I come from an engineering family, and "engineers" here are one big legally recognized tribe, or pretty much a social class. In reality that just means that they've finished a specific college where they get "engineer with diploma" title. Same with doctors or lawyers. Everyone else is ona a lower wrung of the ladder and there is nothing they can do about it later.

So "of course" a software engineer is a contradiction is terms (as an electrical engineer said here). How can one be a engineer if you didn't go to an engineering college? It doesn't matter if a engineer's career consisted of selling ice creams, that person is a poor engineer and thats that.

I actually met a "engineer" friend of my parents who designed the major parts of a traffic roundabout near my home. It is the worst designed roundabout I've seen and there is at least one car crash per day there. Every now and then people end up in ER. We chatted for a short bit, and touched on those crash reports. He just said dismissively: "people should just drive better". So that's engineering for you.