US state trying to control who can call themselves an engineer. Again..

[coppercone2]

How about taking it slow and remaining skeptical!

[thm_w]

As for engineers "versus" (non-engineer) technicians, do you think there should or should not be a distinction between doctors and nurses?

You're stretching too far. Nurses and doctors are both protected titles in most of the world, because they directly care for patients health and hold some level of accountability.

And even so, a doctor is not a nurse that has just taken a few more classes.
An electronics engineer is essentially an electronic technician that has taken a few more courses (here at least).

This is why certifications exist (UL, CSA, FCC, etc.), use those to qualify the safety of products instead of titles.

[Psi]

Doctors and Nurses is a category where life is always at risk and often to an extreme degree and in an ongoing basis.

Engineer and Technician is a category where life is only at risk in some job instances and usually to a lesser degree and usually not all the time.
And, as stated above, you are working on a product that can be tested before being put to use, verses a Doctors / Nurses who is interacting with a human directly.

[IanB]

There should be a government department that investigates and prosecutes companies who have issues and don't fix them, or only fixes the issue on a case by case basis.  When a company has an ongoing issue that they could fix but don't the legal liability should fall on directors/upper management personally i.e. it should pierce the corporate veil.  There too much of an incentive to not fix issues when the harm only effects others and not the company itself.  So having this sort of failure pierce the corporate veil makes sense.

You might look at the European CRA (Cyber Resilience Act), which does aim to make corporations accountable. I work for a software company, and it is having a big impact on us. The penalties for non-compliance are significant.

[Andy Chee]

Doctors and Nurses is a category where life is always at risk and often to an extreme degree and in an ongoing basis.

Is an airline pilot a protected title? Or should it/should it not be?  It's a category where life is always at risk on an ongoing basis, is it not?

[Psi]

Every company has issues from time to time, so it shouldn't be draconian.
But there really is no excuse when a company is told about an issue and they just don't care enough to fix it, because it costs money and the only ones being screwed over are users who, for what ever reason, have no choice but to keep taking it.

[Psi]

Doctors and Nurses is a category where life is always at risk and often to an extreme degree and in an ongoing basis.

Is an airline pilot a protected title? Or should it/should it not be?  It's a category where life is always at risk on an ongoing basis, is it not?

Of course, it should be and already is.
You can't call yourself a pilot or fly a plane without some form of pilots license. With a license to fly a microlight much easier to get than a 747.

[tszaboo]

As for engineers "versus" (non-engineer) technicians, do you think there should or should not be a distinction between doctors and nurses?

You're stretching too far. Nurses and doctors are both protected titles in most of the world, because they directly care for patients health and hold some level of accountability.

And even so, a doctor is not a nurse that has just taken a few more classes.
An electronics engineer is essentially an electronic technician that has taken a few more courses (here at least).

This is why certifications exist (UL, CSA, FCC, etc.), use those to qualify the safety of products instead of titles.

Nah, there is a big difference,


"I am an Engineer. In my profession, I take deep pride. To it, I owe solemn obligations.

As an engineer, I pledge to practice integrity and fair dealing, tolerance and respect, and to uphold devotion to the standards and dignity of my profession. I will always be conscious that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth's precious wealth.

As an engineer, I shall participate in none but honest enterprises. When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given, without reservation, for the public good. In the performance of duty, and in fidelity to my profession, I shall give my utmost."

When starting your education, you swear one local variation of the Engineering Oath, similar to the Hippocratic Oath. It's been going on on my university for the past ~300 years. It's a subtle difference.
One of the biggest learning experience as an engineer is understanding that you don't know jack shit about most things. And consequently, you don't accept jobs that you don't know jack shit about. The biggest issue with people without formal education is that they accept jobs/tasks that they don't understand enough, and they don't say "I'm not qualified to do this".

[Psi]

People who don't know enough to actually realize how much they don't know can be a big problem yes.

But I don't want rules that block all engineering without formal education because it will also block all the people without formal education who do actually know what they are doing.

If a company chooses to hire someone without any formal engineering education to do engineering and that person turns out to be unsuitable and causes problems I equally blame the company for hiring that person as i do the person for taking the job.

[tggzzz]

I wanna see the test that will determine who can stay focused on debugging a boring system with problems for multiple years...

Being prepared to continue polishing turds is not a desirable attribute.

[tggzzz]

The British Post Office scandal was made 1000x worse by a lack of any proper police/government investigation into the complaints.
It was a management failure and government failure way more than a software failure.

Yes and no, respectively.

