As an example, I love the Martian, and I think a lot of older books from authors like Asimov are heavily into engineering / competence porn. Other favs in this category include the standalone novel Rendezvous with Rama to leave you wishing for more, most of the Culture series for happy utopian vibes, Schlock Mercenary for humor, Dahak series for fun mindless popcorn.
Edit: I’m so happy to have found a replacement for r/books and the rest of them.
The Fountains of Paradise It’s literally an SF love letter to engineering.
Also there are two (or three?) sequels to Rendezvous with Rama.
Greg Bear’s Eon/Eternity and The Forge of God/Anvil of Stars are all engineering delight.
2001, 2010, 2051, 3001 are great classics.
Eon is definitely an all time favorite book of mine but Eternity is… quite a slog
There are no sequels to Rama. I wish there were, but there aren’t. Odyssey series is a classic, yeah.
Currently reading and enjoying Eon, so Greg’s my next month of reading I guess! Will check out Fountains after that.
There’s only six Dune books too ;-)