Posted on 03/30/2003 7:38:16 AM PST by weegee
“Building a bridge and building a radio are not the same thing.”
principles of public safety are no necessarily different. A radio, and a radio link are quite amenable to rigorous engineering analysis. If it is a critical system, it is not unreasonable to be asked to be accountable to the public for the work.
essentially, that is what the title PE does - provides accountability to the public so they can be assured a system will work properly and won’t kill them or damage property as a result of a reasonably foreseeable failure
That is what we all want, the government charging and regulating YET another aspect of the economy.
In my field people SCREAMED for licensure and regulation. It was all to the benefit of the corporations and now prices for services are high and payment is low. Stupid.
In the age of the internet no one needs government license.
That is what we all want, the government charging and regulating YET another aspect of the economy.
In my field people SCREAMED for licensure and regulation. It was all to the benefit of the corporations and now prices for services are high and payment is low. Stupid.
In the age of the internet no one needs government license. This was one of the goals of Goals 2000, the Teaching establishment’s plan to take over the economy by being the gate keepers on who works and who doesnt.
You can title yourself what ever you want but law is specific. Washington State law is as restrictive as Texas. Additional post graduate degrees lessen the required time (bachelors degree and 4 years professional level experience) by 1 year for MS and another 1 year for PHD.
I know several college professors with multiple degrees that have never become licensed.
My goal was to become a PE and it took me twelve years between jobs and family commitments.
Yes I do think that some of these folks are true engineers but they should be required to have the same ABET accredited degree.
Texas could also come up with a separate license like Washington has for septic system designers.
“In the age of the internet no one needs government license.”
You don’t need one, if you are a programmer. But you do if you want to call yourself an engineer and offer engineering services to the public.
You have to argue that public safety and property are no longer important if you wish to argue that engineering licensure is unneeded.
As someone in the engineering trades: NO! Programmers know programming languages but 99% don’t have a clue about engineering. That 99% doesn’t have a clue about what is happening in the computer or how computers work. They simply code until some kind of result they were after appears then think they’re the smartest people on the planet. It is why we have all kinds of safety critical software and systems certifications, to weed out the incompetent programmers from those that can actually design systems that won’t kill people.
“a top rated”
Says you, another example of a hick. I went to Standford and I wasn’t impressed. I sure as Hell wouldn’t automatically grant engineer status to their graduates.
Standford=Stanford. I need more coffee.
“Software engineering is too new “
“And, the public-safety aspect of software engineering is missing”
Not exactly. Software has been out for over 60 years. Modern mechanical just 125 years.
DO-178B regulates aircraft and avionics for safety critical systems. There are a number of others.
Granted, software is diverse and would need not just one cert to be effective, but the crap computer programmers put out so far is just that, crap.
Thread is from 2003.
“Could you imagine living in this world minus the things that have been engineered by people who did not hold a degree. “
The vast majority of the computer industry wouldn’t exist without them. The modern computer era was developed primarily from 1972 to 1992, give or take, and the inventions during that time were simply interested people advancing their hobbies for money. Few had formal training. Even now the vast majority, probably 95%, of computer programmers were not formally educated in a college to program computers or to be engineers of any kind.
Sorry, you are incorrect. I do assume liability for the designs in the contracts that are written between the company that I work for and the customer. In fact, the liability assumption is so prevalent in the industry that all contracts must be reviewed by BOTH contracting and legal before they are signed.
As for responsible charge, the reason most top engineers in networking do not have or want anyone with lesser skill working under them and making decisions is responsible charge. More likely than not, if there is more than one engineer, the senior engineer will do the work and then tell the jr engineer(s) what they did and why rather than allow them input into the design. This is because they need to be able to answer each and every question about the design. An many times, for large project, or high value (cost), or critical (life and limb) we will call in other engineers (one has a PHD in Computer Science from a State Tech school) to review our designs. Likewise, I will review their designs as well.
I have no problem being accountable to an peer review or engineering board. Show me one that understands networking well enough to be able to review my work. They didn’t exist back in 2003 when this article/post first came out ... and they don’t exist now. Further, even after 9 years, the education system is just now getting to point where it is offering a BA/BS in Computer Networking.
Regulatory liability - putting your ability to work in jeopardy should you drop the ball, not standard business liability.
Still, what you describe is good business practice for any complex project - you can’t catch everything all the time.
So why is it so important for you to call yourself an engineer?
Computer and Network Engineering are general offshoots of Electrical Engineering - they aren’t new as you state. You can get registered as a PE in Electrical Engineering, and contrary to what you may have heard, you CAN pass the test with a computer/networking background.
Unfortunately, you do not exhibit the temperament to be in responsible charge of anything if you insist that nobody can review your work. If your work is good enough, and your design is properly documented and is solid, it can be reviewed by someone with a reasonable skill level in networking.
I don’t know if this is you, nor am I accusing you of this, but what most folks doing “network engineering” do is rely on vendors to help put their designs together, and then rely on the performance claims of vendors, and interoperability claims of vendors.
