In his column about execution equipment, Celil says that
I didn’t know you needed a licence to practice engineering. How does one get such a licence, and what exactly does it allow you to do?
Yes, you do, mostly. Here is the IEEE-USA Licensure and Registration webpage. It has lots of links, for the National Society of Professional Engineers, and for State Licensing Boards, including Massachusetts.
I might point out that the vast majority of people who call themselves engineers are not licensed, and there’s no reason for them to be. The law requires a licens to do certain things (such as certify the safety of buidling designs, certify complicance of septic system designs, …).
Won’t engineering companies have a sprinkling of PEs, who can certify the others work?
Thanks for the information! So I guess it’s not something you get before can get employed to do engineering work.
As a matter of fact, quite the opposite; having engineering experience (usually four years) is one of the prerequisites for licensure.
As a rule of thumb, you need a P.E. license before you can directly offer services to the public. So, if you’re planning on opening up a consulting firm, better get your P. E. first. In Michigan, two-thirds of the principals in engineering consulting firms are required to have their licenses. Note, however, that (in general) this does not apply to manufacturing firms: you can design and manufacture widgets to your heart’s content without an engineering license.
–zut (P.E., MI)
In order to get you P.E., you first have to pass the Fundamentals of Engineering exam (Engineer In Training, EIT). Then you have to have some years experience doing engineering work. Followed by the P.E.
The typical path is to go to college for an engineering degree, and take the EIT just prior to graduation. Of course some people work in engineering fields without ever bothering with the EIT, or the degree. Big companies may promote non-technical people into “engineer” slots based on need and experience. You can learn some of the non-technical jobs without a degree.
Note there are many types of jobs that fall into the realm of engineering - some more technical than others. Analysts need lots of technical training to understand what they are doing, how to apply the right calculations, when assumptions are valid and when not, etc. Designers need to have a good understanding of how various components work, how to select components to do certain jobs, where to find information on all the various types of items that are commercially available and when to make custom gizmos. A good hands-on background with hardware is useful here. You ideally should have some understanding of machining and fabrication practices, capabilities, and methodology so you can design to the abilities of the shop. One hard thing to train is people to make designs that can be manufactured by the machinist. And of course the ability to lay out drawings. But another aspect of engineering is the project realm - it’s more of an oversight job. The principle is being the person to make sure all the other aspects occur, on time and in sequence. It is understanding the requirements for the job, working with the designer to ensure it will do the job and knowing how the thing works, dealing with the shops for scheduling and manufacturing and answering the technical questions that arise, and completing any required testing after the manufacturing to ensure the equipment will do what it is supposed to. There are also technical reference jobs that are not much more than glorified sales reps, who answer the technical questions from customers who want to buy and use your companies items.
I’m probably overlooking some, and note that my slant is mostly from the mechanical engineering world.
BTW, here in Alberta it’s illegal to call yourself an ‘engineer’ unless you actually have a degree in Engineering. Our company continually has to warn new employees about referring to themselves as ‘Computer Engineers’ if they only have a B.Sc in Computing Science or an MCSE. The Alberta Society of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists is pretty militant about getting this enforced.
You can be an engineer without a license (i.e., certification), but you can’t legally approve (stamp) an engineering design/document (or offer engineering services) without the certification.
Phobos, P.E.
You all have covered it pretty well. I’ll add that Canada will not let any Americans that come into their country and call themselves “Engineers” unless you bring proof of an American PE license.
I will admit that having gone through and got my license, and being legally able to approve and consult for the public, I do get a bit incensed at how carelessly the term “Engineer” is thrown onto job titles, such as “Computer Engineer”, “Customer Support Engineer”, “Maintenance Engineer”, and my least favorite, “Radio Studio Engineer”. Engineering in the US is a profession with no real self-identity it seems, and the law is far too lenient in allowing people to advertise themselves as “Engineers”.
But I’m sure this is a GD, rather than a comment on Cecil’s column.
Also, just curious, I wonder how many PE’s are on the board?
Una Persson, PE
You might be interested, from a Great Debates point of view, in the opinions that have been expressed in the letters column in back issues of Mechanical Engineering magazine (if you’re interested, click on the link, pick an issue, go to “departments” and thence to “letters”). There’s been a slow-motion debate in the Letters column for about the last three years on the advantages/disadvantages of licensure, respect for the profession, the “definition” of an engineer, etc.
I’m inclined to agree with you that the title of Engineer is thrown around rather lightly, but I’m not convinced that licensure is the answer (as I’ve heard advocated); for me, it took more trouble to wade through the red tape applying for the license than actually taking the test. Bureaucracy! Ptui!
-zut, P.E.
