IME, it depends on your chain of command. I've literally been reprimanded in my career for asking questions. My boss at that time was crap. I didn't choose him. Asking questions can very likely get you fired.

Also got reprimanded for disobeying an order at once; my boss — same one as above — would not take "no, we are in a regulated industry, and I cannot do that" for an answer. I ended up going behind his back, getting the approvals he should have gotten himself, and once I'd secured those, granted him the access he wanted. I also tried to escalate to his boss (my grand-boss) … but he didn't respond until it was all moot.

But there is a lot of stress when you're fearing for your job, even though you're just trying to do things by the book. I'm inclined to side with engineers, to a degree: the chain of command's responsibility is to never put eng in that position. (Although here, the eng in question seems far higher up than I am. I'm just a bottom rung eng…)

> Developers presumably know how to think and have a vague idea of what the business does to know that a ask to futz with internal financials programmatically is fucking wierd.

They should but IME they often don't, and even if they do, people are lazy. It's a struggle to get people to do the things they should do some days.

I'm in an industry with a lot of migrant workers, I was asked to write software that would change the time records for migrant workers so they never get overtime.

I said I wouldn't do it unless they showed me the legal advise saying that it was ok. The office sycophant piped up and said "I'll do it". From then on I stopped being invited to meetings and my job transitioned into answering the phone and then out the door.

I hope they jail the developers for 500 years, that's the sort of signal that needs to be sent.

(especially) if you have left this business you should blow the whistle on this. Have you thought about doing it? What are the main barriers?

They probably weren't paying taxes on the overtime either. The IRS pays whistleblowers.

Being fired for asking questions handily beats going to jail for not asking questions.

You want Engineer in your job title? Then you say no, and you damned well ask questions, and you damned well make sure to leave the moment they make it impossible for you to act ethically.

This sounds great on paper. However, the reason "Engineer" matters is because regulation requires it. If my company is required to get a sign off from an Engineer before software is updated, then you can be 100% sure those who are qualified to sign off take their title seriously. Until then, it is just a fancy title.

My impression is that this title comes from the practice of "software engineering", not necessarily that the practitioners are licensed Engineers.

This should apply to anyone. IMO engineers aren't special. As a human you should try not to fuck over other people.

I assume this is a reference to other engineering disciplines, where an engineer signing off on something has real meaning.

Right, "software engineer" is often used just as a synonym for "Programmer". That's just how the industry is, currently.

There are no regulations as to who can develop what software as far as I know. Whereas there are for who can design a bridge, act as your lawyer, or prescribe you medicine.

Yes and when we as software engineers / programmers act as if we don‘t care we should not be surprised if software engineering / programming gets regulated, too.

Right

People gatekeeping the word “engineer” is a bit annoying, since the word “engineer” dates to at least 1380 and originally just means someone who works on engines. “Engineer” as a legally super special class of job is a thing that came much later and only ever applied to certain jurisdictions anyway.

“Software engineer” is just a synonym for “programmer”, in the actually existing practice of the English language.

And 'doctor' means someone with a PhD. I know a lot of doctors. However, when you talk about medicine, we mean 'Doctor' with an M.D. and they are literally held to higher standards of ethics and liability. They are licensed and people who practice professionally without a license are subject to legal ramifications.

Call yourself whatever you want, but that doesn't mean you get to define what 'Engineers' are and what ethics they are bound to. Just because you use the term in your title and say it is used properly in English, doesn't mean that you won't get treated any different than someone with a PhD demanding to be called Doctor and pretending there is no difference between them an and M.D.

Of course the word “doctor” means different things, just like “engineer”. The OP is the one who was trying to conflate them. It’s like if you told someone with a PhD in CS “if you want to be called ‘doctor’, you had better be able to heal sick people”.

In Denmark you need to hold a degree of engineering for you to call you an engineer of any kind. It's a protected term. As I remember, in the US it is not protected and anyone can call themselves engineers.

It varies by state.