Hillel Wayne wrote a really excellent well researched article about software engineering compared to other forms of engineering a few years ago. It necessarily goes into a lot of this stuff but what emerges is that these definitions are regulatory and historical debris.
You don't need medical board or a bar to certify or constrain professional behavior and those organizations may not constrain as much as you assume anyway. The reasons we do have those institutions is as much a matter of historical accident as any modern need for it, and the reasons we don't have it for other high impact fields is pretty much an accident too.
And in a lot of the world software engineering does have professional certification and standards of practice. They still ship adware and racist loan denial algorithms too.
Every part of your existing job is transforming before your eyes.
If you cling to definitions and static roles, you're going to have a bad time.
Systems design, architecture, database fundamentals, a bit of SRE. That matters. Not coding and syntax and toy problem solving with data structures and algorithms.
My own experience is that coding, syntax, and some kinds of toy problem solving are important skills to use AI coding tools most effectively. I routinely get PRs these days whose descriptions seem plausible but are clearly wrong from a glance at the code, and I've had times when I'm unable to communicate to someone why a PR is wrong because they're not able to form a sufficiently detailed mental model of what it's doing.
I'm not going to let the army tell me what my job is.
And lets be pirates and hackers instead.
https://www.computer.org/education/bodies-of-knowledge/softw...
But by that definition, soldiering can never be a "profession" as a soldier is always regulated by the government they serve, and there is no professional association regulating mercenaries. But I would be very hesitant to suggest that the US Marines are not professional soldiers. They are. The definitions are messy.
As they should. Industries should be self regulating. While these industries form their own standards of practice they do so with the blessing of government, typically under state government supervision/authorization in the US, and are held to account by government. A lawyer or doctor who violates their standards of practice could very likely be guilty of criminal law and find themselves in prison depending upon the violation even when no other criminal actions occurred.
Even bus drivers are held to higher standards of practice than software developers.
Because while there are some software developers that might be in a place to cause people physical harm, ALL bus drivers are ALWAYS in a position to cause great and immediate harm to others on the road.
It's the legal liability that SWEs don't want. e.g. You wouldn't be able to just slap "This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE." on your software and walk away from it when lives are at stake. A so-called Profession Software Engineer would have to accept liability for their work product, and those of the juniors working under them.
I started down the road to becoming a Professional Engineer while I was in college as I studied Electrical Engineering and was more interested in hardware/power engineering. I took, and passed, the Engineering Intern Test in my state (which is the preliminary exam you take before you can start your journey to become a PE). Then life happened and job/career opportunities took me in a different direction/industry, and I've been doing software instead. So, I never became a licensed Professional Engineer. I'm still a licensed engineering intern, though. I'm still bound by the legal and ethical standards that it entails and could lose my license for violations.
There are certainly things where you need to have an officially licensed engineer actually stamp the plans. That doesn't mean everything about the plans was done by someone who holds that stamp, just that they were reviewed and signed off by the person holding the license. Lots of people may work on those plans. They're still doing engineering work. And that's just for the kinds of things which actually require a licensed "engineer".
There's still tons of jobs which is often still called "engineering" which often don't involve anyone who has a stamp. Few electrical engineers, chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, or lots of others actually have any kind of engineering license. They still get degrees in things like "Bachelor of Science of Electrical Engineering" or "Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering". Their job roles usually have "engineer" in it. And yet it seems like the job people only really criticize as "you're not an engineer, engineers are licensed" is SWE.
I always come back with "you're not an engineer, engineers wear stripey hats"
I guess search engines count for something if you shovel in enough coal ;)
Many states require you to pass a test and get a license/certification before working in fast food.
That is not a requirement in the SWE world.
The sheer lack of accreditation and standards-enforcing body is what makes sofware engineering a non-profession.
Yes, several: the ACS, ACM, IEEE.
So you’re wrong.
What was your last employer that asked for your license number of member ID from any of those organizations? I am guessing it has never happened.
Normally when people try this argument they are hoping a for a dog whistle to shift ground because they don't want to be regulated.