Take the leetcode tests once every 5 years or so. Mentor for a few years with an experienced, and already licensed, engineer and get their approval. Then the interviews can skip the drudgery and can be higher level and higher quality.
In physical engineering, things are very much limited by physical laws, which don't change (and even if our understanding on them might, that happens rarely enough to adapt). In software engineering, the foundational principles can and do change many times in an average engineer's career.
I'd like to hear more.
Assembly (for 6800 series Macs) -> C (PC on windows) -> Java (hosted on prem) -> Cloud hosted Java + JS/React.
Depending on your definition of ‘foundational principles’ either nothing has changed, or everything has. But one thing is clear, the day to day is completely different.
The licence you value wouldn't be the licence I value.