I’ve been an engineer for 25 years, and we’re not allowed to solder any longer. Techs do it. Besides, they do it daily and are far better at it.
That and there are stricter lead safety rules in place that have come in the past 10 years or so. Engineers don’t want to keep up the safety training.
And when I was in school, engineers were whining about the lost art of the slide rule.
Now all those guys are dead. And who cares about a slide rule?
This was just minimal one-off connect a lead or two stuff, and not in an industrial setting, where air flow/hoods might be incorporated to minimize accumulated exposure.
Obviously, a lot more is known about the risk of metals poisoning than in days of yore. I remember back in the days of regular lead-tin 60/40 solder that some engineers would light their cigarettes (which they could smoke in the lab) on their soldering irons.