Stumbled across this paper from the 1969 NATO Software Engineering conference that indicates that even back then someone was thinking that maybe engineering was not the right metaphor for software development
Unlike the first conference, at which it was fully accepted that the term software engineering expressed a need rather than a reality, in Rome there was already a slight tendency to talk as if the subject already existed. And it became clear during the conference that the organizers had a hidden agenda, namely that of persuading NATO to fund the setting up of an International Software Engineering Institute. However things did not go according to their plan. The discussion sessions which were meant to provide evidence of strong and extensive support for this proposal were instead marked by considerable scepticism, and led one of the participants, Tom Simpson of IBM, to write a splendid short satire on “Masterpiece Engineering”. –Brian Randell
Since then we have endured 40 years of people pushing the software engineering ideas on us, and in spite of all that projects still have major stresses.