[coldtea]

The key insight you probably miss to understand the article is that it doesn't regard a "UX Engineer" an Engineer.

The fact that the term "UX Engineer" is not even once mentioned in the article is a clear sign that it talks about regular engineers -- technicians and such building a physical product.

And that's OK, the term "UX engineer" is both quite abused and quite recent. Sometimes it's just some ex-designers pretending to be all serious about HCI -- and not any "engineering" with the traditional, robust, sense.