product. An engineer signing off on a design is supposed to do their due diligence investigating and making sure that their design will not harm the public. That, as I understand it, is part of the engineer’s creed. It’s certainly part of the oath I took.
So yes, protecting the word “engineer” is probably necessary as it is a legal definition, like Doctor or lawyer, where “John Q. Public” can be assured that the service or product he is getting has been duly vetted and certified to cause no harm by a properly certified individual.
I am willing to accept the dubious method of certification and protectionism for reasons of (presumably) guaranteed safety.
Professional Engineer (P.Eng) needs to be protected. Engineers designed the device you use to comment on this. They most likely were not PEs.
Something similar actually happened in Oregon a few years ago. A computer engineer was annoyed by traffic to the point that he researched traffic flow patterns and came up with a way to significantly improve traffic where he lived. He wrote his findings in an email and sent it to ODOT (Oregon Department of Transportation) as a recommendation, mentioning his job title as a computer engineer. The state fined him around $4000 for “illegal practice of engineering”, despite the fact that he never claimed to be a Professional Engineer. Eventually, the issue made it to the US Supreme Court, and he won. Some people (often the bureaucratic types) see engineering as a title on paper rather than an approach to solving problems.
Was on HaD: https://hackaday.com/2017/05/08/the-dangers-of-engineering-while-unlicensed/
I am the guy all this is about. I have designed PC motherboards and many products for the music industry. The public understands that cell phones and computers are designed by engineers yet designing these types of things has nothing to do with having P.Eng status. I haven’t worked for a company with anyone having P.Eng designation. Are the associations trying to get credit for the wonderful technology in our lives? Are they jealous that the stuff they deal with are bridges and buildings while all the amazing and interesting things are being developed by those outside their club?
I mean, according to the article they asked you several times to stop referring to yourself as a legally protected term that you were unqualified to call yourself. Apparently the court agreed. So….. it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with ideas, working for companies, or what anyone else is doing, or stealing credit.
Thanks for dropping by.
“The public understands that cell phones and computers are designed by engineers”
Honestly, I don’t think they do. If they think about it at all, they think that computers come from clever teens in their basement/garage (Jobs, Wozniak, etc), or hordes of overworking and underpaid nerds in Asia. We both know that at some point, Real Engineers™ had to sign off on those devices for power supply, EMI/RFI and other statutory requirements.
Honestly, I’m on your side here.
In the US, it is apparent that any work involving the safety of the public must be approved by a Professional Engineer (PE).
It is also apparent that any other application of science that is not safety critical may be designed by any “Engineer.”
Anyone looking into the official safety approval of a bridge will not care if someone on the project called themselves an engineer, as there will be many.
No, they will instead only look for the stamp of a PE as a measure of public approval.
Therefore, restricting the title of engineer as only referring to a subclass of engineer, is pointlessly damaging to everyone who is not within that subclass.
The solution here is to restrict the term “Professional Engineer” rather than “Engineer.”
An engineer would have done enough research to know it’s not just a Western Canada thing.
In Brazil you can only call yourself engineer if you’ve paid your CREA (Engineering and Architect Regional Council).
That’s it… If you didn’t pay it right away, you’re not an emgineer or architect anymore.
Pretty ridiculous, but just a tiny bit if you consider the magnitude of corruption here.
I’m often shocked at people’s attitudes on this subject, who otherwise like “freedom”. I think people should be able to call themselves a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or many other things if they want to. Other people don’t have to go to them for medical, legal, or building advice. They should also be able to practice whatever they want, subject to the other laws, without any required licensing. I don’t need to find someone with a medical degree to get medical treatment. We’ve seen how much of a disaster it has been to allow only a select few exclusive holders of degrees to make certain critical medical decisions. I and other people look up “builds” for software or hardware on places like Hackaday, and go build things that could hurt me and other people, without any special licensing or training. I don’t see why these other professions are any different… it’s just a legally protected racket and convention that I’m constantly amazed to see continues to have lots of support, and which often leads to lots of the harms people fear would exist without such licensing anyway.
I am often shocked at how people are fine with just allowing anyone to do just anything.
You’re fine with allowing anybody at all to be a doctor and cut people open at whim or feed them medications at whatever dosage they want to.
You’re fine with allowing anybody at all to manufacture poisonous materials by the ton, right next door to a school full of children.
You’re fine with some random yahoo designing a high rise building and erecting it just anywhere. If it collapses and kills thousands, well, you know, that’s the price of freedom.
I’ve got news for you.
Your freedom ends where it kills other people.
—–
We need freedom. Freedom to think, to dream, to act. Freedom to do new things and go new places.
