Wow... really? It's absolutely viewed as low prestige in my experience. I mean our culture has an ingrained stereotype of the socially awkward, maladjusted engineer, that's definitely out there. The jocks, "cool kids," extroverts, your typical fraternity member etc. are supposed to be in finance or striving to be an executive or something.

I think it's generational to some extend. IMO the baby boomers are particularly bad w/ regards to the stereotype. My parent's friends ask about my work as a programmer, and I suggest that their son or daughter who hasn't figured out what they want to do consider taking it up (code bootcamps make it easy, great market now, etc.), and I just get such cringe reactions from them.

But... younger generations are better, given how startups are now viewed as "trendy," and I do think movies/TV like the Social Network had a big impact.