this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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Software engineering is just what any "engineering" field would be if they didn't have standards. We have some geniuses and we have some idiots.
Mechanical engineers, civil engineers, electrical engineers, etc. are often forced to adhere to some sort of standard. It means something to say "I'm a civil engineer" (in most developed nations). You are genuinely liable in some instances for your work. You have to adhere to codes and policies and formats.
Software engineering is the wild west right now. No rules. No standards. And in most industries we may never need a standard because software rarely kills.
However, software is becoming increasingly important in our daily lives. There will likely come a day wherein similar standards take precedence and the name "software engineer" is only allowed to those who adhere to those standards and have the proper certs/licenses. I believe Canada already does this.
Software engineers would be responsible for critical software, e.g: ensuring phones connecting to an emergency operator don't fail, building pacemakers, securing medical records, etc. I know some of these tasks already have "experts" behind them. But I don't think software has any licensing/governing.
Directly opposed to "engineering" would be the grunt work which I do.
I'd be very interested in learning more about how Canada manages "software engineer." Because whatever is being done certainly doesn't seem to include mandating where regulated professionals must be employed or punishing failures.
Saskatchewan's electronic health records system (eHealth) has had a couple of egregious failures that it shouldn't have taken a "software engineer" to prevent.
Several 911 services became unavailable during an outage that happened to also disrupt point of sale payment systems nationwide.
Both of the relevant companies are telecommunications companies (Telus and Rogers, respectively), where one would expect "software engineering" to be conducted by "software engineers" regardless of regulation.
A quick search for breaches in critical personal information will show that Canada is performing about as well as the US. Which is to say, abysmally.