We also need freedom from manmade disasters.
Paradoxically, sometimes you have to restrict freedom to maximize it.
Consider road ways. If everyone were to maximize their own personal freedom on the highways by driving at any speed and in any way they want, you’d have a Mad Max free for all on the roads with uncountable numbers of accidents every day – or more likely, people not using the highways at all because they are too dangerous. By restricting the freedoms of everyone a little bit (speed limits, rules for traffic flow, etc.) everyone gains more freedom to use the roads.
In BC a non P.Eng would not be able to design a road and have it built. You need the stamp to put on the drawing in order for that to happen. However, there is a 90% chance that the device that you are using to make your comment here was done on a device designed by someone without a P.Eng. That person could only have designed that by performing engineering.
Germany has the autobahn which is probably safer than all US highways. And the OP literally said “subject to other laws”, which while I’m not saying I agree with them in any respect, it does nullify all of your example points.
Poe’s Law strikes again.
:-)
Call yourself whatever you want, but don’t be surprised when the board of medicine takes you to court to prevent you from practicing medicine. Or law. Or anything. And if you do those things without proper licensing, you will be civilly or criminally liable. And deserve it.
PS I’m a doctor. A real one.
we similarly have something called a PEC – Pakistan Engineering Council – they accreditate universities and also specific programs and batches – if your bachelors / engineering program isn’t accredited, you can’t register with them.
longer rant is here: https://zaidpirwani.com/1928/an-engineer-or-not/
Where can we donate to support his legal cause? I’d love to support a fellow engineer.
Why back a horse that has already lost the race?
Save your money to pay your annual tithe to the association instead.
“Why back a horse that has already lost the race?”
You can simply enter a new race (appeal). This time with a better horse (a lawyer).
I am thinking about appealing with all the support that is showing up. This time I would hire a lawyer
Good plan. Make public fool of yourself.
For a politician, any publicity is good publicity. Go get that publicity.
——-
I have no problem with a politician mentioning a degree in engineering. It’s a part of who and what that person is.
I have a problem with one who wants the voters to see the word “engineer” and associate it with things he’s not.
Joe Average associates “engineer” with civil engineering – designing and building bridges, roads, high rise office buildings, etc. A civil engineer will be a professional engineer.
Calling yourself an engineer as part of your public image as a politician can only be seen as trying to get the public view you as a registered, professional engineer involved in civil engineering. That’s not cool.
If you don’t like that view, tough. That’s what people think of it and of you.
Fortunately for you, I am not Canadian. You’d have lost my vote and all future support over this fiasco.
“Good plan. Make public fool of yourself.”
I completely disagree with you. Appealing a case in court doesn’t make you a fool. Even if you lose.
“Joe Average associates “engineer” with civil engineering – designing and building bridges, roads, high rise office buildings, etc. A civil engineer will be a professional engineer.”
I’m an engineer and my colleagues are engineers, but none of us are civil engineers or registered professional engineers. No one I told I’m an engineer ever assumed I build a bridge.
“Calling yourself an engineer as part of your public image as a politician can only be seen as trying to get the public view you as a registered, professional engineer involved in civil engineering. That’s not cool.”
I think it is cool! Very few politicians are engineers and it shows in their lack of analytical thinking. Someone with an engineering degree and engineering experience, in my opinion, makes a better politician than someone who has studied political science. So many policies would fail the back-of-the-envelope stage of an engineering project.
“This time I would hire a lawyer.”
That kind of says it all – and ties back in with the title of professional engineer.
A law degree doesn’t make you a lawyer. An engineering degree doesn’t make you an engineer.
You’ve learned the hard way that it takes a lawyer to navigate the law system.
Apply that lesson to engineering.
“A law degree doesn’t make you a lawyer. An engineering degree doesn’t make you an engineer.”
Someone with a law degree working as a laywer is a lawyer.
Someone with an engineering degree working as an engineer is an engineer.
Extra titles such as “professional engineer” require extra certifications and registrations.
“You’ve learned the hard way that it takes a lawyer to navigate the law system. Apply that lesson to engineering.”
He learned that the legal system is broken and needs to be re-engineered. I think he can do it.
Spoken like someone who has no idea how or why lawyers or engineers regulate their professions.
Technically somebody with no degree at all could even be working as an Engineer of some sort and justifiably call themselves an Engineer – its such a broad term and very possible to become one without going to a university in some situations.
For instance combat engineers probably don’t get a degree (at least not before they are already a combat engineer) in many cases… Though I would expect most engineers in today’s world to have gone to university historically that really wouldn’t have been true either – you could be an Engineer after working at a more general labour level for a while as an example – come up with some good ideas, while learning on the job and suddenly you are an Engineer.
