Can I call myself a "Software Engineer" without having an engineering degree?
(I have an Associate degree)

No reason not to. I call myself Your Excellency because I can.

The real question can people with engineering degress be called software engineer?

Having a degree doesn't make you a software engineer, knowing how to engineer software does

No you shouldn't. Engineer title is a certificate that earned by completing an engineering degree. Developing software doesn't makes you engineer but software developer. It's like suggesting some medicine to someone and saying "hey, I am a doctor now". Also having engineer title does not implies how good you are. It just implies you completed a degree in engineering.

You're a programmer as most of us are

@hack According to Google, an engineer is "a person who designs, builds, or maintains engines, machines, or structures"

So you're saying that without having a degree you are not an engineer? If someone gets a degree by barely graduating, yet can't do anything on their own, let alone "engineer" something, they're still an engineer meanwhile another person without a degree but that is able to "engineer" amazing things, isn't?

Might be country specific, in some places engineer is a protected term.

In the UK anyone can call themselves an Engineer, but only a few of us can legally call ourselves a Chartered Engineer.

What about Software Builder?

Legally, depends on the country.

Practically, it depends on what is your mindset towards work. Usually, having a scientific, systematic and organised approach to development along with having constantly the will to learn and use new tech can be close to what an engineer is.

It can be even better if you can make in your mind an abstraction of what the product should be like in front of a end user.

@skylord as I stated, engineer title doesn't say anything about your experience level or how good you are. In my country some positions requires you to graduate from an engineering degree. Its NOT like "hey if you graduted you must be good" its god damn company policy. Even in government. Also I'm not talking about linkedin titles. You can call yourself anything there. I am "Software Magician"

I have a degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering.

I like to call myself Software Engineer.

In Germany, engineer is an academic degree. Calling oneself engineer without actually holding that degree is punishable by law.

@Fast-Nop I smell bullshit, I have friends that work as software engineers in Germany and they don't have degrees, none had legal issues

I call myself as a programmer even I forget to out SEMICOLON in my codes

@skylord The protected item is the German "Ingenieur" which I translated because devRant is in English.

As per e.g. the Bavarian Ingenieurgesetz, posing as Ingenieur without having a relevant degree can be charged with a fine of up to 25k EUR.

You're an associate. If you want to call yourself an engineer you should get in contact with your professional engineering body to see if their are other paths to earn the title.

In many countries titles like engineer, architect and doctor have legal requirements to them.
Where I am, If you work for yourself under the title engineer you'd be expected to be be registered (may not need registration for software engineering, I haven't looked into it) and hold indemnity insurance, because the main difference is that engineers can be held liable when things go wrong. If your insurance company sees you as unqualified, no payout. If a place is hiring you and you're unqualified, the company's insurance may be deemed invalid. It's all about assurance and levels of responsibility.

@skylord This! I'm a cybersecurity engineer but have no (official) degree :)

Edit; looking at other comments, this be country specific. I'm not sure about the laws and such over here but my title (given by the company) includes engineer so yah 😄

Degree is not useless, but, if there are no legal issues, I don't think anyone would mind if you call yourself a software engineer.

An alternate question, "does working as a software engineer make you a software engineer?"

@theabbie
Better version of the question!

I don’t have any degrees. None. Zero.
I am a software engineer.

And I’m better at it than many people I’ve trained or come across who earned their bits of paper declaring their skills and knowledge. Most were ... lacking.