[throwaway42401]

I don't see why we have to take and muddle someone else's word, "engineer" doesn't have inherently prestigious syllables, the word sounds good when someone says it at a party because the job itself is actually hard or whatever.

If software development (or even "programming"!) is the same, the same thing will happen. If not, any other words we steal will lose their shine too and engineers will start calling themselves something else to get it back.