There was a fundamental flaw in the software conception and specification and implementation. Is was a mutable database system, but it should have been an immutable ledger system.

There should be a government department that investigates and prosecutes companies who have issues and don't fix them, or only fixes the issue on a case by case basis.  When a company has an ongoing issue that they could fix but don't the legal liability should fall on directors/upper management personally i.e. it should pierce the corporate veil.  There too much of an incentive to not fix issues when the harm only effects others and not the company itself.  So having this sort of failure pierce the corporate veil makes sense.

There are such departments; they are toothless.

There was a worse problem with the Post Office. They (and some other organisations) were given the power to initiate criminal prosecutions without state involvement. What could possibly go wrong!

[tszaboo]

People who don't know enough to actually realize how much they don't know can be a big problem yes.

But I don't want rules that block all engineering without formal education because it will also block all the people without formal education who do actually know what they are doing.

If a company chooses to hire someone without any formal engineering education to do engineering and that person turns out to be unsuitable and causes problems I equally blame the company for hiring that person as i do the person for taking the job.

I mean if you know what you are doing for example for PCB layout, there is CID and CID+ that will get you a title to be used for ~ a week's salary worth. Just an example.  I also don't want to be a gatekeeper. But then I had phone calls for connecting the internet, and they told me they are sending an "engineer" to connect my optical net.
I didn't flip out at the person on the phone of course, that's not my style, but sorry NO. You are sending someone with a week of training and a toolbox, not an engineer.

[tggzzz]

As for engineers "versus" (non-engineer) technicians, do you think there should or should not be a distinction between doctors and nurses?

You're stretching too far. Nurses and doctors are both protected titles in most of the world, because they directly care for patients health and hold some level of accountability.

And even so, a doctor is not a nurse that has just taken a few more classes.
An electronics engineer is essentially an electronic technician that has taken a few more courses (here at least).

The analogy is valid, and uses a neutral arena to highlight the differences.

Your lack of distinction between engineers and technicians is fallacious, but that is concealed by the lack of protected titles.

For the avoidance of doubt, there are circumstances in which an engineer is necessary, and circumstances in which a technician is the better choice. The two are equal and complement each other. The same is true for doctors and nurses.

This is why certifications exist (UL, CSA, FCC, etc.), use those to qualify the safety of products instead of titles.

Such certificates are frequently no more than self-declarations by people who may or may not be sufficiently expert.

[tggzzz]

I didn't flip out at the person on the phone of course, that's not my style, but sorry NO. You are sending someone with a week of training and a toolbox, not an engineer.

Precisely.

I expect the technician would do a better job of that than an engineer.

[tggzzz]

You can't call yourself a pilot or fly a plane without some form of pilots license.

Actually, you can. I know 14 year olds who have done that, and (in that environment at least!) they are mature beyond their years.

[tggzzz]

Doctors and Nurses is a category where life is always at risk and often to an extreme degree and in an ongoing basis.

Engineer and Technician is a category where life is only at risk in some job instances and usually to a lesser degree and usually not all the time.
And, as stated above, you are working on a product that can be tested before being put to use, verses a Doctors / Nurses who is interacting with a human directly.

Except for fintech systems, accounting systems, legal/justice systems, and many more. Yes, all those have caused "life changing" consequences.

Testing is, of course, irrelevant: you can't test quality into a product. Doubly so with LLMs; but that's a different topic.

[tggzzz]

Doctors and Nurses is a category where life is always at risk and often to an extreme degree and in an ongoing basis.

Is an airline pilot a protected title? Or should it/should it not be?  It's a category where life is always at risk on an ongoing basis, is it not?

A 14 year old, Robbie Rizk, won the title of Advanced National Champion in Glider Aerobatics when he won the British Aerobatic Association competition this June.
https://pilotweb.aero/news/14-year-old-british-pilot-wins-global-aviation-award-6243946/

Horse riding and (motor) cycling are also risky, yet the risks are tolerated.

[tggzzz]

People who don't know enough to actually realize how much they don't know can be a big problem yes.

Agreed. It is a global problem

But I don't want rules that block all engineering without formal education because it will also block all the people without formal education who do actually know what they are doing.

If a company chooses to hire someone without any formal engineering education to do engineering and that person turns out to be unsuitable and causes problems I equally blame the company for hiring that person as i do the person for taking the job.

Merely having a specific education should be insufficient. Demonstrable performance out in the real world is also necessary. That's what "Chartered Engineer" requires.

Having or not having an academic qualification is useful (but fallible) indicator of potential competency. That's equally true for engineers/doctors and technicians/nurses. 

