Engineers in Information Technology

The IT profession has many types of application developers, system analysts, project managers, IT specialists, database administrators, webmasters, web designers, security specialists, testers, data architects, software engineers etc. But only one word on that list, “engineer,” is subject to deep scrutiny and heated debate. The use of the term "engineer" has been an ongoing issue between professional licensing bodies and the IT industry, where companies typically issue certification titles with word "engineer" as part of the title (such as Certified Novell Engineer and Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer). In Canada, provincial licensing bodies for professional engineering destinations contend that only licensed professional engineers are legally allowed to use the title "Engineer". The IT industry, on the other hand, counters that 1) these title holders never presented themselves as "Professional Engineers", 2) provincial laws mandate only the use of term "Professional Engineer", and not any title with the word "Engineer" in it, and 3) the IT industry has used the term "engineer" since the dawn of the computing industry in the 60s.

Scholars are still debating whether Software Engineering is just another branch of engineering or a branch of computer science. The term began its “career” in the late 60’s in the computer science community, and has steadily gained acceptance ever since. Many colleges and universities offer software engineering courses. The term is also embedded in professional designations from major computer vendors – Microsoft’s MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) being the most popular, with some 25,000 holders in Canada alone.

Court rulings regarding the usage of the term "engineer" have been mixed. For example, after complaints from the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, a court in Quebec fined Microsoft Canada $1,000 for misusing the "engineer" title by referring to MCSE graduates as "engineers" [1]. On the contrary, an Alberta court dismissed the lawsuit filed by The Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists, and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA) against Raymond Merhej for using the title "System Engineer", claiming that "The Respondent's situation is such that it cannot be contended that the public is likely to be deceived, confused or jeopardized by his use of the term…" APEGGA website (http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/Web05-02/titles.htm) APEGGA also lost the appeal to this decision. ASET Technology Alberta, p.2 (http://www.aset.ab.ca/publications/tab/tabv21n1.pdf)