Canadian tech CEOs are calling on Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to intervene after the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) took legal action over job titles such as Software Engineer.
More than 100 signatories of a letter sent to Danielle Smith today say the APEGA has taken the aggressive position that software engineers must be regulated, and subject to onerous, restrictive, and unnecessary certification requirements.
The signatories, which include executives from AltaML, Benevity, Helcim, and Jobber, see Software Engineer as a standard job title for anyone building technical programs and argue APEGA shouldn’t be treating it as a role in need of certification and regulation like professional engineers.
APEGA argues that the term Engineer comes with a licensed and ethical set of responsibilities and accountabilities and compares it to other regulated professions, such as the health and legal professions.
“APEGA is actively targeting companies in Alberta with legal action to restrict us from using globally competitive job titles and descriptions,” reads the letter organized by the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI).
APEGA continues in their press release, “Software engineering is a nationally and internationally recognized discipline of engineering. Across Canada, engineering requires extensive education and training, and individuals must be licensed to call themselves an engineer. It is different from software programming and development, which are not regulated.”
“Skilled talent is the life blood of any innovative company. The first priority of the new Premier should be doing whatever it takes to ensure Alberta’s high-growth companies can recruit the skilled workers they need to scale-up globally,” wrote CCI President Benjamin Bergen.
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