"Escape clauses/routes" should be there, but using them should be the rare exception. I have known one such case. I have known far more people who are sufficiently ignorant that they do not recognise the differences.

[MisterHeadache]

Haven’t seen a comment on this thread yet from a manager’s perspective on their success rate in hiring, especially the importance of education/certification/licensure for hiring engineers who actually did do the job well.  So here’s my 12-years of management experience working for an automotive parts manufacturer.  I’ve interviewed over 100 folks, hired around 20, fired six, and supervised around 50 total / around 12-15 at a time.

Entry level: Bachelor’s degree in engineering mandatory.  Sorry, but I have no other criteria to (1) judge just how competent you might be as an engineer, and (2) your grit to finish something hard.  Upside – where you went to school was not that important to me.  During interviews, I cared most about your grades in core engineering courses and what technical projects you did, and WHY you decided to spend 4 years of your life to chase engineering.  If you worked on some big project, I asked open ended questions about it.  You needed to show me passion about it, especially what problems you had to overcome and how you overcame them.  Hiring success rate: a complete crap-shoot.  IMHO, there’s no formula, no HR guidance, no AI screening, nothing that will ever greatly improve the success rate.  Most of those who I had to fire were from this group.

Mid-level: Career experience outweighs education.  Prior job titles somewhat important, especially if you were a ‘senior’ engineer – what did you actually do, were you the responsible lead or not?  Did your prior work mesh with what my needs are?  Hiring success rate: about 75%.  Rare to get a dud here that is completely incompetent.  But really good engineers at this level are unicorns – the best ones are usually happy where they are, and when they do decide to change jobs, they typically land one in a few days or weeks, so there’s a very narrow window to nab them.  Best success rate came from direct networking, rarely got a superstar mid-level engineer through recruiters or online.

Late-level: Where did you go to school?  What degrees/titles do you have?  I didn’t really care (unless I needed a specific certification or license, which was rare). Not surprisingly, now its all about what you accomplished, what responsibilities you have held.  Hiring success rate: 90% or higher.  But these searches take the longest because the job requirements are usually highly specialized and the pool of candidates that match is the smallest.

There’s a lot more nuance here but I’ve already made a lengthy post.  Interested to see the perspective of other engineering managers and supervisors – how much did a formal education and certifications/licensure matter to your success rate?

[tggzzz]

That's a useful PoV.

I deliberately ran away from non-technical responsibilities, but did many many interviews. The good companies took a lot of time and care to choose suitable candidates: interviews lasted at least one day, involved maybe half a dozen technical staff and relevant managers, and some HR non-droids. Yes, that was expensive, but the alternative was deemed more expensive. Success rate: very few failures. Did we reject decent candidates? Certainly in one case (IMHO), and presumably in others.

For entry-level positions I wanted to see the candidate did more than the course required, because they like the subject. I wanted to see them setting stretch goals, partially succeeding, and being able to state what they would do differently next time. I also asked some engineering questions with no simple right/wrong answers, to see their thinking process.

Job titles were mostly ignored. In my first job I got a different (higher) job title every six months, even though I was doing the same job all the time. Later on my job titles were unenlightening (e.g. SMTS); but what I did was useful information. I applied that to people I was interviewing.

Was a first degree important? Yes, because it was necessary for candidates to understand the theory so they could determine what would and wouldn't be possible. People with only practical experience have a tendency to be suckered by impossible claims and/or attempt the impossible.

Was a second or higher degree important? No, unless the specialised subject was directly relevant to the position to be filled.

[Zucca]

I got my master of science in EE degree in Milan Italy.
Never worked in Italy.

In Germany they accepted my paper degree translated in english.
In USA they asked lots of details about my university in Milan and requested my translated paper degree.

IMHO you can easily fake to be a real eng if you can talk technical and have some photoshop skills.

[tggzzz]

IMHO you can easily fake to be a real eng if you can talk technical and have some photoshop skills.

Such candidates should be rapidly weeded out by interview questions, if not before. Of course, that does presume that the interviewers are competent.

The counter-argument is that too many people are suckered by bullshit generated by whatever means.

[MisterHeadache]

IMHO you can easily fake to be a real eng if you can talk technical and have some photoshop skills.

Such candidates should be rapidly weeded out by interview questions, if not before. Of course, that does presume that the interviewers are competent.

The counter-argument is that too many people are suckered by bullshit generated by whatever means.

