Glass is fairly simple - at some level of complexity, you need a systematic knowledge of what you are working with to do useful stuff. Informal knowledge won't cut it.

Glass is interesting. Obsidian is the first glass that got used and people got it because it occurs naturally and is highly useful. Wikipedia suggest that the first custom glass was made as an accidental byproduct of metalworking or in the production of faience. It doesn't suggest that it was created by someone doing science.

In Egypt people started to deal with glass the same way they dealt as gold and silver. This meaned that you got craftsman who made pretty objects with it. Those craftsman then gathered a lot of informal knowledge about it and after some time passes they make windows with it as they get better at dealing with it.

Engineering is optimized for taking credit for the invention.

It isn't. Most engineers are payed to create produced that get sold. If an engineer invents something and 20 years later another company brings the product to market the engineer gets nothing.

If a scientist discovers something and 20 years latter another person does something with it, the scientist get all the credit.

In general engineers aren't hired based on what they have invented in the past. Scientists on the other hand do get hired based on published papers with as supposed to reflect how much the scientist can be credit for increasing human knowledge.

There no equivalent to publish or perish for engineers.