> In particular proactively preventing bugs is not rewarded

The main way I think you can proactively prevent bugs in a meaningful way is by crafting and propagating better architecture.

Better (or worse) architecture and adoption of it can be measured through a mix of quantitative and qualitative means so those metrics could be used to evaluate the impact of the engineer driving that architecture.

That's not how managers evaluate engineers at these corporations.

The engineer who haphazardly launched on Friday then promptly saved the team at 3am and worked the weekends gets the promotion, while the one who prevented a bug from happening "didn't get anything done" and gets the PIP.