I decided to go into programming instead of becoming an Engineer because most Engineering jobs seemed systematic and boring. (Software Engineers weren't really a thing at the time.)

For most of my career, Software Engineering was a misnomer. The field was too young, and the tools used changed too quickly, for an appreciable amount of the work to be systematic and boring enough to consider it an Engineering discipline.

I think we're now at the point where Software Engineering is... actually Engineering. Particularly in the case of large established companies that take software seriously, like Google (as opposed to e.g. a bank).

Call it "trivial" and "boring" all you want, but at some point a road is just a road, and a train track is just a train track, and if it's not "trivial and boring" then you've probably fucked up pretty badly.