> It's not possible to actually become a licensed/professional software engineer as of April this year, at least in Florida. Florida requires that you pass the NCEES PE exam - not sure if there are other exam vendors used elsewhere in the US - and NCEES elected to stop offering the software engineer exam citing low demand...
There's no demand because they made the process more or less impossible for developers to ever get to to the point where they take the PE exam.
First, the candidate has to pass one of the Fundamentals of Engineering exam to become an engineer-in-training. Except, whoops, there isn't a software specific FE; the most relevant one is the EE/Comp. E. exam. Take a look at the list of topics: https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Ele-CBT-specs.pdf Most developers aren't going to pass that even with a CS degree.
Secondly, you need 4-8 years of supervision by a licensed engineer. Again, whoops, there are barely any software developers with a PE license, so who would they get to supervise them?
Frankly, the situation was so absurd that one has to suspect that NCEES didn't want to certify software developers as PEs.
There's no demand because they made the process more or less impossible for developers to ever get to to the point where they take the PE exam.
First, the candidate has to pass one of the Fundamentals of Engineering exam to become an engineer-in-training. Except, whoops, there isn't a software specific FE; the most relevant one is the EE/Comp. E. exam. Take a look at the list of topics: https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Ele-CBT-specs.pdf Most developers aren't going to pass that even with a CS degree.
Secondly, you need 4-8 years of supervision by a licensed engineer. Again, whoops, there are barely any software developers with a PE license, so who would they get to supervise them?
Frankly, the situation was so absurd that one has to suspect that NCEES didn't want to certify software developers as PEs.