Empirically speaking, a lot of the guys who graduated with their B.Sc. in computer science with me saw their career paths as joining a big consulting company, working on the front lines for a couple of years and then getting into management and leaving the code behind for good.
In my PhD program, most guys in the lab saw the actual engineering side of things as a stepping stone to higher-paid positions in acadaemia.
Clearly a significant number of people with engineering degrees are engineers only by title.