Software engineering absolutely is engineering. Engineering is not defined by presence of regulations. Engineering is about solving practical problems within the constraints of physical reality and economics.

TFA (and your comment indirectly) seem to be about the lack of rigor in software engineering. However, any discussion of engineering that leaves out economics and costs is fundamentally incomplete.

The only reason most software development seems to have less rigor is because the economics of most software projects permit it. Other domains of software engineering where lives are on the line definitely have high levels of rigor.

I wrote a lot more in this other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45849304