When I describe to them what "engineering" is like in this industry they snicker and guffaw. The two fields are quite far apart. Mainly this is because software

When I describe to them what "engineering" is like in this industry they snicker and guffaw. The two fields are quite far apart. Mainly this is because software "engineering" is still quite immature. "Real" engineering has been something humans have worked on for literally millennia, so in this sense it's hardly a fair comparison. That's my underlying feeling as well. Software Engineering seems like a futuristic discipline, like being a Nanobot Technologist. We're just not there yet - why bother pretending?