Software as practiced today, as the province of firms who do nothing but software engineering rather than a back-office function of giant enterprises, is only ~25 years old. The software industry of the 1980s was led by companies whose flagship products wouldn't attract much attention as open source today.

It's not surprising that there aren't that many "distinguished engineers". If you'd entered the modern field at its inception at the start of your career, you're only in your early 40s now. As an employer of several people in their early 40s: they're not particularly distinctive looking. Maybe you know more than you think you do. Anyhow, look at the demographics and wait a bit.