[big-green-man]

The government doesn't get to dictate what the word "engineer" means. An engineer does engineering. Some software developers carefully design very complex systems. That's engineering.

That said, I am with you, the word is overused. Most developers aren't engineering, they're slapping frameworks together, meeting product deadlines and creating mostly godawful programs. Some of them, very few, do their work with enough rigor and care that they could call what they do engineering.