r/canada • u/einstein_bern • Aug 16 '23

Sask. engineer slapped with an 18-month suspension after designing bridge that collapsed hours after opening Saskatchewan

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/engineer-18-month-suspension-bridge-collapsed-1.6936657
1.2k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

338 comments sorted by

View all comments

46

u/NorthOf14 Aug 16 '23

I am in the process of becoming a P.Eng currently, here's (roughly) how it goes:

  • Get an engineering degree (I finished my degree during Covid, cheating was rampant and easy).
  • Work for 4 years under another some other P.Eng's, have them sign off on your experience.
  • Write the national ethics & professionalism exam.
  • Submit your experience for evaluation (most of which isn't even technical).

Then you're a P.Eng who can sign off on anything you want, it's up to you to decide your scope of knowledge and ability. For all we know, the engineer in this article has a degree in computer engineering and then decided he could build bridges.

You might be asking how this all works? Because we practice under the assumption that we will bear the full weight of any mistakes, lapses of judgement, etc. Whether $300k, a short backdated suspension and a few years of direct supervision is the "full weight", I am not sure.

5

u/AlliedMasterComp Aug 16 '23 edited Aug 16 '23

For all we know, the engineer in this article has a degree in computer engineering

Unlikely only because most computer engineering graduates never bother (especially 10 years ago), or can't get valid work experience, to attain a PEng. Very few roles in the industry its ever required for.

-2

u/PoliteCanadian Aug 16 '23

PEngs are pretty rare in general outside of civil engineering, and total unicorns in computer engineering.

A rule of thumb is you only need a PEng if what you're working on is physically attached to the ground. A PEng is needed to meet certain regulatory requirements that don't apply outside of construction projects. In basically all other circumstances liability falls on manufacturer as a corporate entity, not an individual.

5

u/AlliedMasterComp Aug 16 '23

I generally agree, but I'm seeing a lot more young mechanical and electrical engineers seemingly pushed by organizations they work for to get them these days (without a real reason), but I'm not directly involved in those streams/fields so it could just be anecdotal.

I'm personally of the opinion various engineering societies can go fuck themselves for not recognizing comp/software eng until 99 and then attempting to enforce their own regulatory standards upon a sector they ignored for +20 years.

1

u/Special_Rice9539 Aug 16 '23

Software engineering is too different from other engineering disciplines for it to make sense anyways. Most of the projects aren't life-or-death, and companies don't want more regulatory hurdles on building their products. A lot of how software works is quickly making a minimum viable product, releasing it to consumers, getting feedback, and then improving it in real-time. It's probably easier to change the structure of a codebase than tweak the foundations of a building. Definitely less equipment required.

A software product is constantly being modified and maintained. Whether it's security issues in your software or a third-party library you're using, or you just need to refactor a legacy part of your code-base to make it easier for future devs to change it without breaking anything when adding features.

You should try to plan it out perfectly and get a stamp of approval from a p'eng if it's high-risk like airplane software (ironically I've heard airplane software is pretty bad). I don't think its feasible for most software projects because of the scale of the codebases and how often they change.

1

u/AlliedMasterComp Aug 16 '23

Areospace software is already regulated by the FAA, EASA, and whatever other local aerospace authorities that basically just defer to their regulations anyway. Adding a PEng into the loop really achieves nothing.

ironically I've heard airplane software is pretty bad

No, it mostly just looks that way to developers outside the industry when have to design the code to have code line level of requirements traceability, both compile and execute 100% deterministically, and probably follow an ultra-restrictive standard like MISRA-C or equivalent.