[something2]

As a software engineer with an electrical engineering degree , I think there are other factors that make software engineering "less" engineering-y.

One of the biggest things that comes to mind for me is that in software engineering a junior engineer can legally build, deploy, and launch a critical project.

In other engineerings, projects require sign-off from a licensed (P.Eng in Canada) engineer. And the engineer that signs off on that project is the one held liable for its success or failure.

Personally, I've loved software engineering for the above as it's let me grow my career much more easily, but I do think of it as a stark difference in engineering and "software engineering".

[gavribirnbaum]

So other engineering has more regulation? Great benefit... I'm good with our SE freedom.

[movedx]

> One of the biggest things that comes to mind for me is that in software engineering a junior engineer can legally build, deploy, and launch a critical project.

Except in my experience this rarely happens. Maybe your experiences are different?

You're also potentially forgetting something: if their software breaks down it's very, very unlikely to cause a death. There are far, far, far, far fewer cases in which software engineering failures have resulted in death versus, say, structural engineering.

Building a bridge that takes people over a river? Better get that right...

Building LinkedIn? Let's hope we get it right but if we don't, some people get mildly annoyed and the share holders lose their money. It's not quite the same impact, but still downtime isn't ideal.

EDIT: Apologies for being so crude in my original wording. I'm updating the comment to reflect a more professional, civil tone.

[movedx]

Love the down votes but not the rebuttals. Stay classy, Reddi-um Hacker News.

EDIT: Apologies to all. This isn't the right attitude for HN and I'll refrain from this kind of behavior in the future.