Programmers mostly aren’t really engineers and that’s ok. I don’t want to be an engineer.
I personally disagree. Took 3 years of Electrical Engineering courses in college but finished with a B.S in Computer Science. Both are valid engineering disciplines, the only thing lacking on the computer side are standardized licensing tests and an oversight body. Software engineers have to build software that can affect life and death too, but somehow we don’t have as much regulation in the US which is super odd to me.
What makes something engineering vs not? Personally what I do doesn’t feel like engineering because I imagine engineering as being about following a particular process and doing things in a very cautious and structured way, where programming is normally way more chaotic.
Your notion of an engineer is correct in a wide sense
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer
The fact that you feel programming is not that makes me sad. But likely dependent on what software and what you work with. For example, if you build software for NASA or Baxter and dialysis machines and the likes, you’ll get fired fast for not being structured. Working for Elon Musk and Twitter… Well…