I use Python for most of my general programming needs, but in an engineering environment MATLAB (unfortunately) still has an edge. As a programming language it’s quite sh*tty, but it’s strength is in the high quality toolboxes. I work quite a lot with constraint non-linear optimisation and I still have to find a Python or Julia library as flexible and robust as the MATLAB toolbox. I think Octave is a good FOSS compatibly solution, but the main strength of MATLAB (the set of toolboxes) is unfortunately missing.