This article makes little sense. "Engineering" by definition is some sort of "glue" work that reuses existing libraries/wheels and builds solutions out of them

This article makes little sense. "Engineering" by definition is some sort of "glue" work that reuses existing libraries/wheels and builds solutions out of them to address specific problems. I as an engineer am proud of this glue work that I do, just like the carpenters, plumbers, cathedral builders, doctors etc. If you really want to be unique and invent something, you should be in the academia and are probably in the wrong place to begin with. I have a friend who worked in the TensorFlow team and still quit to pursue a PhD. In his words "all engineering jobs are boring" from his perspective. I don't think being in a BigCorp or not makes much difference at all.