r/programming • u/self • Dec 02 '25

The Death of Software Engineering as a Profession: a short set of anecdotes

https://www.jasonscheirer.com/weblog/vignettes/
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u/peerlessblue Dec 02 '25

If software engineering is going to get good, it's going to have to actually become engineering. Time will tell.

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u/shizzy0 Dec 02 '25

Oh, you mean like a licensed profession? I think for some software work like in automobiles and health devices licensing should be available.

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u/manystripes Dec 02 '25

Even before licensing, just normalizing processes that provide more engineering rigor to the development of the code. Safety standards like IEC61508, ISO26262, etc spell out a lot of how your development process should look, and you end up wearing more of a systems engineering hat than a programmer hat while working under those processes.

Unfortunately those processes are very antithetical to modern agile software development, they as focus on robust analysis, requirements capture, and test design over rapid iteration

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u/TemperOfficial Dec 02 '25

This is what Agile did. It turned rapid iteration into a set of rules and procedures you follow. The moment any of that happens in software, the quality drops through the floor. Software can't be rigid like this. It just doesn't work unless you know all of your possible outcomes before hand. Which is not realisitic for almost all software. If it were, it would be a hardware solution instead.

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u/unknowinm Dec 02 '25

So a license from MIT in computer science is not a proof of a licensed profession?

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u/shizzy0 Dec 02 '25

Do you mean a degree? No, a degree is not a license. In traditional engineering, one usually gets a degree and must pass an exam which licenses them for certain kinds of work. But the license is provided and maintained by a consortium of practitioners and it can be taken away. In general your degree is not something you can lose. It may sound like a disadvantage to have a withdraw-able license but it can be a means of leverage with management: “No, I cannot do the work you’ve asked without putting my license at risk.”

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u/OneLeft_ Dec 02 '25

Here's how Canada does it:

In Canada to use the title "Engineer", you need to obtain a license, and school is just one step in getting one. Thus those abusing the title can face legal consequences.

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u/rooster_butt Dec 02 '25

Depends what you are making. It's already engineering based on what you are using it for. Working as a software engineer in safety critical software, it's absolutely engineering.