I wouldn't call constantly inventing new technology the only thing that qualifies as "engineering". It's about solving the problem under the given constraints.

I wouldn't call constantly inventing new technology the only thing that qualifies as "engineering". It's about solving the problem under the given constraints. Sometimes that means evaluating existing solutions and determining that the problem is not novel and can be solved either in whole or in part with off the shelf software or textbook algorithms. The fact that this is the majority of business problems these days doesn't mean that no engineering is happening. IMO what actually is "not engineering" are the emotional, gut driven processes behind the software at some companies. No due diligence is done, requirements are scant, novelty frameworks are used, testing is a joke, etc. Anything resembling engineering is usually an accident in such places. I'm not saying process light environments are "not doing it right", I mean places that do nearly everything in an arbitrary, cargo-culted fashion.