[mulr00ney]

Engineers versus "engineers".

I have fond memories of a boss who was an actual, licensed engineer while the rest of us were very much normal software devs. Boss was pretty chill except when someone someone suggested we should be called "engineers" rather than "developers", at which point they said "if you guys were building bridges, people would be dead." (I don't think all software needs to be built to rigorous engineering standards but man... I think about that line a lot.)

[rectang]

I prefer the term "software developer" and that's what I use when I don't need the prestige of the term "software engineer". It's disadvantageous for organizations to do that with actual job titles, though.

Absent US government intervention to codify the term "engineer", probably the only way out of the "engineer" trap is through further title inflation, where the developers all become "vice presidents". :)

[mulr00ney]

Yeah, it's 100% the better term. We've got rules against using engineer here in Canada though several companies I've worked for have called me an engineer. Apparently Professional Engineers Ontario sometimes goes after people for calling themselves engineers but I've never heard of it actually happening, and I don't know that they have any real teeth given that the places I worked that called me an engineer were Canadian-owned. (In fact, the only place where they checked if I could use the title was the one multi-national. Go figure.)

[jimbokun]

People meeting the definition of Software Engineer while having that title may be rare, but we certainly need more of them.