[akiselev]

It may have changed in the Silicon Valley/tech startup bubble but definitely not in the rest of the world. Engineers still receive far more prestige than IT workers (which is what programmers are largely seen as, technicians) and in most countries, it's as prestigious a career path as being a doctor, lawyer, or professor.

The vast majority of companies that work with physical things, like silicon designers/fabricators, auto makers, manufacturers of capital equipment like machining tools and lab equipment, energy companies, agricultural machine suppliers, hardware conglomerates like GE and Samsung, and on and on, still view (for the most part) software as the red headed stepchild, a necessary evil because their hardware has gotten so complex.

[ashark]

It may just be my own hang-ups, but in the company of unequivocal members of the "professional" class I definitely get the sense that as a software developer I sit somewhere above blue-collar, but barely, and that largely due to salary rather than the work I do.

I'd imagine it's a bit different for the (giving a very generous estimate) 1% of developers who do work that is all of: challenging, difficult, and important, on a regular basis, but that's not me, or the overwhelming majority of people making pretty damn good money writing software.

[paganel]

For the artsy-intelligentsia folks all the people who do technical stuff (no matter if HW,SW, civil engineering) are just "engineers", i.e. people who have never heard about Stendhal or Vermeer. On top of that my ex-mother-in-law, an accomplished theater actress, used to call us non-actors as "civilians", so there's also that.

I for myself don't care one bit how my work is seen by others(I'm a programmer) as long as it's reasonably well paid (meaning I can pay rent, food + some other stuff) and it's not that physically demanding.

[stephencanon]

FWIW, when we hang out with my wife's colleagues (she's a neurosurgeon), almost everyone assumes that my job is more demanding and interesting. When we hang out with my colleagues, its exactly the opposite. Grass is always greener.

[nradov]

Most of that prestige comes from the mandatory education required to enter the profession. Whereas there is no minimum qualification to become a software developer. (I know some employers have their own minimums but there is nothing for the field as a whole.)