Humans are hierarchical social creatures who crave respect, prestige, admiration, etc. Inflating job titles is an easy way to increase the value of the job to t

Humans are hierarchical social creatures who crave respect, prestige, admiration, etc. Inflating job titles is an easy way to increase the value of the job to the worker by giving them more social capital. People will stretch titles as much as possible. "Senior" engineers who have 2 years of experience after a coding bootcamp. "Managers" and "Directors" in marketing/HR/finance/etc who are 24 years old and have no managerial responsibility. Nurse practitioners who want to call themselves "doctors". In this case "engineer" is the stretch title that provides that value.