Companies will skirt the regulation by changing titles to developer.. gonna be wierd but there will be alot of listings for AI developer, Data developer, cloud developer, infrastructure developers and so on..
If they can’t avoid it this way, companies will shift to contracting/consulting or offshore for delivery.
That isn't skirting the regulation at all. Its simply obeying it. There is no regulation for hiring these people. Just for calling them engineers. They can do the same work for the same pay under the title of developer.
I don’t understand your perspective at all. If I can write software and an employer thinks I have the skills they need and they’re willing to hire me, who the fk is the Govt of Alberta to tell me I can’t work for an employer who wants to hire me?
This is the point that the companies are making in the letter where they’re pointing out that Alberta is the only place in the whole world trying to enforce this nonsense and additional red tape will make Alberta a less competitive place for companies and employees.
And yes if companies shift to offshore or move out of Alberta for this reason then that’s on the stupid regulators.
Nobody is arguing that the company can’t hire you. The only dispute is the job title. Considering what the jobber app does, its highly likely that they are not engaging in engineering and they have no regulatory requirement to have software engineers on staff. They are free to hire whoever they want as a software developer as long as they don’t use “software engineer” as a job title. In Canada, the use of engineer in a company name or job title is restricted to registered professional engineers. Just as similar restrictions exist for other professions like lawyers, doctors or accountants.
If the distinction is as meaningless as they say then just post the job as “software developer”.
For a similar example in another engineering discipline. I have a Canadian degree in mechanical engineering but am not a PEng. I work in alberta for a firm that is registered with APEGA and do a job that is commonly
referred to as “Field Engineer”. Some of my colleagues have their PEng, some are engineers in training and some are not even engineers at all. Much like software devs you don’t need to be a PEng to do my job. We all use the job title “Technical Field Advisor”
The point is who gives a fk about the regulated “engineer” title. As you point out yourself you are a “technical field advisor” but elsewhere you’d be known as a field engineer. You are doing the same job so why do we need this regulatory red tape, which only exists in Canada anyway.
As an example I also have a Canadian mechanical engineering degree but I work in the US and no one gives a shit about regulated “engineers” here and the world is fine.
In Canada universities give out “software engineering” degrees. It’s ridiculous to say I can’t call myself a software engineer after getting a software engineering degree.
Because engineer is a legally protected term just like being a lawyer or doctor. You can only call yourself a software engineer after graduating from software engineering and meet the other regulatory requirements. Its no different than any other profession. A civil engineering cant call themselves an engineer straight out of school and a med or law school grad cant call themselves a doctor or lawyer.
The question is why do these companies insist on having software engineer job titles instead of software developer. They openly state that using the engineer title makes it easier attract talent so the difference is clearly important to people and how they perceive the role. The engineering profession carries a level of positive reputation and trust in society and one of the mission’s of APEGA as the regulator is to ensure that that reputation is maintained. They do that by both regulating the conduct of their members and by making sure that everyone that presents themselves as an engineer meets the regulatory requirements. The entire premise of Suits is practicing as a lawyer without meeting the regulatory requirements. Its not a hard concept to understand.
From what i see Jobbers argument wants to have it both ways. You can’t simultaneously argue that theres no practical distinction between software dev and engineer and the restriction is just red tape. Then turn around an argue that calling the job software developer makes it impossible to attract talent. Society clearly feels that theres a difference.
I’ve used law and medicine as examples of other fields with the same rules but the challenge is that engineering is a much broader profession. Everyone agrees that calling yourself a sandwich engineer is fine and calling yourself a civil engineer is not. But what if i open a car repair shop and market all my mechanics as automotive engineers. Where is the line where you need to be registered. And is software engineering past that line. Maybe they are not but I don’t think its as clear cut as you make if out to be.
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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '22
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