@DT604
“Spoken like someone who has no idea how or why lawyers or engineers regulate their professions.”
I know full well why certain professions are regulated. An electrician or a construction engineer must make sure what he or she builds is up to code. This goal is safety. Every engineering field has their own requirements for training and certification. In this case nobody was harmed by a politician who simply states he is an engineer. A factual statement without any victims.
@C
Your comments suggest you really don’t have a full grasp of why the term engineer or lawyer is regulated in the province of BC. Hint: the goal is not just about safety from electrocution or building collapse.
But Mr. Hilderman didn’t “simply state” he was an engineer who happened to be a politician. He also included that information on his LinkedIn profile, which is significant. He could have called himself an engineering graduate, or a someone who studied engineering, or a person with an engineering degree. but he chose to pick a fight instead by using the term engineer to describe himself.
One must also ask the question why it was important for him to use that label to describe himself… Perhaps the term has meaning and value and is not just a word? In which case, maybe that’s why it should be protected…
Even if you lose I think you should try. To me it is clear an engineer should be allowed to call himself or herself an engineer, especially if he or she can back this up with credentials and proof of experience. Nowhere did you imply you were a “Registered Professional Engineer TM”.
You claim you want to fight the “show me your papers” society. Prove it by standing up to the machine!
Good luck!
https://www.vice.com/en/article/vvapy4/man-fined-dollar500-for-crime-of-writing-i-am-an-engineer-in-an-email-to-the-government
It’s interesting that a male can identify as a woman, but a person with an engineering degree who has practiced or is still practicing engineering cannot identify as an engineer.
It’s because of Persönlichkeitsrechte, I maybe.
Personal rights are there to protect your identity.
Also, there are indeed people who were born in the “wrong” body.
It’s not a recent phenomenon, either.
They always had felt and thought like the other gender, maybe way down to the biological level (brain activity, sensitivity etc).
It’s a complex topic, I think and I’m afraid I don’t have the competency to discuss it.
I’m not talking about gender. I’m talking about biological sex (I said male, not man). My point is that there is a discrepancy. Without psychological evaluation or surgery someone can change their sex in all their government documents at tax payers’ expense. But someone, whom everyone agrees is an engineer who engineers, cannot call himself/herself an engineer in a letter to the government.
Being misgendered at birth is the result of an error made by a government employee, and I’m fairly certain most people in this section, hell most people in general, agree that being fined $500 for calling yourself an engineer in a letter to the government is bullshit.
There’s a difference between sex (physically male or female) and gender identity; the government accepts that the latter can be self-determined. One’s gender identity doesn’t threaten the world like an unqualified “engineer” “doctor” or “lawyer” would.
@KenN
“There’s a difference between sex (physically male or female) and gender identity; the government accepts that the latter can be self-determined”
That’s simply not true. My passport, id card and birth certificate do not have a “gender” section only a section for “sex”.
“One’s gender identity doesn’t threaten the world like an unqualified “engineer” “doctor” or “lawyer” would.”
Except when a man enters professional women’s sports or go to women’s prison.
@Cs
“Being misgendered at birth is the result of an error made by a government employee”
The government doesn’t identify anything at birth in my country. You have to go to the city and register the birth of your child after birth. You are the one reporting the sex (not gender b.t.w.) of your child. The government doesn’t record gender.
In the Netherlands you don’t become a member of something but ingenieur (or ir.) is a protected title like dr.
Or the title ing. for bachelor of engineering. The title ir. is for master.
Guilds are alive and well. Only now, they collude / partner with government to enforce barriers to entry in any field where public money or public safety are involved, in some cases involving licensing. Fields requiring proper recording of finances for taxation purposes is included in this. Licensing standards are generally established by the guild to create a uniform metric to be measured by. PE, CFP, CPA, MD, DDS, JD, Realtor all fall under this method. I have worked with many “without portfolio” engineers, with no formal education, that generally overdesign and overbuild, and regularly commit the heresy of defying the “it can’t be done” official dogma. For the most part, Engineer is a job function. What the guild / “authority having jurisdiction” does is allow use of the alphabet soup that follows the name on a business card or online profile. It provides a competitive advantage to those in the guild when being evaluated by the less knowledgeable. Experience and execution are what are ultimately prized.
Try working in Quebec, where you have to also pass a French exam to join the various guilds. Not to mention the stranglehold trade unions have on the construction industry and government here.
To me the issue is the difference between colloquial use vs legal use of the term and mis-representing to the “average” JoePublic.
.
