[qwertygerty]

It appears to me that much of your complaint is based on the flawed assumption that the software "industry" is filled with engineers. ("Industry" because in software what appears to be production of something new, is really just a re-invention or re-creation of what's been done before - and unfortunately rarely an improvement)

For example, how many authors on medium proclaim themselves "Senior Software Engineers" but when you dig find they've got maybe 5 years experience doing web development, with no CS or engineering education. Maybe stuff like a 36hr "Web Development Bootcamp". Do people really not understand the definition of an engineer anymore?

From there they progress into the deeper parts of software. And create the atrocities to be found in the npm registry, which become dependencies of dependencies of dependencies that results in nightmares everytime one needs to navigate to a website.

If it would've been possible to see the background and education of the numerous critics here, what may we find? If I (the developer as described by the OP) am surrounded by people like me, and the world filled with people who think like me, and create things at a similar cognitive level as my peers, would I not misjudge the collective level of quality that I perceive to be acceptable? Smells like confirmation bias to me? Maybe a few others. Dunning-Kruger anyone?

In their defense, the marketing campaigns created by large corporations to turn the supply-demand (cost of employment) of employees in their favor, has I think been a big part of the problem. First the programmers, then the "Data Scientists", etc - the amount of disappointment and student debt being created as these people eventually realise they've been sold something that they're not suited for!

If we cannot critically look at our industry and admit our flaws, we cannot move forward as a collective.