In the current tech scene, it has become common practice to refer to programmers as engineers. It seems that if you aren't part of sales or marketing teams you are now entitled to being designated as an engineer. However, what has been forgotten over the 50 years of looking to turn software development into a legitimate engineering practice, is that we still haven't reached the aspiration of being just that: a legitimate engineering practice. Traditional engineers have to go through stringent regulation, certification, and apprenticeships in order to gain the title. This creates an implicit responsibility of providing reliability and public safety. Software development hasn't reached this point yet - software quality and standards are not universally valued.
So why is the tech industry using the engineering title to describe its technical workers?