Ask HN: Can non degree-holder use the title Software Engineer?

That depends on what you think the title of software engineer means. If you think of it as meaningless, then there are no requirements. If you think that the title of software engineer should be like the professionally licensed engineering fields, then look at what the requirements for professional recognition or licensing in those fields are. Usually its agreeing to abide by a code of ethics, proving that you possess understanding of the fundamentals of your field (either through education or learned on your own), demonstrating your competence though a number of years of working experience, and demonstrating that you're keeping up to date with changes in your profession (the continuing education requirement).

Why not? In the US, there isn’t a formal professional engineer (P.E.) certification for software engineers (unlike most other branches of engineering). If you’re performing the same job as someone who has a software engineering or comp sci degree and your job title happens to be “software engineer,” why would it matter if you have an unrelated degree, no degree, or even no high school diploma?

*This may not be true outside of the US

In Texas, the roster lists 60 professional engineers who hold active licenses with “Software” as one of the branches. I expect some of these individuals took and passed the NCEES exam in software engineering, which was offered from 2013 until 2019, when it was discontinued due to low interest:

https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineerin...

I imagine the individuals who obtained these licenses did so for prestige or credibility, to support the idea of licensing for software engineers, or because their work is related to other, more closely regulated engineering disciplines.

Some states try to control the use of “engineer” as a title, at least in some contexts, but I don’t know of any U.S. state that regulates the practice of software engineering, as such, nor of any credible plans to change this.

So, you’ve over thought this a bit. There is a course in comp sci called ‘Software Engineering’, and it’s the place where stuff like UML diagrams and end-to-end testing get covered (differences between tests). The UI developer would need to test his/her stuff too, no? You can engineer a good codebase for anything, not just critical applications.

The thing you are describing is something different altogether, where the distinction is more about status (e.g I do more important work than you). Usually we handle this with appropriate compensation, but if you are looking for nominal respect, that’s a losing battle. I just saw some kid on LinkedIn, graduates a bootcamp with no job experience at all, changes his title to ‘aspiring developer and data analyst’. Title pimping is a lost cause, and the integrity required to derive status from it is infinitesimally small.

Tech in general has always had this problem, as we mostly got lumped into ‘aren’t you an IT guy?’ for years. It had very little status, and we sort of have the same problem all over again except it’s the barbarian horde of newcomers that give themselves titles that would takes years to sincerely attain. Three month bootcamp straight to a ‘full-stack’ developer, huh? This stuff hurts us in general, and we might as all go back to being called ‘IT people’.

I do agree that software is too big to have a blanket term like ‘Software laborer’. There are ‘ui laborers’, ‘options trading laborers’, ‘infrastructure laborers’, ‘backend laborers’, etc. I wouldn’t want to create classism amongst laborers (you know, real laborers vs not so real laborers), but rather have descriptive branches of our field properly described so we understand what part of this field you specialize in - no status involved. I guess the same way we know what a Podiatrist does exactly, compared to an Orthodontist. There is no Medical Professional or Seriously-Better-Medical Professional.

I wouldn’t put too much weight on the term, marketing values ‘full-stack’ ahead of anything else anyways, which flys in the face of specialization. Probably why such a topic even comes up, if we’re all meant to be generalist, what sets us apart?

Tbh. I think when people see Software Engineer and Developer on a job ad or a CV, both mean the same thing to them. I certainly see as many job postings using both titles interspersedly.