There was a time when professional engineering certification meant something. Every state in the United States has long had education and experience requirements for being licensed as a professional engineer, or PE. Holders of that license were generally accorded a higher salary and more professional respect. The PE license typically requires an accreditation board for engineering and technology (ABET)-accredited degree, several years of experience, and a passing score on two daylong exams administered by the state.
Over the last decade, however, certifications have proliferated beyond government-run standards to many different types of vendor-specific technologies. Software certifications are perhaps best known. This is because the skills and accompanying exam tend to be performed by third parties and promoted widely. In this category, Novell's certified NetWare engineer (CNE) and certified NetWare administrator (CNA) were among the first. But the Microsoft certified systems engineer (MCSE) and its derivatives are perhaps the most recognized and pervasive.
Software vendors aren't alone in the rush to certification. It's possible to acquire certification in Sun Microsystems servers, Cisco routers and switches, and others. Microprocessor vendors are beginning to provide courses and certifications in applying and programming their chips. Certifications ranging from real-time operating-system (RTOS) internals to logic design are coming into the market. The common ground among virtually all of these certifications is that they involve the implementation, rather than the development, of technology.
This kind of certification serves plenty of useful functions. For the vendor, it's a way of ensuring that customer implementations are done correctly and reasonably consistently. A small investment in time and money for certification can pay large dividends for both the vendor and the customer in a correct and standard implementation.
Certification Aids Vendors
And, of course, certification of independent engineers provides a highly skilled and aggressive sales base for that vendor's wares. For example, at its height, Novell claimed over 60,000 CNEs. Many of these CNEs were self-employed, or worked for systems integrators, and consistently recommended a Novell solution to their customers. Therefore, Novell improved sales of its products by providing a valuable service for those who implemented them.
From an industry point of view, vendor certification provides a measurable amount of accomplishment and ability that college degree programs in engineering and computer science no longer convey. In many cases, companies take new college graduates and spend months or even years training them in the practical aspects of engineering. Companies may also have to update the skills of new graduates. This is because a number of engineering fields move so quickly that university curricula rapidly get out of date.
In the realm of engineering, vendor certification could benefit a new graduate, or even someone without formal engineering education. It can help either one to gain a toehold in an industry that badly needs more capable and proven people. With no degree and no documented skills, it's difficult for entry-level people to show what they're capable of. In these situations, a vendor-specific certification can open doors that might otherwise stay closed.
For mid-career engineers, vendor-specific certification is a way to obtain current skills that may be of greater value to an employer. Having an engineering degree from the 1970s, twenty years of solid engineering jobs, and a new certification in programming Texas Instruments' DSPs demonstrates a compelling mix of both experience and the willingness to learn new technologies.
As a career alternative, however, pursuing certifications is a Hobson's choice. Vendor-oriented certification tends to focus on how to implement that vendor's technology, rather than providing any sort of context around the technology. In the short run, this may pay off, allowing a vendor-certified engineer to ride a popular product to a superb new job.
But over the course of a career, it could be far more damaging than helpful. Hot products and vendors that produce them tend to decline over time, and the career of an engineer counting on product-specific expertise may decline along with them. That's exactly what happened to Novell CNEs in the mid-1990s. It was at this time that NetWare ceased to be the universal standard in networking. As a result, many of those trained exclusively in that technology saw their careers grind to a halt.
It gets worse. Those trained only in a vendor-specific technology may be less capable of evaluating alternative approaches to a problem. An engineer with Cisco-specific implementation training would understandably be reluctant to recommend a competitor's switching model. This holds true even when there are clear technical merits in the alternative.
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