> I don’t understand the reasoning here why QA shouldn’t be engineering.

Who watches the watcher, right?

That aside, the core idea is the same as the principles of independent audit, peer review, or even simply just specialization.

Red team / Blue team?

Yes but both the red team and blue team would still be engineering.

The red team and blue team should not share supervisors.

Nor, in the case of QA, should the audit team be engineers trained to act and think like the ones who wrote the software. A fresh perspective is useful.

But in the long run, supervisory independence is the real deal. I know of a QA manager who shut down an entire factory's output until a major safety issue (that had been kicked down the road several times) was addressed. It took chutzpah, and serious power, to do that. The Dir. of Engrg. would NEVER have allowed it.

Yes, but police and military are both law enforcement, on one level, but each are very different from the other.

Even the military have police, right?

edit: ultimately, it comes down to the importance of independent audit, the builders and the breaker/fixers are very different groups in engineering.

Frankly, calling software development engineering is quite debatable. We should be calling less things engineering that aren't actually engineering qualifications.

Being a branch of engineering implies a certain level of professionalism and accountability that the software development community actively resists.

Engineering like the guy in the booth at a show is a sound engineer. Talented: check; challenging work: check; valuable: check; creative: check. "Engineering" like designing a building, bridge, or power line? Nope.

It's not a protected term in the US so it's jarring to those of us living where it is.