A former boss loved mentioning things his "engineers" have accomplished when he's on teleconferences, but when he's upset at something done at the technical level, he refers to them as the "geek squad".
I see the same thing when I'm surrounded by the engineers. They all refer to management as "the suits" and speak condescendingly of non-engineering work.
This difference seems like it's transcended a bit in startup culture, which is one of the most attractive parts of it to me.
I like doing stats, and making sure that I really understand how things work, and at times automating parts of my life. At most I will end up knowing three of the programming languages that currently exist, and those only to a moderate level.
Calling myself a coder is, I believe, an accurate summary of my skill set and desires. Is there a better term? Is it condescending only when applied to engineers or programmers?