I’d say a pretty safe definition of engineering is applied physics. No, most software engineer are just programmers, particularly ones working in web framework or apps. Software engineers that apply software to manipulate/interact with physical phenomenon, those people are engineers: such as control loop engineers/roboticists, embedded swe, flight instrument/telemetry engineer. I’m not trying to gatekeep the word, but too many people think that they are engineers because what they are doing is hard. Statistics is hard, Chemistry is hard but see a fine distinction between economist, quantitative trader and data scientist or chemist, pharmacist and chemical engineer. Software is hard, but it’s eeriely the only profession where everyone is so hung up on being called an engineer.