for sure my code is a pile of hacks

I think we ARE hackers. If you have ever been in hacker culture, you know they don't mean cracker, or even cyber security culture.

We definitely have cracking articles here from time to time (legal ones with responsible discosure or hacks of defunct games or software), even cyber writeups.

Hacking just means, hacking together. Its your weekend project to wire up your flower beds to your computer so you can monitor on your phone.

The majority of hackers are not people in cyber gangs perpetrating crimes, they are more like tinkerers.

There are lots of software people who absolutely do not hack in their free time, and lots of hackers who are nor software engineers. Hackers tend to build some great stuff, though, so you do see it in industry stuff a lot.