On other sites, I’ve written about tester certifications and skill lists. I have supported certifications and skill definition efforts because I believe, that while there are abuses with certification, gaining knowledge in a field is part of being a profession and we need bodies of knowledge (BOK) as starting points. However, I do agree that the software test industry still is maturing and so information gained in a certification or standard should be treated with some level of care (does is it work, when does it not work or fail, when should we change what we know, etc.) I bring these points up, because as the risk of software increase because of things such as failures and security issues, the pressure to have “certified” engineers will increase (see http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9250174/Cybersecurity_should_be_professionalized?source=CTWNLE_nlt_security_2014-08-06 for example). Groups like IEEE and ISTQB promote certs. State governments already regulate the word “engineer”. The current certification bodies of knowledge (BOK) may be incomplete and/or wrong, but just because a BOK is not perfect, does not mean we should ignore and discount it, but that we should work to make them better. Sooner or later, the BOK will become “law” and the expectation of employers. Not every project, domain, or area of software will need certs, but areas that I work in, such as embedded and mobile, where life or large money losses may be at risk, will likely get focus for certs sooner.
I hope more people will become involved in certifications, both the production-use of them, and critic.
breakingembeddedsoftware 