One way I think of it is chess analogy. You can say you can play chess because you know the rules and how the pieces move - weak engineers most likely know how

One way I think of it is chess analogy. You can say you can play chess because you know the rules and how the pieces move - weak engineers most likely know how to program, they know the syntax and general idea how it works. Then you can have regular players who can play the game and know openings etc. So they will plough through someone who just knows the rules. Then there are grand masters who are playing on level where regular players are not even close even if they play a lot. Important part of this analogy is that in chess it is so clear cut - but for eng roles it is of course fuzzy. But it is easy for anyone to try to play against different levels of chess players to understand what is the difference. You can set computer program to emulate players or hit any online chess platform.