Rethinking Infrastructure: Engineers' Role in Addressing Basic Needs

It sounds like you are just starting to realize that there is a gigantic economic/civilization-level problem in USA aligned countries. The "incompetent CS Grad" stereotype has completely saturated the system and debased the entire profession, but this is only a symptom of a very deep failure that is directly attributable to corrupt political leadership. Political leaders are driven by money and they put optics before substance. They allowed the economy to be outsourced by failing to adopt a viable competitive strategy. That is why we only know how to build shopping apps, ad tech and product recommenders, and not commercial ships, hypersonic missiles, nuclear power plants, etc.