[albrtpro]

Based in London, where Lead Dev corresponds to those attitudes/skills. Personally: I'm afraid in a world with current growth of almost-free online programming courses/degrees, high demand, high rates and low competition, we're going to have to accept raising the "Engineer" skills to "Lead Developer / Architect" title.

If you compare with companies with big budget, yes those attitudes are what you find on the average engineer. In the London start-up world where budget is tight and VC's think short term that's normally not the case. It's hard to find solid architectural thinkers with experience who don't call themselves Leads, Architects and so on.

Are these skills and attitudes found in your area as just "engineers"?

[codeonfire]

Self taught people with low/no experience should be called 'programmers' at best. In almost all industries, people who specialize in one or two things would be called a technician or programmer, i.e. Angular programmer or web tech. Software Engineer implies someone with a degree that does far more and involves all aspects including project management and financial work. Lead developer is a title for managers to use when they want to designate someone as a developer that gets final say in decisions. The startup world is ridiculous and half the people in startups should not even be called programmers. Startups are just hiring people to look like they have lots of talent for investors.