I’m a doctor. Like a real, treats patients every day type of doctor. There are now “doctors of nursing” and all sorts of things that actually have a *doctorate* degree, but to the majority of the public, that doesn’t make you a “doctor.” There certainly are jerks in nursing that attempt to mis-represent their actual role, and IMO mislead the public. This can directly lead to injury and should be legally protected. And I’m fully biased, I admit. But a doctor of chiropractor should not be allowed to misrepresent themselves as a “doctor”outside of some very specific circumstances either, and a bunch of other examples.
.
Similarly, I got my initial degree in chemistry and then a PhD in biochemistry before finishing medical school. Outside of business meetings with investors, in which it is fully appropriate to refer to my colleagues as Dr Xxxx, no one calls each other “doctor” in public because it is mis-representing and also just plain douchy. Don’t misrepresent to the public, the definition of which is clearly country specific. In many countries degrees etc are legally protected terms, apparently in Candada. Just like calling something Haute Couture or Champagne are legally protected. Try to market your crappy white wine as Champagne and see what happens. Even professors, outside of the walls of their academic institutions, very rarely introduce themselves as “Doctor ChemistGuy” because, invariably, they get asked what type of medicine they practice and it gets awkward fast.
What about someone calling themselves a Tech Doctor when they fix tech? That’s the issue here.
1) In US where I live, “Tech doctor” is not a legally protected term. Nor in any other country.
2) Someone calling themselves a “tech doctor” also passes the “reasonable person” test in that a reasonable person would probably not assume someone calling themselves “tech doctor” is a “people doctor.” So it doesn’t mis-represent anything.
3) Even if #1 and #2 were true, and the governing body/government/guild/whatever asked you “several times” to stop calling yourself that, and you persisted, you would still be guilty.
4) Your comment is not at all the same as the issue in the original article, where the individual violated #1, #2 and #3.
Engineers in Canada are just people from the upper class who had enough money to stay in school longer and pay all of their membership fees. Many of the engineers are so disconnected with reality as to be completely incompetent in practise. Typically dealing almost uniquely in paperwork rather than actual engineering. Most of the engineering work here is done by technologists or students and then signed off by an engineer being paid twice as much to “supervise” the people doing the engineering work while pretending the work is their own.
I’ve already had a few instances where I had to say “no, this is not safe or legal” to engineers. I’ve even had to threaten to report one before he agreed not to continue with a design that could of gotten people killed.
I’m surprised it’s taken this long for a case to reach this level of the courts in BC, to be honest. APEGBC, now EGBC, has always maintained that the use of “engineer” implies a level of professionalism that was only exemplified by those holding P.Eng’s or those on the path to obtaining them.
As of three years ago, when the legislation was changed along with the introduction of the Professional Governance Act, the law of the land now explicitly codifies that the use of “engineer” is restricted to Professional Engineers. Mr. Hilderman was the first to challenge this new law, in the highest court in BC, and because he also chose to call himself a lawyer (without the necessary qualification), he failed miserably.
Thankfully i’m closer to retirement than I am to graduation, i’m just hoping that I can bridge the next 5-10 years under the radar before EGBC comes after me as well. P.Eng for the last 25 years, and the only thing i’ve signed off with that qualification is a passport application… Before that privilege was removed.
Didn’t the title engineer come from being able to operate a Locomotive??? So now you cant even drive a train in Canada???
p.s. I am a Software Engineer… I actually write code.
Since Mr. Hilderman has chimed into this discussion, he should also disclose that he was made painfully aware of the use of Engineer in Canada while getting his degree. Canadian universities go through an accreditation process and inform students in their programs how the Professional Engineering Associations operate and the rules that govern them. He has always known it was a protected term in Canada and would have been an Engineer in training after graduating, falling directly under the associations guidelines until he chose to stop practicing, paying dues, or both. He’s just being stubborn.
I’m not college educated, but I’ve been in the mold making trade for 41 years. Here in the US with out a college degree you can’t call yourself an engineer. It’s kinda funny but I get degreed engineers who come to me for help. I consider myself an engineer, since I do the work. What’s in a title? It means nothing if you can’t perform. Don’t worry about what others call you, Just rest on what you do….
Let’s not forget that being a licensed engineer (or, in my case physician) has significant downsides too. In that if an engineer ( licensed, stamped the blueprints) signs off on something and it later causes a problem, that person is liable. Just like if I commit malpractice I’m liable while the nurses and everyone else gets to say “I had nooooo idea! I was just doing what the doctor said!”
It is a two way sword- and is why I think licensed engineer or whatever should get paid more- they shoulder the liability and additional stress that comes with that. It is also probably a good motivator to do a good job as best you can, even though bad stuff can still happen no matter what diligence you put in.
