>apparently engineers who work in the industry such as OEMs are not really "tech" from what I read in the media, shrug

And if someone works at one of the right companies which happen to use software, they're considered to be working in "tech" even if they don't know how to use their own computer.

"Tech" is a business vertical when it's convenient to steal goodwill from the enabling nature of software. It's a job disciple when it's convenient to dump the baggage of that virtical's business decisions onto those damn nerds.