Software engineering is an engineering approach on a software development of systematics application.
A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term programmer is sometimes used as a synonym, but may also lack connotations of engineering education or skills.
Engineering techniques are used to inform[clarification needed] the software development process which involves the definition, implementation, assessment, measurement, management, change, and improvement of the software life cycle process itself. It heavily uses software configuration managementwhich is about systematically controlling changes to the configuration, and maintaining the integrity and traceability of the configuration and code throughout the system life cycle. Modern processes use software versioning.
Legal requirements for the licensing or certification of professional software engineers vary around the world. In the UK, there is no licensing or legal requirement to assume or use the job title Software Engineer. In some areas of Canada, such as Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec, software engineers can hold the Professional Engineer (P.Eng) designation and/or the Information Systems Professional (I.S.P.) designation. In Europe, Software Engineers can obtain the European Engineer (EUR ING) professional title.
The United States, since 2013, has offered an NCEES Professional Engineer exam for Software Engineering, thereby allowing Software Engineers to be licensed and recognized.NCEES will end the exam after April 2019 due to lack of participation.Mandatory licensing is currently still largely debated, and perceived as controversial.[citation needed] In some parts of the US such as Texas, the use of the term Engineer is regulated by law and reserved only for use by individuals who have a Professional Engineer license.[citation needed]
The IEEE Computer Society and the ACM, the two main US-based professional organizations of software engineering, publish guides to the profession of software engineering. The IEEE's Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge – 2004 Version, or SWEBOK, defines the field and describes the knowledge the IEEE expects a practicing software engineer to have. The most current SWEBOK v3 is an updated version and was released in 2014.The IEEE also promulgates a "Software Engineering Code of Ethics".
