Programming

Just to be clear, that is not exclusive to “engineering,” as other professionals have similar legal requirements (doctors, lawyers, fiduciaries).

More generally, on a personal level, people are expected to act with integrity, and we have laws that provide them legal protections for whistleblowing.

The actual practice of engineering is about problem-solving within a set of constraints. Of course the solution should not harm the public, and there are plenty of circumstances where software is developed to that standard.

When a PE stamps a plan, they are asserting that they personally have reviewed the plan and process that created it and that it meets a standard for acceptable risk (not no risk!). That establishes the boundary of legal liability. In software, we generally do not have that process that fits in a legal framework, but that doesn’t mean that professional software engineers aren’t making those assessments for life-critical systems.

For other kinds of systems, understand that this is a new field and that it doesn’t have the bloody history that got “real engineering” to where it is today. A lot of the work product of most software engineers just don’t have stringent safety requirements, or we don’t understand the risks of certain product categories yet (and before you try to rebut that, remember that “building codes are written in blood” because people were applying technology before it was well-designed/understood).

Anyway, “engineering” is defined by a lot more than if you or your boss has a stamp (and in point of fact, there are plenty of engineers in the US that work as engineers without being a PE, or with any intention of ever having the stamp. Are they real engineers?)