Employers are increasingly demanding engineering education. They are interested in high-quality specialists with professional skills and abilities. Engineering education and real-world demands on engineers have in recent years drifted apart. Realizing that this widening gap must be closed, leading engineering schools in the USA, Europe, Canada, UK, Africa, Asia, and New Zealand formed the CDIO initiative: a worldwide collaborative to conceive and develop a new vision of engineering education. This work investigates the specifics of higher engineering education in Russia. The reforms carried out in the system of higher education have a significant impact on the assessment of specialists’ readiness for professional work. The competence approach in the system of assessing specialists is considered. The international CDIO system and its role in the formation of a graduate ready for professional work are analyzed. The opinions of various researchers and research groups on the system of training engineers are given. Options for taking into account the possibilities of mastering professional competencies in curricula are proposed. The role of the CDIO initiative in engineering education is considered.