[hnfong]

Inexpensive/inconsequential mistakes simply enable bigger mistakes to be made. Systems grow more complicated as long as they're allowed to.

You can recompile a syntax error, but even in software, you can't back track on things like choice of language / tech stack / architectural design decisions without wasting millions of dollars.

For traditional industries, there's (presumably) some best practice or de-facto standard for many things, since most things have already been invented in the past.

For software, you have contradicting best practices with people arguing convincingly both ways. Everybody has their favorite tech stack and some end up being fads. New technologies come out every couple years, and if your project is successful enough and runs long enough, you either get stuck with old tech or spend millions of dollars figuring out an upgrade path. Sometimes the "upgrade" is actually another fad, but sometimes the upgrade is crucial to your future business.

Not sure whether these things fall under "engineering" but I don't think it's inherently less "hard" than what traditional engineers do. Sure your junior dev is not going to do this, but people who make these decisions are often called software engineers ("senior", "lead", whatever).