This isn't exactly helpful because these terms are so widespread that my personal pet peeves have no bearing on the industry but... it bothers me when people who are not engineers are called engineers. An engineer is a profession which, I think should come with a heavy responsibility, ie. if a bridge collapses you could loose your license. It requires a lot of schooling and associated responsibility.
Being a developer also requires a lot of learning and good developers should feel a responsibility for the software they create but a "front-end engineer" is likely not going to be in a position where a single point of failure could literally kill dozens of people.
The same goes for "software architects".
I think my frustration comes down to companies who use these terms as marketing buzzwords to create trust without earning it more so than individuals who happen to use these terms to describe themselves.
I totally get where you are coming from. I am a chartered engineer here in the UK but other than being able to say that I am chartered it brings no more weight that the nice and very competent person that Bosch send out to repair my washing machine and call an engineer as it is not a protected status in the UK.
I think the main issue, as with all things tech, is that the field is so new we have to borrow from other industries to describe things, hence we land up in the situation you describe. I have stopped caring about this in the main though, it makes me happier.
Interestingly "Architect" has protected status in the UK and there are strict rules on who can use it, I wonder if adding software as a prefix really does circumvent that protection.
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This isn't exactly helpful because these terms are so widespread that my personal pet peeves have no bearing on the industry but... it bothers me when people who are not engineers are called engineers. An engineer is a profession which, I think should come with a heavy responsibility, ie. if a bridge collapses you could loose your license. It requires a lot of schooling and associated responsibility.
Being a developer also requires a lot of learning and good developers should feel a responsibility for the software they create but a "front-end engineer" is likely not going to be in a position where a single point of failure could literally kill dozens of people.
The same goes for "software architects".
I think my frustration comes down to companies who use these terms as marketing buzzwords to create trust without earning it more so than individuals who happen to use these terms to describe themselves.
I totally get where you are coming from. I am a chartered engineer here in the UK but other than being able to say that I am chartered it brings no more weight that the nice and very competent person that Bosch send out to repair my washing machine and call an engineer as it is not a protected status in the UK.
I think the main issue, as with all things tech, is that the field is so new we have to borrow from other industries to describe things, hence we land up in the situation you describe. I have stopped caring about this in the main though, it makes me happier.
Interestingly "Architect" has protected status in the UK and there are strict rules on who can use it, I wonder if adding software as a prefix really does circumvent that protection.