If there were a license in the US for it, I’d agree with you. But as is, if you are “doing” engineering, you’re an engineer.

If you are a licensed engineer of some kind, you’d state that outright.

The equivalent of stolen valor would be claiming to be a licensed software engineer; except there is no such license so it would also be fraud, misrepresentation, etc.

(I know this is different elsewhere)

> If there were a license in the US for it, I’d agree with you.

Yeah, that is basically the thing in my country. You can't call yourself an engineer without passing a test, but I can't take it because there isn't one for software engineering.

Same thing for freelancing. Freelance jobs are defined in a list, and other jobs cannot benefit from the simplified tax rules that freelancers enjoy, but that list was written before software development was a thing.