Defining a "Linux Engineer"

[Jonathan Billings]

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 7:27 AM, Matty Sarro <msarro at gmail.com> wrote:

> You realize that a lot of us "network" and "computer" folk have put in just
> as much time and effort as a practicing engineer to learn our craft, right?
> And your dismissive tone makes it pretty clear you've never worked on large
> systems - things supporting 30 - 40 million customers (the things I build).
> Sorry that doesn't make me cool enough to be part of your elite club. I'll
> worry about getting certified when I'm not actually engineering things.
>
> No, I'm not a licensed engineer. But I have corrected IETF and IEEE EE's
> with phds and patents who have several published rfc's between when it
> comes to system engineering. I have every right to my title.


 The point of a "Certified Engineer" isn't necessarily to become part of an
'elite club', but rather to indicate who has the state sanctioned seal of
an engineer, which in some locations has a legal meaning.  Some places
require that a licensed engineer stamp or sign their work (specifications,
blueprints, analysis, whatever) to be used by other professionals, for
example, when building a bridge.  Without the seal of a licensed engineer,
it wouldn't be able to get approval or pass inspections by the various
governing entities.  I've never heard of such a requirement for a "Computer
Engineer" or "Network Engineer". (not that I don't think that might be a
good idea...)

-- 
Jonathan Billings <jsbillin at umich.edu>
College of Engineering - CAEN - Unix and Linux Support