There's a big difference between working in 'actual' engineering (civils, mech eng etc.) and programming/software 'engineering'. In the former you're right, sa

There's a big difference between working in 'actual' engineering (civils, mech eng etc.) and programming/software 'engineering'. In the former you're right, salaries are terrible compared to how highly skilled the job is and how much education you need. For the latter, it's definitely not Silicon Valley, but relative to most white collar jobs software engineering still pays fairly well. Definitely a second tier job behind finance (and finance adjacent roles like top tier legal stuff), but not bad, and often with much better hours/WLB than finance or law which can still be fairly brutal