Why do people in various professions like software engineering and management tend to use the word "finalize" instead of "finish"

The definitions of finalise and finish are pretty similar, with finalise referring to the production of, or agreement on, the finished version.

The single word finalise carries the connotation of just the last bit, whereas finish needs helper words to carry that connotation (e.g. finish off, finish up). Saying that something is finished can also carry the unwanted sense that it is done for, that is, that it is of no further use; finalise doesn't carry that unwanted sense.

In commerce (including the fields of software engineering and management that you specifically referenced), completion isn't always enough. The customer wants confirmation of completion. Transacting parties want the signed agreement that follows the completion of negotiations, or the invoicing and payment that follow the completion of work. So it isn't enough that the work is finished (even in the positive sense); it needs to be finalised.

"Finished" refers to an activity or action. You've finished doing something.

But "finalised" refers to the state of an object to which all pending modifications have been applied, and no more are necessary/permitted.

So strictly speaking it does not make sense for a thing to be finished, though admittedly in English we do sometimes use "I have finished [X]" to mean "I have finished creating [X]", if only colloquially. Similarly, "[X] is finished" might informally mean "the creator of [X] has finished their task".

I can't speak for other professions, but in software engineering I guess we try to avoid such ambiguities, at least when constructing programming languages with keywords like Finalize.

I suppose they would argue that one finishes something of a fixed and prescribed nature - such as a 100 metre race.

But where the nature of the task is indeterminable at the outset and could take unexpected twists and turns, such as designing some new software, then it becomes inappropriate to talk of "finishing".

What, someone might ask, do you mean by "finishing"?

Finalise carries the sense of something being declared ended.

However, I also feel there may be an element of that which you refer to in the question - "finalise" sounds more managerially sophisticated than plain old "finish".

As a software developer, I find that we use "finalized" to mean fully defined and agreed upon/signed off, not to mean implemented.

"Done" has come into vogue with agile/scrum. See 'definition of "done"'.

And I don't really hear "finished" as in "x is finished", only in the informal "have you finished x yet?".