If you’re getting paid to write software, then it’s pretty likely that the majority of the people around you understand you to be an engineer. That is, it’s your job to understand and create a practical solution to a stated problem.
I struggled with this for a while. This makes it really easy to cut corners. It makes it really easy to think of your job not as a craft, but as a requirement that just needs to be fulfilled as cheaply as possible. At least, that’s what it does for me.
I’ve managed to reconcile this within myself by the analogy of the contract artist. While in Italy, I read and heard countless stories about great works of art that were commissioned by the state. These works had very real and often very challenging engineering requirements that had to be met. And yet, there were myriad details that went into the creation of those works that had nothing to do with explicitly fulfilling the requirement, but that essentially gave each work its own life.
That’s how I think about what I do. And if you look around, there are a ton of other professions that are essentially the same. A cobbler just has to fix your shoes, but it’s the material he uses, the lessons he has learned, the attention to detail that he takes, that affects how well the job is done — even if it’s in the details that only another cobbler would notice.
When I worked in a restaurant as a teen, I learned that being called a ‘shoemaker’ was an insult. It meant you’d paid no attention to what you were doing. Now, years later, I see ‘shoemaker’ as kindred spirit.