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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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If they have a degree in engineering, then they are an engineer.
Yeah, it’s weird to me as an engineer that when I’m on Lemmy people use that word to mean programmer. Nah, I work in a factory and had to learn thermodynamics
In my mind, the line is that an engineer is someone that can commit a crime by doing their job incompetently. If the only things at risk are your job and your pride, that's a different thing.
"I program all day, so there's a lot of trial and error. My friend is a negligent civil engineer, so there's a lot of error and trial."
Ooh the EEs will haaaaaate that lol. I generally disagree with that statement but I also totally see it.
If you're an electrical engineer who works in a nuclear power plant and your incompetence leads to a meltdown, you're going to go on trial. Possibly also if you're doing software engineering for the control systems of that power plant.
If you're a software engineer who works on Lemmy, not so much.
Same here in Quebec (but I don't know if it's a Canada thing), the title of engineer is reserved to folks who completed an engineering degree.
It’s always been weird to me as someone who isn’t an engineer in degree or title why those with degrees in engineering think people shouldn’t use an accurately descriptive word like engineer when it’s perfectly appropriate just because it’s a little to close to the title of their licensed profession.
Engineer is a verb, to devise or contrive something. Simply, to design a construct. A programmer by definition engineers a program and is therefore by the rules of the English language, an engineer.
They may not be a Licensed Professional Engineer, but an Engineer they remain.
What if you have a degree in engineering but you are a surgeon?
Do you.... do you do rocket surgery?
I'd assume you would also have a degree in surgery
What if it's a degree in a field of engineering that's not related to software or hardware?
A doctor of musical theory is still entitled Dr.
But, we're not talking about formal titles. We're talking about job titles. I've never heard of someone called "Engineer Jones", just "Mr. Jones who is an Engineer".
If you're a doctor of musical theory but you work in human resources as a clerk and someone asks you for your job title, you don't say "Doctor Clerk", you say "Clerk".
So, if you're trained as a Civil Engineer but you changed careers and are now writing javascript, are you a Software Engineer, whereas someone with a Computer Science degree can't claim that title?
I draw the line at using just "Engineer". The word Engineer has baggage, it means something pretty specific already. If you engineer something other than physical structures you should list what that something is, like Software Engineer or Network Engineer.
Train Engineer is a bit confusing because they also have historical claim to "Engineer" but no longer have the same electrical and mechanical education afaik. Correct me if I'm wrong!