Iha - I agree it is illeagle, but does happen in big companies. I am not even sure how it happens. I know TX has changed their law to protect these big companies, in particular with the Telecom field. What some non-licensed engineers are allowed to do is scary!!!!
You should check out AT&T, MCI, Qwest, SBC, Verizon, WilTell, McCloud, and ect.
I work for one that just had a CEO convicted. Also, all of the PE's that I did work with were laid off over the past 3 years. Go figure. And management doesn't really even know what a PE is.
Something else that is questionable is that we typically work projects across many state lines. I am not sure where the exemption is. Most of the time it is safe since it is just connecting pre-engineered equipment, or a local PE building engineer approves our work. It is just hard to have visibility when an engineer is sitting in TX and the work is being done in California or New York.
I know I have personally refused to do some engineering jobs in California without having a local engineering firm signing off that the jobs were safe to do after earthquakes did damage to some of our buildings.