You assert that it is somehow too complex for a technical person to review your work in a responsible charge capacity- and if you were an engineer, you would recognize that this highlights a failure in your design - that it is not documented sufficiently, and that your technical arrogance will be your downfall.
Your assumption that no regulatory liability applies to networks only proves my point that you do not understand the current situation in network engineering.
Why is it important for anyone to call themselves “engineer”. Why cant the structure be three parts
[licensed / certified ] Licensed by the state or certified by the vendor
[discipline] civil / electrical / network / etc
[level] technician / engineer / architect / consultant
Sorry, Computer and Networking are offshoots of mathematics not electrical engineering. I have fired EE’s because they could not perform the job required. One even had his masters in EE.
Unfortunately you do seem to possess the intelligence to understand complex systems. Do you want a civil engineer to review the desins of a 757? How about a home architect reviewing the designs of a nuclear power plant? I would venture to say that most complex systems can not be reasonably reviewed by a mid level skill set.
Not only have I worked for several of the network vendors and in one case, engineered their own internal voice video and data backbone, I have served on design teams, technology teams and even have been the highest level of support for customers. This includes PSTN carriers and their central offices and backbones.
However, I no longer perform in that role.
The “Hicks” tend to become very very cautious when some richard-skull calling himself an “Engineer” blows up 300+ kids.
I understand networks quite well. Regulatory liability varies or is non-existent on the network, irrespective of the individual network designer. You added that as a red herring though.
Computer and Network Engineering - in academia almost universally branched off of Electrical Engineering. Many electrical engineering departments are titled “Electrical and Computer Engineering”. Computer Science often was an offshoot of the Math Department in many institutions.
Licensing is not ever likely to be put into a vendors hands - afterall I’m sure you know your share of folks who collect vendor letters after their name, but couldn’t design themselves an escape hatch from a paper back.
The reason licensing resides at the state level is for local accountability and public safety - if you screw up the state can yank your right to do business as that licensed professional (whatever it is.....there are literally hundreds of categories in some states) Their oversight is part of state law in every state I’m aware of.
My problem with this is the difficulty of working as a licensed professional engineer in multiple states - it shouldn’t be such a pain, but it is, that’s life.
Now as to your scenario of an engineer reviewing designs for which they obviously are not qualified - is nonsense. In some states they license you by discipline, in EVERY state that uses model engineering law, you are forbidden from reviewing designs for which you have no expertise. No competent engineer would do it. It happens on occasion and is often disciplined by engineering boards.
For complex systems a competent engineer exercising responsible charge over your work would insist that you document and/or explain the approach you used, and why you picked it over another, and specifically detail which are critical and why. You might detail software and testing.
Then the engineer would represent the design in whatever manner was necessary - where there was uncertainty, it would be documented and presented to the customer with detailed explanation as to why it could not be guaranteed.
Talented technical staff from entry to PhD levels are not degraded in any way by the lack of an external “engineer” title - they just can’t offer to “engineer” anything outside of the company environment for the public.
Many networks require no or very little permitting or other regulation (outside of, perhaps, robust, redundant power systems). It is your project portfolio that matters most, and capability to execute by virtue of knowledge and/or experience. Many professors of engineering teach engineers that later become professional engineers in responsible charge of projects that their own professors could not legally perform.
It never hurts to professionalize - a PE credential doesn’t guarantee anything, but it does provide a measure, with a corrective administrative apparatus operating for the public good (we hope) as a oversight.
A vendor certification is meaningless in this context. Variance in competence is far greater in my experience (and I’ve hired many) with vendor certs. It is meaningless as an ability to function in an intended role. A PE doesn’t guarantee competence, but there is an enforcement element that is missing with vendor certs.
Regulatory liability is non-existent in networking!?!?! Did you know that under FEDERAL law, simply attaching a device, regardless of use or purpose, to the telecommunications network - regardless of any actual harm, without proper authorization is a felony? Here is a URL that provides a good overview: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/98-326.pdf
Add to that security laws, and in the financial sector a whole lot more additional laws and we have not yet crossed international boundaries. I will remind you that you were first bring up regulatory liability, not me.
Perhaps you did not read my prior comment. I left licensing to the state and certification to the vendor. There SHOULD be a difference between a licensed engineer and a certified engineer. BTW, vendors can and do yank certifications.
My problem is that the government does not own the word engineer. It is apart of the English language. Just as the state does not own the word “Doctor”. They can restrict “medical doctor” or “licensed physician” but to restrict doctor would be just as over broad as restricting the word engineer.
You call the scenario of those who are not qualified to review the designs as nonexistent ... yet that is just what you are recommend. Especially from the view of 2003 when this article was first written. At that time, there were fewer than 100 people IN THE WORLD who held the certification that I had or anywhere close to the experience that I held. There were no degree programs for one to seek college training. The ONLY path was through vendors. Now add to that basic lack of qualified people and you now want to add a requirement to attend a college that does not provide anything close to the actual work? Under that logic, I suppose a general studies degree would qualify one to do just about any field of engineering.
