[vajenetehais]

> I personally started on the SE side with almost no software ability, but gradually clawed my way up to a decent level of technical competency, and it continues to be my competitive advantage.

This is exactly my experience. I'm SE since i finished my school. I always feel frustrated by the SE global vision. Some projects do allow me to go toward more technical stuff (sysadmin, network, dev, signal processing, CAD...) and it's quite enjoyable.

I've also started with no SW skill, but i've learn and it has been a great help in my daily job. My SE collegues only do the SE part and don't want to deal or see the more technical parts. In the end, i'm always offered to work on new projects because of this ability to switch from global vision to technical stuff, but in my org, this is not really encouraged nor rewarded.