Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity

Engineering teams systematically reward over-engineering while penalizing simplicity, creating perverse incentives from interviews to promotions. Engineers who build elaborate systems get compelling narratives for promotion packets, while those who ship clean, minimal solutions have nothing impressive to show. The post argues that unearned complexity is the real problem, not complexity itself, and offers concrete advice: engineers should document the decisions they didn't make and frame their judgment explicitly, while engineering leaders should change the questions asked in design reviews and promotion discussions to make simplicity the default rather than something that needs defending.