As a software engineer I’m not sure this should count as a real job, most of the time.

The skill is certainly valuable and yes creating software can be creating something new and useful but often, and probably for my whole ‘career’ so far, it’s creating versions of things which already exist (how many chat apps you got?) or making unhelpful and unnecessary changes to existing software in order to justify continued sales and subscription (rent, basically).

Real software, useful software, is not like physical goods. If I build you a table, that table now exists and provides value where no table had existed before. A second new table will require additional labour and will provide additional and unique value upon completion

Proprietary copy-restricted software, on the other hand, is a con. If I create a piece of software for you, the only thing stopping that single creation from providing value to everyone who needs it (copy+paste) is our laws and the threat of violence that goes with them. This keeps me employed, but the job has become bullshit. It’s no longer a value-add.

In my experience this is most software engineering jobs today.