David isn’t just a guy with an engineering degree, and electoral candidate. He hasn’t been doing technical work for decades, or possibly ever, he’s a COO. He was running for the PPC, a fringe party analogous to UKIP or the goofier elements of the tea party, and his party’s main platform planks are anti-science, denying climate change and vaccines. He’s free to say those things, and campaign on them, and he’ll probably continue to, but he does not get to borrow the authority and reputation of our protected profession to do it. This is particularly egregious because that campaign came only months after fires completely wiped a BC town off the map. Imagine if someone was claiming to be a CPA, and trying to tell us there’s nothing to all this FTX business, or a chiropractor trying to get elected in kentucky campaigning on a plank that opioids aren’t addictive.
Anti climate science? You mean like John Clauser the 2022 Nobel Prize winner in physics? I think he understands science. We are members of the same “anti-science” org: CO2 Coalition. You should wake up and look at actual data regarding things like sea level and historical climates and end the destruction of the energy grids in the name of saving the climate by reducing CO2 emissions. Nothing in Net-Zero initiatives make sense if you really look at them.
Just so I understand… Mr. Hilderman publicly portrayed himself as an engineer, knowing full well this is generally not allowed in Canada (because every engineering grad in Canada knows this), and rather than do the simple thing of changing a few words or registering for $500/year he chooses to take the Association to court and fight 75+ years worth of law.
And then some random Hackaday contributor from the UK writes a hyperbolic piece on the topic because it’s totally relevant to Hackaday’s readership.
Perfect.
Rather wasting my time going through the motions, writing the tests and paying the fees to have the prestigous P.Eng behind my name I spent my time designing the electronics for PCs, about a dozen signal processing products for the music industry that were sold worldwide and mentored numerous young (oh no can’t call them engineers) engineering school graduates to do the same, all while raising 2 beautiful children with my wife. All these members of the club congratulate each other for the letters beside their names. My contribution to technology in the music industry is still being felt. Wasting precious time to be a part of the association would have been precisely that. A waste of time.
In the software world people often call themselves “software engineer” to elevate themselves, when “software developer” would do. Some “software engineers” go even further and just call themselves “engineers”. Twitter was full of them back when I was on there. But I doubt anyone would mistakenly hire them to build a bridge. It’s just marketing/branding.
My B.Sc is in Computer Engineering. Its Software Engineering course was a full year and actually very difficult, pretty much burned everyone out as it had a real project to provide at the end. Then there are the many embedded systems courses as well.
I’ve written safety-critical software under 61508 and IEC 60730. I consider that S/W engineering, where safety of the public is at stake.
Do we want Arduino makers writing that stuff and calling themselves “software engineers”?
Do we want immigrants from third-world countries with matchbook credentials, fake credentials also calling themselves “software engineers”?
Classic example is Boeing farming out MCAS software to a third-world country for $10/hr that claims to have “aviation” code writers yet has no aviation industry at all. Hmmm how do they then get basic experience? They make fake claims at Durgasoft and then post on Internet forums “How do I do this and provide source code and full explanation” demanding an answer so they can get their work done.
Differentiating between a real professional and sleazy charlatan – that is the corporate challenge, yet HR wants the cheapest labour. I thought S/W would be a solid career but it’s getting bad. Bad coders – you can hide all your mistakes and blame X or Y and still collect a paycheque. Until the plane crashes.
The problem with specially designated professional titles is they are a modern social construct intended to prevent people from claiming a credential in a round about why but then taken too far by essentially what amounts to dummies.
I don’t want people to falsely claim to be a doctor of medicine, or a heart surgeon, or an Attorney at law, or a civil engineer.
But as times change can someone be a software engineer? Do we confuse a doctor of philosophy with a doctor of theology with a doctor of medicine? I wouldn’t. We can’t make a society idiot proof and we can’t allow associations of professionals to corner the word market.
Software engineers can already hold a p.eng in Canada. We absolutely should allow professional associations to corner the world market. It’s how we end up with standardization across the industry. It’s good for safety, long-term maintenance, and the preservation of knowledge.
I had a Canadian government license as a Marine Engineer, but not allowed to say I’m an engineer!
Guilds are nothing more than a money making scam. Ill never join one. The only issue I have is when people sho dont have engineering degrees call themselves engineers e.g. AI engineer.
Canadian P.Engs are highly respected in industry due to the professional accountability for public safety and ethics. I wonder sometimes if P.Engs were designing the 737 Max or Tesla FSD , if their respective companies might have avoided scandal, deaths and lawsuits.
more likely they would have avoided innovation