this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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idk about grue but imo that depends on the requirements of the title. If you need to be a real engineer capable of doing real engineering work to claim it then by all means.
If you need less than 14 math credits and only general ed science requirements, then no.
CAEB accredites Canadian university programs, including civil engineering programs, electrical engineering programs, and yes, software engineering programs. In addition, provincial engineering organizations such as PEO require that all professiomal engineers are employed as engineers in training (EIT) for a period of time, have passed an ethics exam, and are in good professional standing.
TL;DR: yes, officially recognized software engineers are real engineers in Canada.
The other key requirements I hope your licensing has are continuing education requirements and, most importantly, the notion of being a professional and having accountability to the public, not just your employer. Just taking one college class where you learn about Therac-25 isn't enough; a professional software engineer also needs to have the power to refuse unethical demands by their employer (e.g. to build dark patterns or otherwise enshittify the software) and have that judgement be backed up by the state.
Alright but it feels like you didn't really touch on my personal requirements and just appealed to authority.
Feels like the right thing to do, IMO. Why do your personal requirements matter anywhere regarding this? 😆
Progress comes from the voicing of opinions.
And your opinion is that software is not a valid engineering discipline?
Validity aside, it isn't an engineering discipline, that's right.
Programmers are important and do important work but programming doesn't make somebody a physician, or sheriff, or attorney, or congressman.
When control valves in a reactor don't appear to be having an effect you don't call the comp sci guy in to run diagnostics on the terminal, first, instead you call the engineers who manually seal the valves and shuts down the turbines to prevent coolant loss.
You can see the CEAB accredited programs and decide for yourself if they meet your personal criteria – they all seem to include a substantial variety of advanced mathematics.
I'm sensing that you may be an engineer in another discipline who feels jealous that the horde of unregulated software engineers are diluting your title. It's a valid concern in my opinion, and one that is shared by organizations like PEO who have and will take action on people using the term incorrectly, although their resources and jurisdiction are obviously limited. The key differentiation is between a licensed, professional software engineer with a stamp, and a software developer who was given "engineer" in their title at work.
You seemed more familiar with them so I wanted to hear your input but apparently you know as little about them as I do.
I am not familiar with the curriculum of every single accredited engineering program in Canada, and few people are. I am fairly confident that I do not know as little about them as you do, however.
Well I am not planning to familiarize myself with every single engineering accrediting institution on earth nor would it have any impact on my beliefs of what is and is not an engineering discipline.
During my computer engineering degree I was required to take enough math credits to earn a mathematics minor, and I learned the physics of transistors at a quantum level as part of the core curriculum. Do you think I can call myself an engineer, or should I limit it to just - what was the wording you used - oh yeah, syntax ape?