Today, the German concept of Bildung has become visible as a threshold concept in science and environmental studies where critical thinking, societal values, ethics, and social responsibility have been introduced as new knowledge domains (Sjöström et al. 2017). In this paper we set out to discuss whether rethinking engineering professionalism through the concept of Bildung would be beneficial for addressing technological issues as well as broader socially pertinent challenges on a global scale such as global warming, pandemics, decreasing biodiversity, increasing economic and social polarization, racism, information- and cybercrimes, etc. by which society is presently confronted. Dealing with such an array of challenges will have bearings on understandings of the very telos of engineering (Aristotle 2000, Buch 2022). Rethinking the telos of engineering has profound implications. Ultimately it is a struggle over knowledge as such endeavour will do away with the technical core/nontechnical periphery distinction in traditional engineering epistemology. The paper starts with a reflection on the present configuration of higher education and the priority given to STEM fields. The concept of Bildung and understandings of Bildung usually rise to prominence when a given configuration of the educational system is no longer able to deliver on its promises (Christensen 2019). Bildung can therefore be seen as a counter and problematizing concept vis-à-vis the present configuration of the educational system. As regards engineering, it is a heterogeneous socio-technical enterprise in which challenges and solutions are distributed across social, material, economic, political, and technical domains. Various understandings of “Bildung in Engineering Education” have been identified: 1. Wilhelm von Humboldt ́s classical Bildung, 2. Anglo-American liberal education, 3. Scandinavian folk-Bildung, 4. Democratic education, and 5. Critical-hermeneutical Bildung (Sjöström et al. 2017). Considering the negotiated nature of engineering solutions, together with the heterogeneous character of its practices, we argued that option 4 has specific relevance. The paper thus points to John Dewey’s ideas of democratic education and unfolds elements in Dewey’s philosophy that are helpful for a contemporary reconstruction of Bildung as democratic education (Dewey 2011). In so doing it is necessary to address the very purpose of engineering – its telos. Considering the challenges facing humankind in the Anthropocene era, this telos will have to be reconsidered. We use Dewey’s pragmatist lens to do so and argue that Engineering should be reconsidered as a problem-solving discipline that seeks to ameliorate living conditions. In the conclusion, we consider possible obstacles for reconstructing engineering along the lines of Bildung through democratic education. References Aristotle (2009). The Nicomachean Ethics, OUP Oxford. Buch, Anders (2022). The Need for Recovery of Engineering. In: Christensen, Steen Hyldgaard et al. (eds.) Engineering, Social Sciences, and the Humanities: Have their Conversations Come of Age? Springer Nature. Christensen, Steen Hyldgaard (2019). Costs and Benefits of Commercializing Teaching, Research, and Service in the American Corporatized University. In: Christensen, Steen Hyldgaard et al (eds.) The Engineering-Business Nexus: Symbiosis, Tension and Co-evolution. Springer Nature. Dewey, John. (2011) Democracy and Education, Simon & Brown. Sjöström et al. (2017). Use of the concept of Bildung in the international science education literature, its potential, and implications for teaching and learning, Studies in Science Education, 53(2).