[kec]

Engineering as a profession has a licensing system similar to medicine and law. In the US this involves several years of on the job training as a Jr Engineer and then passing two exams: the generic FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) and then a field specific PE (Principles and Practice of Engineering). Passing these exams and becoming licensed is all but required to practice civil engineering, but much less important in most other fields.

The "software engineering" PE is apparently pretty new (first offered in 2013) and kind of an oddball since this industry didn't grow out of any engineering tradition and doesn't really place too much value on certification.