> their output can be measured in other standardised ways nonetheless.
What are these standardised ways to measure developer output? I've never seen any, beyond "burndown charts" and "LOC", which I don't believe pass the sniff test.
One example of a standard software might comply with is MISRA C [1]. For that, you ignore a large chunk of the C language to something much less prone to bugs. Others might be HIPAA compliance, how you handle personal information to be compliant with GDPR or the VW diesel emissions scandal a few years ago.
The vast majority of developers cannot kill you if they screw up. In the cases where that isn't true, e.g. software for medical equipment, I'd expect to find some significantly higher hurdles to get past before you can release that software.
We don't generally require developers to have certain qualifications, but their output can be measured in other standardised ways nonetheless.