One more anecdote - for hiring into our test lab (test technicians as well as test engineers), we had no choice but to start doing case interviews about 10 years ago.  Candidates got too good at BS-ing their way through the interview.  So...here's a workbench with various pieces of test equipment, here's a schematic, here's a PCA built to that schematic.  Now, power up the board and use a DMM and 'scope to collect DC and AC values at certain points on the schematic.  That rapidly weeded out the posers.

[tszaboo]

IMHO you can easily fake to be a real eng if you can talk technical and have some photoshop skills.

Such candidates should be rapidly weeded out by interview questions, if not before. Of course, that does presume that the interviewers are competent.

The counter-argument is that too many people are suckered by bullshit generated by whatever means.

One more anecdote - for hiring into our test lab (test technicians as well as test engineers), we had no choice but to start doing case interviews about 10 years ago.  Candidates got too good at BS-ing their way through the interview.  So...here's a workbench with various pieces of test equipment, here's a schematic, here's a PCA built to that schematic.  Now, power up the board and use a DMM and 'scope to collect DC and AC values at certain points on the schematic.  That rapidly weeded out the posers.

I interviewed a guy. Had an OK CV. Impressed management with probably BS. Brough about 30 PCBAs to the interview that this is all his work, the conference table was covered in them.
I asked how do you size I2C pullup resistors, and couldn't answer this simple question. He was babbling something about high current on the I2C data lines and that's why you need low resistors. I think he answered maybe 1.5 out of 10 of the technical questions correctly. He wanted to power a 2G modem with a resistor zener dropper.

[CatalinaWOW]

Haven’t seen a comment on this thread yet from a manager’s perspective on their success rate in hiring, especially the importance of education/certification/licensure for hiring engineers who actually did do the job well.  So here’s my 12-years of management experience working for an automotive parts manufacturer.  I’ve interviewed over 100 folks, hired around 20, fired six, and supervised around 50 total / around 12-15 at a time.

Entry level: Bachelor’s degree in engineering mandatory.  Sorry, but I have no other criteria to (1) judge just how competent you might be as an engineer, and (2) your grit to finish something hard.  Upside – where you went to school was not that important to me.  During interviews, I cared most about your grades in core engineering courses and what technical projects you did, and WHY you decided to spend 4 years of your life to chase engineering.  If you worked on some big project, I asked open ended questions about it.  You needed to show me passion about it, especially what problems you had to overcome and how you overcame them.  Hiring success rate: a complete crap-shoot.  IMHO, there’s no formula, no HR guidance, no AI screening, nothing that will ever greatly improve the success rate.  Most of those who I had to fire were from this group.

Mid-level: Career experience outweighs education.  Prior job titles somewhat important, especially if you were a ‘senior’ engineer – what did you actually do, were you the responsible lead or not?  Did your prior work mesh with what my needs are?  Hiring success rate: about 75%.  Rare to get a dud here that is completely incompetent.  But really good engineers at this level are unicorns – the best ones are usually happy where they are, and when they do decide to change jobs, they typically land one in a few days or weeks, so there’s a very narrow window to nab them.  Best success rate came from direct networking, rarely got a superstar mid-level engineer through recruiters or online.

Late-level: Where did you go to school?  What degrees/titles do you have?  I didn’t really care (unless I needed a specific certification or license, which was rare). Not surprisingly, now its all about what you accomplished, what responsibilities you have held.  Hiring success rate: 90% or higher.  But these searches take the longest because the job requirements are usually highly specialized and the pool of candidates that match is the smallest.

There’s a lot more nuance here but I’ve already made a lengthy post.  Interested to see the perspective of other engineering managers and supervisors – how much did a formal education and certifications/licensure matter to your success rate?

Your experience largely matches my personal experiences.  But know there is more to it than that.   One associate of mine had a perfect hiring record on both entry and mid-level hires.   Total of around twenty hires, no duds and only a few down at average level.   Never did figure out what his criteria was, but wish it could be bottled and sold.   

The degree thing is a great hiring screen when you have far more candidates than positions to fill.  Cuts the management workload to an acceptable level.  But only has good correlation to performance, not perfect.  One of my best hires had a degree in abstract mathematics.  But had work experience analyzing acoustic data for petroleum geologists and very strong recommendations from both that employer and his professors.  Turned out to be a superstar systems engineer and assembly coder.   And have worked with three non-degreed engineers that did fine.  Two were among the best around and the other was well above average.   So there are four great opportunities that wouldn't get through the front door of an outfit that did degree screening.   

There are ways around these problems.  Apprenticeships, conditional or temporary employment and other similar try before you buy approaches.  But in many corporate environments there is no way to fund these things.