We don't have senior engineers anymore

Yeah software engineering has even less rigor than the social sciences. The field is filled with cargo culted best practices which are supported by zero hard evidence. Software "engineering" is really closer to primitive superstition than science.

But what I take even more issue with is the conflation of "engineer" to be not just a software developer, but a web developer. E.g., this says you should understand how CSS and DOM work under the hood. But there are lots software domains where this knowledge is completely useless.

Fortunately, this is a solved problem.

Professional Engineers and Architects in non-software fields require licensing. One can't legally give yourself those titles in other fields. You have to prove you have the map nailed down in your mind. And not just your map, but enough of all related design disciplines to reason about them effectively. This is done via extensive testing. In addition, the applicant must have several years of experience - documented and signed off by a senior licensed professional - before test results hold any weight. Once you obtain a license, you must continue to submit proof of continuing education to maintain it.

The skilled trades also to rely on testing and supervised experience. Training intensity and requirements at this level do vary a bit across the US, but anyone would still have had to work their a* of f to get there

In both the skilled trades and professional design, the correlation between licensing/trade rank and minimum expected capability of any given employee are strong enough that they can be used in spreadsheets to accurately estimate delivery schedules. Those who exceed minimums can expect to be given additional responsibility and compensation. If that expectation isn't met, the professional certification holds its value and may be reliably taken elsewhere for better compensation.

What isn't solved, however, is why designers in other disciplines aren't compensated at the same rate as unlicensed software professional

Senior programmers used to require 7-9 years of development. Now we have those folk called principal level. Senior is mostly used to say "not in the first year or two out of college".

> And you can absolutely be a wonderful senior without knowing the details of the CPU architecture or definitions of OSI layers or whatever.

For me, that was a giveaway author had read a bunch of stuff but doesn't understand it (so, a "packer" in their own terms). I'd suspect that the article's author is either ignorant or tries to provoke readers.

Software engineers don't have to know about p-n junctions and what the heck an electron hole is - that's an entirely different field of science. In modern age, most people stick and try to become knowledgeable in at most one. Unless they design software for microelectronics design or physical simulations, of course.

And the Protocol Wars are long over, OSI model is dead, even though some folks still believe it's somehow applicable to modern networking. While I'm pretty sure there's a heavily smoke-stained machine still using X.25 somewhere out there, maintaining it and its software is literal necromancy (and while it is a proper subfield, it's a very niche one to require it for seniority).

It's very easy to spot those who are intuitively correct based on past experience, even if they can't necessarily explain. Those people are clearly very senior, and are the folks you want around providing feedback on technical decisions.