"Engineers" design/build components that perform with repeatable results.
"Developers" work out the plumbing details between components in a system.
When hiring, don't mislead people into thinking they're interviewing for an Engineering role when you actually need a Developer.
This, of course, is hard if you don't program and it's not really meaningful to evangelise about, so I'll leave off this rant here.
There's nothing diminishing about being a Plumber.
"Software is eating the world" means there is more demand for developing systems than designing them.
However, our lizard brain status system still associates directing and leading things with more status than just requirements implementation and there is no way around that yet. Also, less demand means that this more "abstract thought" type of positions are more prestigious by the virtue of scarcity.