Yep. Not all computer programmers are software engineers, but there definitely are software engineers. Building high-scale systems that also achieve high-availability with no maintenance windows yadda yadda is a challenging problem that requires navigating tradeoffs using scientific principles in the same way as other branches of engineering.

Related: the article "They Write the Right Stuff", about the software engineers who worked on the Space Shuttle [1].

In the United States, the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), which is the organization of engineering licensing boards in all states, recognizes Software Engineering as a discipline of Professional Engineering [2]. Our industry does not ordinarily require certification as a professional engineer, and it is not normally required by law; however, if you look at the topics that the certification exam covers [3] -- intended for people with 4 years minimum industry experience -- they are all ones that I'd expect senior software engineers to have down pat.

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff

[2] https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/software/

[3] https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SWE-Apr-2013.pd...

NCEES is discontinuing the PE Software exam because fewer than 100 people have ever taken it. In my experience, maybe 10% of people in the field have even heard of it, and most of them think it's useless.

It's maybe just not cool to be a true engineer and true engineered products. It's more cool to participate in a startup and build crappy software.

Perhaps some programmers are producing those products you describe but many of them are not.

Programming is a vague term that seems to simply refer to the act of using a descriptive and functional language to describe a problem set intended to be solved by a computer. But then how is that different from any other area of applied mathematics?

This ongoing debate seems needlessly pedantic. Someone will write some new academic paper, or book, or tweet which future generations will point back to and say "that was where the term computer humptyfucker came from to describe my job." A bunch of neckbeards will then buck the trend and start writing op-ed pieces about how we aren't humptyfuckers because we don't apply the rigidity that traditional certified and legal humptyfuckery requires.

Please don't do this here, even if someone else is wrong.

I don't generally tend towards such curtness but: rekt.