This has been a debate that's been going on for decades. There's the camp that wants software to get to the rigor of other engineering domains. But, there are a lot more who don't. Personally, I think we should be cautious. Software is such a subjective and broad field that it would be harmful to emulate the methods of other engineering domains.
That said, I have seen a trend over the last decade of 'juniors' disregarding the wisdom and experience of 'seniors'. Maybe it's because we are too slow, too methodical, not well informed on what's new or recently hyped. Maybe we are more strict, more ambivalent (seeing everything as trade offs), or maybe we are just not fun. Who knows? But, it's incredibly frustrating to continuously fix poorly developed systems. It's irritating to give advice and guidance, only to have it disregarded because some celebrity consultant, blogger, or tweeter invented another silver bullet.
Contrary to what some may think, it's really not fun to be able to say, 'I told you so.'. It just means that we have another mess to clean up.
But, back to the topic at hand, when I hire a 'senior', I expect them to not require lots of guidance, make good decisions, not break anything, have a breadth of experience, be an awesome team players, be calm and tenacious, be able to pick up new things with ease, and have fundamental understanding of the whole stack, algorithms, and data structures.
I find it a bit of a juxtaposition that on one hand you're undecided about more engineering approaches and certification to building software. Then on the other hand you're frustrated that your advice or experience is not valued? To me it seems like you've answered your own question why your advice isn't valued by hip new guys.
Look, I'm definitely not a top %1 (or even %10) architect. But, I have had enough successes under my belt that it's statistically improbable that I don't know what I'm talking about. However, my experience is usually discounted because 'times change, and old ideas aren't relevant' as they say.
Maybe you're just getting older, and more aware/tired of it.
I ask that with complete curiosity and humility - my perception is of experts telling me for decades that awesomeness is attainable with more deregulation. And, when awesome doesn't come, they say that it's because we didn't deregulate enough. Then, they ask for more.
But, I truly want to know if my perceptions are off - i.e. changes could be happening slowly enough that I don't see the immediate results.
