alt Hacker NewsIt's a protected title in several european countries but I've never seen enforced, despite myself being part of an officially sanctionned body of engineers.
Afaik claiming to have an MD (for obvious reasons) or a PhD would land you in hot water much, much faster, despite technically being exactly the same "offense"
Let's accept that engineering has 2 different uses and that's okay. If I tell people that I'm a civil engineer with nothing to show for it, it'd be as big of a problem like pretending to be an MD. For software engineering, however, you'd just be at the start of your career.
I think it's fine.