[drakonka]

Nuances of whether "engineer" is a protected title aside, I think feeling comfortable considering yourself an SE is less about whether you're doing frontend work and more about your confidence level and potential impostor syndrome.

It took me a while, too, to feel like I could honestly put "Software Engineer" in my LinkedIn profile. I'm self taught like you; went from build, to tools and engine, to backend, to frontend now. A few years in I just realized: that is what my literal title is in my contract and I am doing equivalent work of all the other formally and non-formally educated SEs on my team. So now, after over ten years of this, I feel no hesitation about calling myself a Software Engineer in relevant channels (although sometimes I just prefer the sound of "programmer").