Engineers aren’t a lower level than scientists, it’s just a different career path.
Scientists generate lots of ideas in controlled environments and engineers work to make those ideas work in the wild real world.
Both are difficult and important in their own right.
I assume GP is talking in context of OpenAI/general AI research, where you need a PhD to apply for the research scientist positions and MS/Bachelors to apply for research engineer positions afaik.
A phd scientist may not be a good fit for an engineering job. Their degree doesn’t matter.
An phd-having engineer might not be a good fit for a research job either… because it’s a different job.
But being an engineer isn’t just a lesser form of being a researcher.
It’s not a “level” in that sense. Like OAI isn’t going to fire an engineer and replace them with a researcher.