Sam, as someone with an engineering degree, I thank you.

i find the tendency to stick 'engineer' into every job title somewhat offensive. graduating with an 'engineering' degree from an accredited program means jumping through additional hoops and working as a professional engineer should mean being held to higher professional and ethical standards. in most engineering fields, like civil engineering, to have 'engineer' in your title, you have to be licensed by the state you're working in, which involves working a certain number of years under a licensed engineer and passing some very intensive tests (including a required ethics test). This is because, in many fields, lives can depend on engineers; if a civil engineer signs off on a bridge design and the bridge collapses, they will lose their license and possibly face legal consequences. In canada at least, having 'engineer' in your title without being licensed (with the exception of a couple fields like train engineers, who have a historical precedent), is illegal. it may be in the US as well, but the canadians actually enforce it.

i have an engineering degree, but my job title is only 'Programmer Analyst', and that's perfectly fine, because i'm not held up to the same standards that a real professional engineer would be. if i were writing the software that controlled life support systems on a space station or something, i would certainly expect it to be different.

so anyway, whenever i meet someone who calls themselves a 'user experience engineer', or 'information engineer', or something stupid like that, i have to choke back the desire to rant.