Yes, I can see many similarities.

- Your code specifies design constraints--you need it to do X and Y and Z.

   - The engine designers needed the engine to fit in X and operate at Y temperature and not blow up (Z).

- The compiler takes your instructions and optimizes them for the processor instruction set.

   - This program optimizes the engine design for the physics instruction set.

It seems like both represent huge productivity leaps from laboriously making things in the original low-level languages.