I see it more as a trade. There can certainly be some beauty to it. I’m sure coal miners hold some of their own in special regard too.
Meanwhile I agree with you, software engineering jobs are a trade 90% of the time. It’s why so many highly educated folks are being laid-off right now, while the doers keep-on building and making bank.
It’s spelled Doerr
Computer science is a pathway for those that want to delve deeper, and that necessitates rigorous fundamentals in applied mathematics and information theory.
I dare say that one can go through a whole career as a software engineer without spending a single semester learning about algorithms, in the sense that you just start learning about them in a JIT fashion if/when they become an issue, which is rarely.
Some of the O(X) trivia so much sought after in some interviewing circles is even fundamentally wrong when real world aspects such as problem size or CPU architecture come into play.
When I started doing job interviews it was a little bewildering how much some companies focused on this. I ended up taking a job whose interviews focused on more practical skills and also stressed a good culture fit and understanding of development practices. It feels like a place I'll be happier.
I think you're right about the JIT aspect to this sort of thing--that's really what being an engineer is about in my experience. When you encounter a problem, figure out how to do it better. If my filter/sort/whatever is too slow for a specific application, I'll do some research and implement something more appropriate.