[inetknght]

I would guess that's the short version of it. I would surmise that 'engineer' basically means to do a hell of a lot more rigorous logic testing of the software and hardware products and would therefore also get paid more. Then comes along these fancy little startups who want to hire away that talent but don't fully understand that the word 'engineer' is a protected word in but do know the context basically suggests more responsibility. So then they make leading roles 'engineers' and supporting roles 'developers'. Then it snowballs from there because software isn't _nearly_ as rigorous as a civil engineer or mechanical engineer where the word means that you're legally responsible for the lives at stake.

I honestly think that software "engineers" should be legally liable for the lives at stake though.