I wouldn't be so fast to say there is nothing special about what we do. It may seem that way because we are in it day in and day out...but in the same way that I am fascinated by the work that others outside of my industry do(farmers, mechanics, small business operators)...they are fascinated and often dumbfounded by what I do(and I am no rocket scientist).

Unfortunately a lot of people in our industry have some kind of superiority complex.

Auto mechanics are in much greater supply than and make a much smaller salary than software engineers, and repair/diagnostic work is much different than the design work that seems to be less and less of my job. We're more and more in a place where we're just stringing together other people's rent-seeking SaaS services and putting up with all the resulting bullshit, rather than actively making our lives as developers easier by making stuff that results in less work.

That, and our employers are taking 99% of the value we create, when that figure should be closer to 90%

I agree about the highly-skilled work auto mechanics do, but the solutions are more scripted, and the stakes are usually lower.

Are the stakes really lower? A simple brake job gone wrong can literally kill people. I can't remember the last time I miscalculated profit/loss for a client where the result was a fiery death.

Maybe a better way to say it is, software development usually has a bigger financial consequence. And that consequence scales along with the skill and judgment of the developer.

>and the stakes are usually lower.

You don't really mean this, do you?