If you do the same job, and do it equally well, why should you have a different title?

Because the skillset is not the same.

It is quite different to have spent 5 years doing nothing other than building up engineering knowledge, and just learning a few things to get the job done.

It's not "just learning a few things". Some software engineers have years of experience on the job despite no CS education. In the end it's about how much value you bring to the company. If your diploma helps you deliver that value, great. If not, your diploma is irrelevant.

I'm always very weary of companies that tell me I'll earn more money because I have a PhD completely irrelevant to the job I'll be hired to do. It signals that they're valuing the wrong thing, and that doesn't make me want to work there.

If they don't have an engineering degree, they aren't engineers.

Is engineering a credential, or an activity?

It is the knowledge gathered along 5 years of studies, the activities that put into practice that knowledge and the certification of the quality of the teachings.

So, a credential? In the countries and states where the title is protected (it's not everywhere), you often have to pay dues to a professional organization to claim the title. It's not enough to have the diploma, you have to pay every year too.

It is a two step process.

Engineers are only those with an university degree from an university acknowledged to actually be teaching engineering.

Then if they want to actually make use of the title, get the credential, which yes requires an yearly contribution.

Finally, in any kind of project where human lives are at stake, the engineer signing for the project has to be validated as such.

I happen to think that our profession is no different from lawyers, doctors, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, and so on.

And which countries invented the computer pray? ok I know about Zuze but he was effectively ignored.

In terms of PE / CENG status its more who you know that what you know :-)

Well, computing has lots to thank to UK, Germany, Finland, France, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

Sorry if I forgot anything, fellow Europeans.

You didn't get that I was hinting that countries that don't have strict rules about who can call themselves engineers invented the core tech behind computers ditto Ethernet which was US and UK.

Some of the countries I listed do have strict rules and also invented core tech behind computers.

Core tech behind computers is more than just a network protocol that got lucky.

In case you missed it, Robert Metcalfe is an electrical engineer.

It's an unfortunate situation honestly, because it pollutes the term "engineer" (at least for Europeans), when it's being conflated with "I just know how to code".

while it might to some seem slightly controversial, it would make more sense to argue against it instead of just down voting.

Would you disagree if people from the US did not need to pass the bar to call themselves lawyers, or the equivalent for doctors? Is it just because I compared this specific thing from the US in a negative light compared to EU?