” I’m still not allowed to call myself a “Network Engineer”. “
Why would you? You assume no liability, you do not understand the concepts of responsible charge, and you claim your specialty is so narrow that you couldn’t possibly be accountable to an engineering board.
You COULD try “Network Architect”, but then the Board of Architects would come after you for much the same reason.
You DO want the title of “Engineer” because you think it has value, but you do not wish to submit your work to a process involving engineering accountability.
Relax, call yourself something else - but whatever you think you are, you are NOT an engineer.
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.