[yourapostasy]

> It just doesn't feel like it's been earned.

It hasn't. On the other hand, the gravitas of the "engineer" title has significantly eroded to business titles so much that "real engineers" are rarely seen with a seat at the table where power convenes. I don't know if this is just a local minima over the span of history, or the new normal. I hope it is the former, but I have reasons to suspect it will actually get worse.

The political power haloed around the "engineer" title, and thus the capacity to affect real, lasting change within organizations, is significantly less than the various equivalent-level management titles. It has eroded to the point that it is a notable anomaly when people remark, "the company is run by engineers". In some circles like some (not all) VC, they use that phrase to damn with faint praise.