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this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
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Professional engineering is really about implementing processes and procedures that create reliable and dependable systems. Ultimately it's about responsibility and risk management. Being an engineer has nothing to do with understanding or implementing technology or technical details and specifications (unless you are in an extremely junior level engineering position). That work already has another title: that's called being a technologist (and there ain't nothing wrong with that title and that work).
Very, very, very few technologists (including self-taught programmers, computer scientists, and even some engineering grads) have, or even understand the skills needed to manage technical risk, simply because those skills are not part of any of those curriculums and the licensure required to be recognized to conduct those activities. It requires knowledge, training, and certification specifically, not just a university degree or x years on the job. Of course, it's not the sort of distinction that the general public understands by "engineering" since the public kind of just takes the act of technical risk management for granted.
Conversely, it's perhaps also why the number of engineers with hands-on skills is shockingly lower than we expect: using technology is not on the engineering curriculum.
But yeah, just because the general public confuses technical skills with engineering doesn't give you, lacking all three of : an accredited engineering degree, an engineering licence, and perhaps most importantly, malpractice insurance, licence to call yourself an engineer.
What are you talking about? I am pretty confused by your entire perspective How is using technology not in the engineering curriculum? Building robots and programming was at least half of my degree. And risk management is a very, very, small part of it, just a couple factors you add to some calculations basically.
I'm all for letting people ramble, but Engineering is, by definition, the design of tecnical stuff.
Risk management is a part of "designing things", but it is not what makes you an engineer. Converting technology into objects that solve problems is what makes you an engineer.
And there are lots of disciplines out there that started calling themselves engineers while they are objectively very deep into the grey area. If your work does not involve calculus, logic or physics of some kind, it is highly likely that you are not in fact a real engineer. (Looking at you, Sales and Marketing Engineers)
Yeah people give us industrial engineers shit, but if you watch us talk with business people you’ll see how wide the gulf is between us.
Also “sales and marketing engineer” jobs are the bane of looking for a job with an engineering degree. Like I get that you think you want an engineer to sell technical products to other engineers, and yeah I’d rather buy technical products from someone who thinks like an engineer, but also fuck you I didn’t break my brain in school to be in sales, I did it so I could get paid to design shit.
A trend I've noticed over the years is that there are just very little jobs available where you "design shit". It feels like the market is saturated with designers and companies already have all the workers they are looking for.
Meanwhile most people I've seen graduate have no real talent for the job. And they never seem to get hired for positions that require talent in design for manufacturing.
You'd think there would be more jobs available, but there simply aren't. All the jobs are either trade skills, pure CAD or some other part of the product lifecycle that doesn't require any real design skill.
You aren’t wrong, though even in manufacturing roles we still do design shit, it’s just more often shit like a workstation setup than a product.
Because they are referring to engineering disciplines that predate all of the stuff you mention. When mechanical, structural, civic, etc engineers sign off on a design (stamp it) the incur personal liability if there is a defect in the design that kills someone or causes damage. There are certifications for telecom design and processes that require them to stamp designs, but otherwise most of what is lumped together as technology doesn't constitute engineering from a legal or historical perspective. However the titles sort of took off and created two sets of meanings.
If software engineering was treated as engineering in the way that mechanical or others forms are, you would get a degree, get an entry level job at a firm as a junior, and after a few years, study and get certified to stamp designs/code systems, etc.
Now, outside of places like code for flight systems, medical devices, power plants, etc there isn't a need for that kind of rigor, but those are the areas that would require licensing if it was available.
Oh okay now I get it, thanks