Pilots generally do have some level of engineering background, in order to be able to understand possible in-flight issues, but they're not analogous to software engineers. They're analogous to software operators. Software engineers are analogous to aerospace engineers, who absolutely do understand the internals of how turbines work because they're the people who design turbines.

The problem with software development as a discipline is its all so new we don't have proper division of labor and professional standards yet. It's like if the people responsible for modeling structural integrity in the foundation of a skyscraper and the people who specialize in creating office furniture were all just called "construction engineers" and expected to have some common body of knowledge. Software systems span many layers and domains that don't all have that much in common with each other, but we all pretend we're speaking the same language to each other anyway.