Fair.

What’s wrong with postman?

Well idk the details in that specific case, this was just the first example I found. My point is, that different countries, states and institutions disagree on this matter. There is no universal rule that defines what you need to have achieved to call yourself an engineer.

another is regulatory requirements by jurisdictions to be able to legally assume a role.

This is exactly what I mean with “this depends on the country you live in”. Different countries have vastly different regulatory requirements. Taking UK as an example, you can call yourself civil engineer all day long without having to worry any legal consequences because there simply is no such thing as a licensing system for engineers.

As a former civil engineer who now works in software, “software engineer” irks me. “Engineer” means you’re supposed to be licensed

This really depends on the country you live in. In some countries you need a license, some need you to have some kind of university degree and others don’t care at all. So we cannot really use that measure as a definition.

By that definition almost all people who call themselves software engineers would be wrong. That doesn’t automatically mean, you’re wrong though.

Personally, I disagree with your definition of software engineers needing to directly interact with hardware stuff in order to be engineers. Wikipedia defines software engineering as

the application of systematic desciplined, quantifiable approach to development, operation and maintenance of software and the study of these approaches; that is, the application of engineering and computer science to software.

So it’s all about the systematic approach to complex systems, not about whether or not you directly interact with hardware interfaces.

similar story here, just that little me wrote his snake program with windows forms because that was all I knew. Every element of the game was a button. I remember the first versions beeing so inefficient (rebuilding the whole UI that was made of loads of small buttons every few milliseconds) that my Intel core 2 duo couldn’t run it properly. Good times.