I switched from engineering into comp sci at my university and I can safely say that the elitism for software was stoked by the elitism of engineering.
While I was in engineering, everyone bragged about how they were going to get “The iron ring” (a thing we give to only engineers in Canada). When I switched over to comp sci, all my old engineering buddies would say to me, “yeah, but you don’t get the ring” like it meant everything.
After I graduated, I noticed the comp sci “software” folks didn’t like engineering folks much (especially new grads). When I asked why, they shared similar stories to mine. The engineers and their pumped up pride at my local university had hurt their relation to other fields by being arrogant.
I’m not trying to justify this kind of prejudice, but the reasons it happens are fairly obvious to me. It’s sad cause all of us are so similar in our trades and will likely end up doing similar work as well.
I am a mechanical engineer by degree, but a software engineer by 30 years of practice. That has allowed me to thrice straddle the divide where I worked on software that was not just software for softwares sake, but rather as a value add addendum/enablement to an institution whose roots were in more real-worldly devices. I also spent time on the other side of the divide working twice for companies whose primary product was software.
This “less than” is a very real thing. Software is still a very new thing relatively and it’s taken over the world in just 30 years time. The power dynamics, entrenched in generations haven’t had time to rebalance.
I’ve seen this run the other way as well. Where companies that are primarily software, look down on the other disciplines that participate, a necessary evil, but resented.
I have yet to find a company/institution where the trifecta of mechanical, electrical, and software is balanced in mutual respect. If one such exists and you are looking for someone that would love to work in that environment, drop me a line. I’m skeptical that there are any. It seems one discipline or the other always triumphs and tramples the others down. On off axis variant of Pournelle’s iron law of bureaucracy .