We do ALWAYS document our work - that is part of the discipline. And yes and all the whys are wherefores are in that documentation. However a mid level network engineer is not going to understand the BGP multi-vector route redistribution algorithm .... much less any other “engineer” outside of networking. I assume that is also true for a nuke plant or a chemical plant as well. There are areas within networking that only a network engineer will be able to understand. That is due to their very specific training. Likewise a nuke engineer will know way more about the radiation risk than I would. That is why different levels and testing to those levels (vendor certification) is so necessary. It adds a level of testing of the individual and therefor reassurance that the individual is competent to perform design reviews or even develop the design in the first place.
You say that many networks don’t require any regulatory compliance (you are bringing that up again) and that is a true statement. It is also just as relevant as me pointing out that many home owner or business landscaping projects don’t have to be designed, engineered or approved by a civil engineer. On the flip side of that coin are billion dollar networks that I work on that connect multiple carriers integrating deeply into the telecommunications environment (SS7 signalling for call forwarding or route propagation), provide security connections to government and quasi-government agencies ... many of who require background checks just to even talk about the requirements. Add to that security products that provide credentialing, security audit and fraud detection in the network layer. Again, tie this all together in a manner that complies with internal audit, regulatory auditors and across international borders. And while a nuke power plant has a LOT of regulations and laws to comply with, I have yet to see one have to comply with the legal requirements from five different countries.
I believe our disagreement comes down to one perception that you have based upon your comment ...”they just can’t offer to “engineer” anything outside of the company environment for the public.”... You see, that is exactly what I did and to a smaller degree, still do today. My company (telecommunications provider in the US) engineers solutions for the public.
And in my world, vendor certification is a fundamental requirement. You don’t get to TOUCH a vendor’s equipment, especially in a production environment unless you have a certification from the vendor in that equipment. That lesson was learned in the telecom industry by first AT&T when their entire US frame relay network collapsed because a technician thought all he had to do was swap out a board on the ATM switch.
“Regulatory liability is non-existent in networking!”
Who said that? Not me. not every network has regulatory liability is what I said.
not every high-performance network is commercial.
“You see, that is exactly what I did and to a smaller degree, still do today. My company (telecommunications provider in the US) engineers solutions for the public.”
As a commercial carrier, your company is separately regulated in each state. All commercial carriers must be separately licensed, and the work done is part of the overall licensing process of a public utility.
Your company cannot offer, for instance, to design backup power systems for commercial clients unless there is an engineer in responsible charge.
public utilities have a life and a regulatory structure of their own. it doesn’t change the fact that engineering law states (to various degrees in each state) that you cannot offer to provide engineering services. That means use of the word (or derivations) “Engineer” or “Design”.
This isn’t a new thing. same applies to “Architect” under a different regulatory structure, also “surveyor”.
Texas is one of the more aggressively regulated states in that regard.
You may well be every bit as qualified or even more so than a licensed engineer on certain things, but if you are offering to provide engineering services without being a PE or working for a PE, you’re likely to get a visit from the engineering board at some point.
Engineering boards own the word “engineer” through legislation. typically, with Texas as one exception, these boards do little to nothing. If a complaint is filed they may do something, maybe not. they’ll probably just tell you to take out the word “engineer” and that will be that.
If you try to start a company “XYZ Network Engineering” many states won’t let you unless you prove licensure.
Folks think the term “engineer” has value, as it implies credibility and trust and some sort of process to arrive at a valuable service, and a means to complain if there is some problem. A “network engineer” has no such analogous process. It could happen one day, or not. I agree with you in one respect - Engineering boards are notoriously behind the technology curve. There could be and should be a way to license software, computer, network engineers. The inability to do so is partly because existing engineering boards don’t understand it, but also partly because professionals in those disciplines do not articulate a process for making it happen.
I maintain that becoming a PE is not that hard, though it does mostly require an accredited degree (but as higher education self-immolates this could change at some point).
the understanding of interdisciplinary topics in the FE portion of the test has some relevance and value, and the PE exam after a period of “engineer in training” also has some value in instilling a culture of accountability and review.
I have no opinion, generally, on vendor certs. Some have value, some don’t. Some are easy some are hard. Most of them are geared towards some implied cachet that will catalyze sales, which is fine.
I think we would generally agree on most things. I don’t overly value my PE, my degrees. I value my experience, and that’s the main thing that clients value - and pay me for. To some extent the PE and degrees are gating factors - and one can argue the value of those, but clients want it, and will pay more for it. Sometimes the PE is required for legal reasons.
The implication here is government (codes)
Most I know concentrate on the basics; ie. strength and materials. Their skills are tested in the market place, not the legislature.
Most software engineers today simply define their work product as programming. Yes there are standards, but they only usually apply to the web/browser world or in the use of programming tools for the various languages. Conventions in *nix don't play well in C++.
I guess my point is that they should key on the word “licensed” as in:
licensed child care provider
licensed financial planner
licensed physian
licensed teacher
The “licensed” part should be the protected part, not the word that describes the activity.
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