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On Hiring Engineers That Aren't Engineers

1 points by sappapp ↗ HN
Why is it normal for companies to hire people for engineering roles that do not have engineering degrees. Frequently I see job postings for Software Engineers, Infrastructure Engineers, CI/CD Engineers, and so on, but it is highly unusual for one of the requirements to be a computer engineering or software engineering degree.

6 comments

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wyclif
This should be submitted as an "Ask HN" in the title.
sappapp
Is it possible to edit?
wyclif
If your submission gets voted up enough, HN mods will edit the title and fix it for you.
wyclif
To your question: you're extrapolating hiring practices in the USA to all companies. In the States and the UK there is no licensure for professional software engineers (with a few exceptions like Texas and Florida). So in many US companies in SV you will often encounter employees in software development and engineering roles who come from non-engineering backgrounds and are self-taught or perhaps started their careers as an apprentice, and who have industry experience instead of formal educational credentials. And most of those who do have engineering degrees aren't regulated by licensure anyway in the Anglo-American part of the industry.

This is not the case in other countries (for instance, Canada) where the industry there regulates "professional engineer"; the term "engineer" is protected by both the Engineers Act and by Section 32 of the Professional Code.

sappapp
What kind of effect does this have on the industry? Do more people obtain engineering degrees or are there more non engineering titled jobs available?
wyclif
It's hard to say without a study, but my personal opinion is that it doesn't make much difference at all in terms of getting the work done. It's only a title. What is the difference between "software engineer" and "software developer" in terms of the role? In the US, there's probably not much difference at all. In Canada, there probably is a difference because "engineer" is a more formal title denoting educational achievement, so I suspect there's a pay differential involved.