I'd argue that "engineering culture", or to be more frank, a culture that is dominated by engineers, not accountants or marketeers, requires a time when building new products can bring massive amount of profit.
Capital doesn't really care what brings profit. If killing people brings more profit, it happily embraces that. If building new products brings more profit, it happily embraces that, too. It is beyond good or evil.
So to make an "engineering culture", you have to bring a lot of profit by building new products, not by selling services or shaking the greasing hands of some shady government officials. That also means, "engineering culture" almost surely dies when the company becomes too big.
Capital doesn't really care what brings profit. If killing people brings more profit, it happily embraces that. If building new products brings more profit, it happily embraces that, too. It is beyond good or evil.
So to make an "engineering culture", you have to bring a lot of profit by building new products, not by selling services or shaking the greasing hands of some shady government officials. That also means, "engineering culture" almost surely dies when the company becomes too big.