The English word "engineer" is quite difficult for French people, because in French we have the term "ingénieur" (usually meaning "ingénieur diplômé"), which is something like the big universities diplomas in other countries.

A better translation of engineer would be "technicien".

French "ingénieurs" come from "Grandes écoles", see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandes_%C3%A9coles