Lawyers' wages are badly depressed, supposedly, yet "I'm a lawyer" instantly confers better social status than "I'm a software developer" or even "I work at Google". Doctor, professor, those are jobs that come with a little or large bump in social status. "I'm a software developer" is like "I'm an accountant"—neutral at best.
Software Engineers are still, pretty generally, viewed as a low social class despite being a pretty solid economic class
The idea that the paradigm may flip is only really about economic class. A locksmith may make more money than software engineers soon, but they will still be low social class
That likely won't change
Job titles are important to some people, not to others. I think it's usually insider vs outsider.
To an outsider, "I'm a doctor" sounds impressive/interesting, but less so to someone in the medical profession.
and then, I'm reminded of the sr71 story...
https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
The fact is that people have never been that impressed by job titles, at least not in my lifetime
No one's ever been like "oh wow you're a software engineer? That's so incredible"
Mostly if they're impressed, it's because it pays well and they assume I'm pretty rich
I'm not. I do really well compared to my peers, yes, but ultimately I'm still living the same kind of middle class lifestyle my parents had while my Dad worked at a tool store and my Mom worked part time at nonprofits