I have been thinking about this recently. What are the most rigorous "software actual engineering" fields, or projects?
Autopilot systems in airliners came to mind. Not just autopilot, but FADEC, and other flight control systems. Medical devices? ... Or, are all those teams just winging it as well?
I am in Medical Devices software. Our main compliance requirements are 21CFR and IEC-62304. I know Automotive has MISRA (more coding guidelines than development process, but still) and a handful of other standards. Aviation follows DO-178x, and so on...
A lifetime ago, right out of high school, I was a sort of sysadmin at a decent sized civil and structural engineering firm. I learned a lot about the profession of engineering there. Adhering to standards does indeed seem like a really good proxy.
There's a whole world of software stuff that just isn't discussed in public forums/places where you'd usually find information on the internet, unfortunately.