Professional licensing is messy in a different way. First, it’d be harder to retroactively license people. Second is the there is significant variety is specialty (ML, kernel research, front end) so it’d be harder to create a standard for licensure.
A license creates scarcity, and deputizes a few people as “licensed” which grants them some special privileges. But not quality of life privileges, work privileges. My mother is a licensed engineer in another discipline. She has to “stamp” or approve anything before it can be built. A lot of her job is resisting management requests for her to stamp everyone else’s work (cheaper unlicensed engineers). She says the extra job security is more than ruined with extra stress and fighting. If she says someone else’s work is inadequate… it’s a problem for everyone including her to fix. So… we could require that licensed software engineers approve all code reviews that go to production…? But not do anything to mandate quality of life improvements. You couldn’t even prevent outsourcing because you can have one licensed American whose sole job is approving the overseas code reviews. They may not even be team specific. Sounds terrible to me.
The benefit of a union is negotiation. A Union could say “no unpaid oncall”, and “you have to hire x% union workers”. With a license…? How would you enact those protections? How would you slow layoffs, or ensure jobs don’t get outsourced? One thing people always forget: unions don’t have to dictate pay.
There are examples of unions today. Google had a union. It wasn’t very popular because no one thought they needed it, but it was there. Most government jobs in the US have a union. Hollywood actors have a union, and those actors get paid very well. The union uses the actors as bargaining power - if you want the famous actor, you need the union cameraman and sound guy. It prevents a lot of the behind-the-scenes work from being outsourced.
Union camera, sound, lighting, makeup, costume, directors, editors, screenwriters. Literally almost impossible to make a film outside of union rules in LA.
It works for film due to some historical circumstances but don’t known if it will work for software
A license creates scarcity, and deputizes a few people as “licensed” which grants them some special privileges. But not quality of life privileges, work privileges. My mother is a licensed engineer in another discipline. She has to “stamp” or approve anything before it can be built. A lot of her job is resisting management requests for her to stamp everyone else’s work (cheaper unlicensed engineers). She says the extra job security is more than ruined with extra stress and fighting. If she says someone else’s work is inadequate… it’s a problem for everyone including her to fix. So… we could require that licensed software engineers approve all code reviews that go to production…? But not do anything to mandate quality of life improvements. You couldn’t even prevent outsourcing because you can have one licensed American whose sole job is approving the overseas code reviews. They may not even be team specific. Sounds terrible to me.
The benefit of a union is negotiation. A Union could say “no unpaid oncall”, and “you have to hire x% union workers”. With a license…? How would you enact those protections? How would you slow layoffs, or ensure jobs don’t get outsourced? One thing people always forget: unions don’t have to dictate pay.
There are examples of unions today. Google had a union. It wasn’t very popular because no one thought they needed it, but it was there. Most government jobs in the US have a union. Hollywood actors have a union, and those actors get paid very well. The union uses the actors as bargaining power - if you want the famous actor, you need the union cameraman and sound guy. It prevents a lot of the behind-the-scenes work from being outsourced.