This is the first time I'm hearing that computer scientists deride engineering as not-real-computing. Any references? It doesn't check out based on my background. In fact anecdotally, I've heard the reverse. I've heard EE and stat algorithms folks criticize CS ML/CV researchers for using algorithms as black boxes compared to the rigorous standards of EE/Stat (aka reviewer standards in IEEE Transactions in Information Theory, IEEE Trans Sig Proc, majority of stat journals). Now obviously there are a vast number of CS researchers who are competent at stat-level rigor. But there are also a large number of ML researchers (applied ML?) in CS departments who use algorithms as black boxes.