Bootstrap Licensing

The movement to license software developers began in earnest in 1998, when the Texas Board of Professional Engineers adopted software engineering as a distinct licensable engineering discipline, resulting in a professional engineer or "P.E." designation for professional engineers specializing in software.^[16]

In lieu of a recognized exam, Texas began licensing professional software engineers under a restrictive exam-waiver clause. To obtain a P.E. license before the exam becomes available, an applicant must have

• 16 years of engineering experience, or

• 12 years of engineering experience and a bachelor's degree from an accredited university program.

• In addition, each applicant must provide at least nine references, at least five of which must be from licensed professional engineers (not necessarily software engineers).

The same criteria for waiving the professional engineering exam apply to other engineering disciplines in Texas.

How many practicing software developers could qualify as professional software engineers under Texas's current licensing procedure? About 50 have been licensed as of mid-2003, which is not very many, and that's one of the smartest things the state of Texas has done. The natural tendency would be to make the exam-waiver clause so loose during the bootstrapping phase that most current practitioners would automatically qualify. The net effect of that would be to degrade the term "professional software engineer" to mean the same as "run of the mill programmer." By making its exam-waiver clause restrictive, Texas has maximized the likelihood that professional software engineers will represent some of the best software developers in Texas, and it has safeguarded the reputation of the "professional software engineer" title.

Similar developments have been occurring in Canada. The provinces of British Columbia and Ontario began granting professional engineering licenses in software in 1999, and Ontario has licensed about 300 professional software engineers.^[17] Like Texas's program, the license programs in both provinces contain bootstrapping provisions to allow software developers with appropriate educations and experiences to obtain professional engineering licenses while examinations are being developed.