[_delirium]

Some countries have that norm, but in the United States, PE licensing is fairly unusual, due to rules allowing corporations to have one PE sign off on the work of a lot of engineers. As a result, even in the case of critical medical equipment, most of the real engineers who scoped, designed, and tested the product are not PEs.

Often the PE is more of a lawyer than an engineer. They typically do have an engineering degree, but are years out from any hands-on engineering work. They do final legal sign-off, and are knowledgeable about statutes and insurance policies, but rely on people with more recent technical experience to do any technical work.

[wraithm112]

Sure, I could imagine that is the case in fields like nuclear engineering. All the PEs I know are smart and have technical chops. Though, most of my PE friends are fairly young (early 30s) and are maybe on their way to that destination.

[mcguire]

"Some countries have that norm, but in the United States, PE licensing is fairly unusual, due to rules allowing corporations to have one PE sign off on the work of a lot of engineers."

Which is significantly stronger than the state of software engineering.