In the process of cultivating excellent engineers, traditional talent development models face challenges such as disconnection from industrial demands and insufficient innovation capability among students. From the perspective of industry-education integration, this paper explores the application of an innovation-driven training model propelled by disciplinary competitions in the cultivation of outstanding engineers within the engineering management discipline. The study systematically elaborates the promoting role of disciplinary competitions in advancing teaching reforms and stimulating students’ innovative potential, based on which a competition-centered excellence-oriented engineer training model is constructed. Through empirical analysis, the effectiveness of this model in enhancing students’ innovation capability, technical integration capacity, and practical competence is validated, thereby providing a feasible theoretical framework and practical basis for educational reforms in engineering management programs.