A friendly reminder - if you spit on the floor in this forum, you are supposed to clean it up yourself. Your mother does not work here. zut, please bring a mop and get rid of this loogie. (spelling?)
Anthracite, I do agree with you that the term “engineer” is overly abused. I am familiar (from reading a few issues of the aforementioned Mechanical Engineering) that some countries have strict licensure to even use the term.
While some of the terms you mention are clearly exaggerations of the word, would that also apply to a train engineer? 
Seriously, there are plenty of us who really are engineers in the sense that we have degrees and do the same work, we just don’t have the licensing. I still consider myself an engineer.
Yes, when I was in Italy I loved being titled “Ing. Una Persson”, where engineering is given an honorific similar to “Dr”. They are pretty strict in the EC in general I believe on the use of the word.
Well, here we have a case of a very long historical precedent, that I believe even predates the formation of such organizations as the ASME and ASCE and so forth in the US. I think perhaps in those cases one must bow to 150 years or so of precedent.
I see what you mean, but to clarify my position, we need to divide “engineers” into three categories I think:
- Licensed Professional Engineers.
- Engineers with a degree and/or experience which could be licensed should they chose to do so or were required to do so, and
- The categories of job descriptions I mentioned in my prior post.
My opinion is that the persons in groups 1 and 2 should work together to come up with firm licensing and/or registration guidelines to give strength and meaning to the word “engineer”, including strict enforcement of the use of the term “engineer”. And severe prosecution of people who do not fall into those categories who design or consult to the public as “engineers”.
And what of the third group of people? I usually get yelled at for taking a perceived “elitist” attitude towards the worthy individuals in the third group. But the thing is - I never have said or implied that those individuals are not smart, important, very valuable people in very key careers. They simply are not “engineers” in my opinion, and to call yourself a “Radio Engineer” when you hold no degree or license in engineering is just trying to say you are something you are not. For example - I may be a valuable, smart, key person in coal power plant analysis, but advertising myself as a “Coal Power Plant Physician” (since I sometimes help restore them to “health”) seems silly and ignorant of me.
IMO.
I remember back in my cub enginnering days when an old timer told me that you do not need to take the test and become registered but if you don’t, the best engineers will wonder why you didn’t.
mipsman, PE (actually RCE, State of California)
In the Silicon Valley, the term “software engineer” is standard usage. Most software companies have a “Vice President of Engineering”, and the people they oversee are usually software engineers. At our company they are people with all kinds of backgrounds. I have degrees in physics, while my colleagues have degrees in chemistry, math, and of course, computer science.
Also, “software engineer” is a specific, recognized job title according to reference books published by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Ed Suranyi
I have been working as an electrical engineer for 8 years. Nobody has ever asked me if I had a PE. None of my designs have been signed off by someone acting a licensed engineer. They have all been reviewed by other engineers (also without PEs to my knowledge) and have undergone extensive testing to prove they work. People that do the work I do (chip and board design) don’t generally get licenses because nobody asks us if we have a license.
People like you (and me, for that matter) who do not offer services to the general public, are rarely asked, let alone required, to obtain a license. I’ve been licensed for seven years, and have only used my P.E. stamp twice: both times to write a recommendation for someone else who was applying for a license. I imagine that in areas that are more publicly-oriented, such as the powerplant industry (where I believe Anthracite works), licensure is more appreciated, if not downright required.
So why register if you don’t have to? For me, three reasons:
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I might want to do consultant work in the future, where a license is most definately required; might as well get it now.
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Resume fodder, to put it crudely. I put the letters “P.E.” prominently after my name on my latest resume. Did it help? I dunno, but at least my resume looks different from a lot of others (also I have a Ph.D.; having a P.E. emphasizes that I’m not a theoretical egghead. Well, not completely).
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Professional pride. 'Nuff said.
Personally, I think all engineers should be encouraged to register. Not required, but encouraged. Currently, however, obtaining a license is an aggravating process (see my comments above), and for most engineers the tangible rewards are minor (reference gazpacho’s comments).
And what about Engineer Bill, and Casey Jones, high on that ol’ cocaine?
But it sounds like you would advocate restricting the word ‘Engineer’ only to those who actually work in old fashioned,
plant management or damn building types of enterprises. Depending on what the product is, the work of a ‘customer service engineer’ might be much more sophisticated than just someone who looks up accounts. A computer ‘engineer’ may be
much more than someone who wheels a PC into a new cubicle
and installs MS-Word, though I agree that most system developers and analysts would themselves hesitate to refer to themselves as computer engineers. But it is true that
those who work on large scale software projects deal with the same sorts of constraints and conditions as those faced by engineers generally, and there seems to be a commonality of personality type.