I think there is an important difference if we are talking about the distinction between programmers and nonprogrammers and between senior engineers and nonsenior engineers.

Yes, programmers have very good jobs compared to nonprogrammers. Part of that is smart career choice, part of it is interest/skill set. I would allow discussion of privilege to go without comment in that context.

When you say "This is senior engineer privilege speaking" I am much less sympathetic to thinking it is privilege. There are tons and tons of way to improve and command a premium of pay. Almost all of those have nothing to do attributes typically defined as privilege. So it bothers me when you try and attribute to privilege something that is mostly a result of hard work.