Are you sure you meant to say "Hackers"? Not "programmers" or "engineers"? How is hacking different from programming? I have always thought that a hack is making something unexpected out of things that aren't supposed to be used this way, hence "iPhone hacking" is an oxymoron since all iPhone programmers are using iPhone SDK in a way Apple permits/tells them to. Same goes for most web apps that follow various standard best practices and recipes - that's as opposite from hacking as you can get.
So why destroy a word then? Hacking != Programming,
When I interviewed in Microsoft I asked this question. The person who interviewed me honestly said that he was interviewing a replacement for himself: he was leaving because he hated it there.
So yeah, go ahead and ask! You may get surprisingly honest answer :)
So why destroy a word then? Hacking != Programming,